FAPESP Program for South Atlantic and Antarctica is endorsed as contribution to UN Ocean Decade

UN recognition will enhance the visibility of FAPESP’s initiative to establish a new strategy for funding research on the southern portion of the Atlantic Ocean and the planet’s coldest continent.

By Elton Alisson  |  Agência FAPESP – The FAPESP Program for the South Atlantic Ocean and Antarctic Sciences (PROASA), launched in March 2024, has been endorsed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a contribution to the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, declared by the UN General Assembly for 2021-2030.

The priorities of the Ocean Decade include making the oceans clean, healthy, resilient and safe, as well as predictable and productive, so that they can be sustainably developed.

“PROASA has been designed in accordance with the 10 Ocean Decade Challenges [which include understanding and beating marine pollution, protecting and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, and sustainably nourishing the global population, among others]. The program is the world’s first structured Ocean Decade-linked initiative by a research funding agency to support ocean science,” Alexander Turra, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Oceanographic Institute (IO-USP) and coordinator of PROASA, told Agência FAPESP.

PROASA’s remit is to establish a new strategy for funding research on the southern portion of the Atlantic Ocean and the planet’s coldest continent. It is expected to contribute to a strengthening and broadening of scientific and technological research on both environments by researchers affiliated with universities and research institutions in São Paulo state, in collaboration with colleagues from other parts of Brazil and the world.

The program is also expected to fill gaps in knowledge of the South Atlantic by consolidating and diversifying research groups in the region, and by integrating projects in different knowledge areas, from the social and natural sciences to the arts, in a way that brings the ocean closer to society.

With regard to the Antarctic, the program will enable researchers in São Paulo to expand studies of the region and produce more knowledge of both the Southern Ocean and the continent (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/51399).

“Endorsement as a contribution to the Ocean Decade will enhance the program’s international visibility and encourage other research funders around the world to create programs dedicated to the ocean agenda,” Turra said.

Science diplomacy

Science diplomacy is also part of PROASA’s remit. To achieve its aims in this field, the program’s coordinators have participated in global and regional meetings organized by the Global Research Council (GRC), where they have emphasized the need for research funders in several countries to create ocean science programs, and pointed to PROASA as a model worth following.

“We want PROASA to foster the creation of programs aligned with the Ocean Decade’s agenda by other research funders because it’s not enough if FAPESP alone does so. Other countries must also allocate funding to achieving this goal,” Turra said.

The program supports the creation of the International Panel on Ocean Sustainability (IPOS), a coalition of 16 research institutions, universities and research funders, including FAPESP, led by France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). IPOS’s mission will be to bridge the science-policy divide and help protect the world’s oceans. 

The coalition, set up in April 2023 at a meeting in Brussels (Belgium), expects IPOS to be officially launched at the next United Nations Ocean Conference, scheduled for June in Nice (France) (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/41736).

“FAPESP is one of the signatories of the Brussels Declaration [issued in April 2023, promoting a new framework for ocean sustainability based on collaboration among scientific institutions and decision makers]. This initiative reinforced the process of setting up IPOS, and PROASA aims to emulate IPOS by strengthening the links between science, decision-making and research for sustainability,” Turra said.