The Science Committee (SCICOM) met remotely and received updates on ongoing activities and discussed strategic developments relevant to the Committee.
Strategic issues included updates on activities within the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sus-tainable Development and the joint group with the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), on activities on gender, diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as updates on increasing the engagement with physical and chemical oceanographers and the work of the Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) group.
SCICOM started a process to identify ways of increasing engagement with national activities and national priorities, as well as how international collaboration with other organisations can be strengthened and extended.
The Steering Groups (SG) gave a short update on their work, having now short regular meetings with Expert Group (EG) chairs and between SGs to increase communication and coordination.
Updates from the Operational Groups included the implementation of the new library system on the ICES webpage (Science Impact and Publications Group, SIPG) and the new online format for training courses (Training Group, TG). SCICOM supported the recommendation of new data policies and licensing schemes presented by the Data and Information Group (DIG). The Strate-gic Initiative on the Human Dimension has initiated meetings with relevant EGs.
The Secretariat gave an update on the development of the Resource Coordination Tool (RCT) and presented a draft of an online portal and dashboard, informed about a video project to high-light the work of EGs across the network through interviews with Early Career Scientists (ECS). The Chair of the Advisory Committee (ACOM) gave an update on developments in advice, in-cluding the advice in 2020, the process of advice production and the identification of science needs for advice.
Key actions from the meeting included SCICOM support of an initiative to develop a Strategic Initiative on Early Career Scientists, the approval of the “Symposium on Capelin – The canary in predicting effects of climate on the Arctic marine environment” to be held in 2022 and the “5th International Symposium on the Effects of Climate Change on the World’s Oceans (ECCWO)” to be held in 2023, and the further actions in relation to the Annual Science Conference (ASC) in 2021 and 2022. The 2021 ASC will be held as a fully virtual conference and SCICOM appointed the Award Selection Group. The ASC 2022 will be held as a hybrid conference in Dublin, Ireland, and SCICOM appointed the ASC 2022 Group tasked to do the pre-selection of 2022 theme and network session proposals for final approval by SCICOM.