Pressing coastal and marine issues, such as climate change, overfishing, biodiversity loss and marine pollution are, in many ways, governance problems. Coastal and marine governance involves formal and informal arrangements (e.g., policy, regulations, economic incentives, and social and cultural norms) that mediate how humans interact with the environment and its resources.

These arrangements may pertain to multiple levels of governance from local to global. Their design, implementation and enforcement involve, in addition to government, diverse actors from the private sector and civil society. At CMS, we investigate novel and forward looking governance approaches and methods to underpin the sustainable management of marine social-ecological systems whilst also considering evolving social expectations.