06/01/2025 | From 24 to 27 June, the 8th edition of the MARE conference People and the Sea will take place in Amsterdam. This year’s conference focuses on the balance between tensions, trade-offs, and the potential transformations required for the future of sustainable marine resource management and governance, thriving coastal livelihoods and healthy, biodiverse oceans. The call for papers for the confernece is open until 31 January.
The conference takes place right in the middle of the Ocean decade (2020-2030) and MARE seizes the opportunity to reflect on where we currently stand using the ‘People and the Sea’ lens. Climate change and the increase(d) (of) activities are profoundly shaping the health and functioning of our seas and oceans and thus of our global wellbeing. Although our current understanding of the marine social-ecological system and the impacts of human uses grows, available space(s) decline(s), urging policy makers to make necessary trade-offs. Also insights, access, impacts and capabilities are unevenly distributed resulting in tensions across social, economic, and political dimensions. All of this asks for transformation, yet the kind of transformation is debated because we can’t agree on ‘the ocean we want’.
MARE invites participants to contribute to the four sub-themes of this conference:
1) Tensions on Ocean Spaces and Coastal Communities
2) Trade-offs in Blue Economy Development
3) Transformations for Ocean Governance
4) Contested Knowledge Production for the Ocean Decade
You can find all the details on how to submit an abstract or a panel proposal on the conference website: https://marecentre.nl/call-for-papers/
About the Centre for Maritime Research MARE:
MARE was established in 2000 by the University of Amsterdam and SISWO (Netherland’s Institute for Social Science Research). MARE now has six institutional partners, located in five countries of Europe:
- University of Amsterdam (Governance and Inclusive Development Group)
- Wageningen University and Research Centre (Environmental Policy Group)
- Aalborg University (Centre for Blue Governance)
- Tromsø University (Norwegian Fisheries College)
- Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Rssearch (ZMT
- University of Gothenburg (Centre for Sea & Society)
The MARE staff consists of social scientists involved with topics of coast and sea, who contribute to one or more of MARE’s products (Conference, Journal MAST, Publication series). Most of them are linked to the MARE’s institutional partners, but people from other organisations and from other countries are active in MARE as well.
More: https://marecentre.nl/who-we-are/
Programme Areas 
Working Groups