phd in blue economy

Study guide

Postgraduate studies in blue resources for the blue economy.

The objective of this Joint International Postgraduate programme is to offer an add-on learning opportunity for students to be prepared for the rapidly evolving demands of the blue economy sector. The Blue Economy can be defined as activities related to oceans, seas and coasts for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs.

The Blue Economy can be defined as activities related to oceans, seas and coasts for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs. It encompasses a wide range of interlinked established and emerging sectors and is the subject of numerous strategic policy and operational initiatives at local, regional, national and international levels. The EU Blue Economy Report 2020 (EU Commission, 2020) provides an overview of the EU Blue Economy. With a turnover of €750 billion in 2018, the EU blue economy employs ~5 million people. Many EU partners face significant challenges in sectors such as coastal and marine tourism, fisheries, aquaculture and marine food as a result of immediate and medium-term consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. That said, the scale and diversity of the sector also presents a considerable opportunity to respond to immediate and longer-term societal challenges around climate change, sustainability, food security, renewable energy and the UK’s departure from the EU.

In response, the University of Ghent and the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology have joined forces and developed one of the few programmes specifically aimed at the Blue Economy: Postgraduate Studies in Blue Resources for the Blue Economy. This course is aimed at very diverse profiles, from engineers to people with a financial or legal background. Everyone who has obtained a Master’s degree and is interested in pursuing a career in the Blue Economy can initially enroll in this postgraduate course. People already active in the field and looking to expand their knowledge and skills are also eligible. In addition, this programme offers a very flexible trajectory with a focus on online learning and blended working formats. During the course, contact with the industry is a key element. Students will have the opportunity to come into contact with relevant stakeholders within the industry whilst following workplace-based training. This postgraduate course aims to offer the students all the necessary tools needed to fully prepare for the rapidly evolving demands of the blue economy sector.

The admission requirements depend on your prior education (type of degree, country of issue etc.) or additional experience.

The programme is structured around the following main components:

All students entering the programme will get a shared component dealing with the Blue Economy containing 2 courses.

Emerging issues in the Blue Economy – 3 ECTS : this course will give a broad overview and insights in the different sectors of the Blue Economy in an international context. This course will be organized in a blended way with an on-site opening event in Ostend, Belgium (10-14 January 2022) and a digital group project.

Skills and practices in Blue entrepreneurship – 6 ECTS : this course will introduce students in several skills which are relevant for a Blue entrepreneurial mindset. This set course will be an essential preparation for the next section of the programme.  

In the second part of the programme students will on an individual basis get familiar to the roles and professions in the Blue BioEconomy. They will do this via an internship and a follow-up interaction in which they share and evaluate the experiences in a broader context. Components in this module are:

Research or business-internship in the Blue Economy – 20 ECTS : individual internship (in Belgium, Ireland or other country of choice) in a company active in and relevant for the Blue (Bio)Economy. During this internship students will define the skills they wish to learn in close collaboration with the internship site and via a close monitoring system evaluate whether or not they gained this knowledge. People already active in the marine industry also have the option to undertake their internship at their current employer - in agreement with the supervisor and mentor - and engage in an interesting research question/project.

The Blue Economy in Practice – 3 ECTS : this course follows up on the internship and will focus on (1) exchanging the experiences with peers, (2) identify challenges and weaknesses in the internship setting and (3) develop ideas for future developments, collaborations, improvements. This course consists of an on-site closing event in Galway, Ireland (5-8 September 2022).

Transferable skills for the Blue Economy – 6 ECTS : The third part of the study programme allows students to study one or more additional courses from a combined list available from UGent and GMIT. As students will have a diverse background the additional training needs may largely differ. Via an individual skills-gaps analysis will it be possible to identify the individual skills gaps and propose courses which may answer these needs. At least 6 ECTS of courses in total should be taken in this module.

Study programme quality

Quality assurance.

At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives : Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality. Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.

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• Open access
• Published: 17 May 2021

Challenges of the Blue Economy: evidence and research trends

• Rosa María Martínez-Vázquez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4875-754X 1 ,
• Juan Milán-García 1 &
• Jaime de Pablo Valenciano 1  

Environmental Sciences Europe volume  33 , Article number:  61 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The Blue Economy is a recent field of study that encompasses economic activities that depend on the sea, often associated with other economic sectors, including tourism, maritime transport, energy and fishing. Blue growth supports the sustainable growth of the maritime and marine sectors as the oceans and seas are engines of the global economy and have great potential for growth and innovation. This article undertakes a bibliometric analysis in the terms of Blue Economy (BE), Maritime Economy (MAE), Ocean Economy (OE), Marine Economy (ME), and Blue Growth (BG) to analyze the scientific production of this field of study. Analysis of the authors’ definitions of BE, BG, ME and OE provides interesting relationships divided into sustainability and governance; economics and ecosystem protection; industrial development and localization; and the growth of the ocean economy, with development as the central axis that encompasses them. The main contribution is to find out if there is a link between the BE and the CE through the keyword study.

The results show a significant increase in articles and citations over the last decade. The articles address the importance of different sectors of BE and the interest of governments in promoting it for the development of their national economies. Using bibliometric mapping tools (VOSviewer), it is possible to find possible links between concepts such as CE and BE through the BG and to visualize trending topics for future research. Nascent and future research trends include terms such as small-scale fisheries, aquatic species, biofuel, growth of the coastal BE, internationalization and blue degrowth (BD), the latter approaches aspects of BG from a critical perspective.

Conclusions

In conclusion, it highlights the need for alliances between the sectors that compose BG with the incorporation of the CE in order to achieve a sustainable BE in both developed and developing countries. Through the keyword analysis it is shown that the BG strategy is the bridge between the BE and the CE. The CE presents itself as a promising alternative that could mitigate tensions between stakeholders who support both growth and degrowth positions.

Throughout history, the sea has always been present in the economic activities of all civilizations as a food resource, a means of transportation and commercial trade. In recent years the term Blue Economy (BE) has become a concept closely related to maritime resources and developed economies in the oceans. Its growing expansion and the emerging needs of a circular economy (CE) herald challenges in both new and established treatments and materials [ 30 ]. CE is understood as an economic model oriented towards the elimination of waste generated, efficient use of resources, recycling and recovery [ 79 , 117 ].

The BE aims to promote economic growth, improve life and social inclusion without compromising the oceans’ environmental sustainability and coastal areas since the sea’s resources are limited and their physical conditions have been harmed by human actions [ 40 ].

The first appearance of the term BE dates back to 2009, at the congress of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation of the United States. The importance of the BE for the USA’s overall economy, the excellent business opportunities it provides, and the concerns about climate change are excellent opportunities for new blue jobs in renewable energy [ 19 ]. In that same year, the International Symposium on Blue Economy Initiative for Green Growth in Korea took place, where “ the concept of using ocean resources in a way that respects the environment can evaluate how both business activity models and new technologies satisfy economic and environmental conditions, contributing to the sustainability of these resources ” [ 62 ].

Subsequently, Pauli [ 94 ], a leading proponent of the BE’s economic model, published a book entitled, “The Blue Economy” [ 7 , 16 , 45 , 110 ] which proposed it as a model based on technological innovation to supply products at low cost, promote local job creation and a model that is respectful of the environment and competitive in the markets.

At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, the oceans were deemed to be priority areas, with some initial objectives being proposed such as the “sustainable consumption and production patterns”, food security, sustainable energy for all and disaster risk reduction and resilience [ 124 ].

Undoubtedly, ocean resources generate numerous benefits to the world economy and offer essential opportunities for transportation, food production, energy, mineral extraction, biotechnology, human settlement in coastal areas, tourism and recreation, and scientific research [ 64 ].

In academic research, a literature review on the BE also needs to include similar concepts. Lee et al. [ 74 ] state that “ the term BE has been used in different ways and similar terms such as “ocean economy” or “marine economy” are used without clear definitions. ” At the same time, when analyzing other articles that address BE, it was observed that ocean economy (OE), marine economy (ME), and blue growth (BG) were also used as synonyms [ 64 , 121 ]. Table 1 shows some of the definitions of these terms.

Figure 1 presents an analysis of the similarities and differences of the above definitions, where each color of the circumference represents a concept (BE, BG, ME and OE) and within it the authors are positioned. The most interesting finding arises in the intersections, with the common element for BE and BG being the economy and the protection of marine ecosystems to ensure sustainability, ME and OE share industry development and location, in BE and ME we find governance and sustainability and finally BG and OE cooperate in the growth of the ocean-based economy. In relation to the differences, they are placed outside the quadrant, with aspects pointing to a social and complex system, a green and inclusive economy, as well as the existence of operational risks.

(Resource: own compilation)

Comparative analysis between authors’ definitions

The central point is ocean development promotion as a sign of progress and economic, political, social and cultural growth without losing the focus on sustainability.

It is important to highlight that the concept of BE gives rise to two conflicts of interest. On the one hand, those linked to economic growth and development, and on the other, those linked with safeguarding and protecting the ocean’s resources. Kathijotes [ 67 ] states that the objective of BE models is to transfer resources from scarcity to abundance and address the issues that cause environmental problems.

For this reason, it is necessary to propose solutions that take advantage of all available opportunities and analyze the threats to the OE. Lee et al. [ 74 ] link the BE and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) and conclude that the objectives that are linked to the BE are: underwater life (14), land ecosystems (15); peace, justice, and stable institutions (16) and alliances to achieve the objectives (17). Linking BE with SDGs is challenging on the basis that the common element of both is in objective 14 [ 59 , 88 , 130 ]. In relation to hot spots, firstly, the starting point for achieving the SDGs is not homogeneous, with large differences between developed and developing countries [ 58 , 61 ] due to the economic, political, social, cultural and environmental context [ 51 ]. Secondly, there are areas of conflict mainly around divergent views on the legitimacy of different sectors as components of BE, in particular carbon-intensive industries such as oil and gas and the emerging deep-sea mining industry [ 131 ], as well as large fisheries versus those coastal areas where artisanal fisheries are in danger of extinction [ 109 ].

Furthermore, the increase in human activity, in the form of new or intensified uses, such as the generation of renewable marine energy, exert greater influence and cause conflicts between BE sectors [ 56 ].

In 2012 the European Union implemented its BG strategy and established subsectors within the field of the BE [ 41 , 96 ]. The BG Strategy breaks down the BE into five main sectors: Biotechnology, Renewable Energy, Coastal and Maritime Tourism, Aquaculture and Mineral Resources, and integrates other sectors such as fishing, transportation, offshore oil and gas extraction, and ship construction and repair.

Biotechnology presents excellent opportunities to produce natural products with possible applications in the food and pharmaceutical sectors [ 105 , 119 ]. It is a recent and developing sector that is part of the bioeconomy, the latter developing and using renewable biological resources from the land and sea. For example, the cultivation of seaweed is expected to provide sustainable biomass that facilitates the development of the marine bioeconomy through BG [ 43 ] and is considered an industrial benchmark for achieving a competitive, circular, and sustainable economy that is less dependent on fossil carbon [ 9 ].

Renewable wind energy from marine sources and the conversion of thermal energy from the ocean is increasingly present at the global ocean level [ 126 , 129 ]. Novel hybrid robust/stochastic approaches are used to participate in the electricity market, including renewable energy procurement through large consumer purchases that respond to the energy demands of wind turbines voyer (WT), photovoltaic systems (PV), bilateral contracts (BCs), and micro-turbines (MTs), and energy storage systems (ESS) [ 1 ]. Other strategies focus on the optimal programming of electrical energy consumption in multiple cooling systems [ 108 ] or models based on heat and energy centers [ 70 ].

Tourism has played a decisive role in developing many island economies, triggering other activities to obtain local economic returns. Similarly, aquaculture and fisheries have contributed to the economic development of certain regions without jeopardizing access to essential resources such as small-scale fisheries [ 15 , 39 , 109 ]. The exploitation and extraction of offshore oil and gas is a reality in many economies around the world wherein nations must weigh the economic benefits against the negative impact it may have on living marine resources [ 78 , 92 , 131 ].

Globally, shipping is the primary means of supplying raw materials, consumer goods, and energy, becoming a facilitator of world trade and contributing to economic growth and employment, both at sea and on land [ 81 ]. In addition, the shipbuilding industry provides real added value to numerous coastal communities [ 114 ].

Through bibliometric analysis, this study’s main objective is to explore the evolution of worldwide scientific production on BE between 1979 and 2020. The purpose is also to identify those concepts that are related to BE in order to subsequently carry out the study of keywords and establish future research trends.

Its main contribution is the assimilation of the BE into the CE since both are key to supporting BG and guaranteeing the sustainability of economic activities developed within the blue context. BE encompasses activities related to renewable energy use, waste management, climate change, fisheries and tourism, where the concept of economic circulation (based on recycling, extension, redistribution and manufacturing) can be integrated, moving from a linear economy to an economy that makes the most of waste through circular flow [ 60 , 112 , 133 ]. Analyzing the possible connections, we start from the study carried out by Ruiz-Real et al. [ 107 ], referring to the analysis of the global dynamics of the CE, where trend words related to renewable energy, climate change and waste management are located, finding an explicit link with almost all of the activities promoted by the BE shown in Fig. 2 . Furthermore, although there is no visible link on the fisheries and water issue in the BE and CE, it should be mentioned that fisheries depend on water, as their life cycle depends on this natural environment and both its conditions (quality, temperature, salinity) and its proper management influence the sustainability and conservation of marine species [ 36 , 106 ].

Analysis of relationships between BE and CE

An important aspect relates to the conflict between the interest groups of BD versus the economic development proposed by both the BE and the BG. Thus, the CE presents itself as a mediator between growth, economic development and employment while extending resource availability and reducing environmental and social pressures.

Methodology

Bibliometry offers useful results from the authors’ production in a field of research, trends, the most cited articles, and the concentration of documents in impact journals [ 63 ].

The first step was to select the terms through a prior review of those economies linked to the seas and oceans, with BE, BG, ME, and OE being the most representative terms.

The next step involved locating and extracting data on all the documents in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection that contain the terms established in the search criteria in order to visualize the behavior of scientific production over time, providing high-quality data and a complete description that facilitates data processing and for the broad recognition it has obtained in the scientific community [ 89 , 98 ]. For this study, the WoS database was selected. This database is widely recognized for gathering reliable and multidisciplinary research, with studies recommending its use due to the high proportion of exclusive journals [ 83 ].

A similar search query was carried out on the Scopus database using the same criteria to guarantee the data’s completeness. The results were similar to those obtained from WoS [ 44 , 53 , 80 ].

The data was then processed to analyze the number of articles published per year, the number of citations, and their h-index. Bibliometric analysis, the study of the scientific activity of authors, has been used to prepare this article and has been used in various areas.

Figure 3 depicts the descriptive statistical analysis of the main variables: cites per article, total cites, h-index, year, and articles. The matrix indicates the correlation between them (the closer to 1, the stronger the correlation; if the values are closer to − 1, there is an inverse correlation between variables, while if there is a zero value, there is no correlation). In the present case, the articles variable is highly correlated with the total of citations, h-index, and years. In contrast, there is an inverse correlation with the variable cites per article and year.

Correlation matrix of main variables

In this work, the number of articles, citations, citations per article, and h-index, the most relevant countries, institutions, and authors are studied. The keywords are also taken into account in order to discover new lines of research. A database search has been carried out, filtering by topic in the title, the abstract, author keywords, and Keywords Plus. The search for the keywords was carried out using the terms: “blue economy” or “ocean economy” or “blue growth” or “maritime economy” or “marine economy.” In the next stage, 780 results were obtained, from which articles were filtered, leaving 499 articles to be processed and analyzed in the fourth stage. The results were then filtered to include only articles as many of them have been published in journals with an impact factor in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). This indicator is highly regarded and valued by organizations that evaluate research activity, guaranteeing a strict review process and high-quality results [ 32 , 47 , 82 ].

Lastly, once the document search was filtered to include only articles, the data were exported and processed using two tools: Vosviewer and Biblioshiny. In this way, clusters can be created by downloading information from the Web of Science database.

The VOSviewer program offers the basic functionality necessary to visualize bibliometric networks, citation links between publications, collaboration between researchers, and co-occurrence links between scientific terms [ 128 ]. According to a logical bibliometric workflow, the Bibliometrix tool, developed in the statistical and graphical language R, is also used to add weight to the study. R is highly extensible as it uses a functional, object-oriented programming language, and therefore it is relatively easy to automate parsing and create new functions. It is utilized to create graphs for three metrics at different levels: sources, authors, and documents, and analyzing knowledge structures at the conceptual, intellectual and social level [ 5 ] (Fig. 4 ).

(Source: own compilation based on WoS)

The data collection process

Descriptive analysis

Figure 5 represents a descriptive analysis of the terms ME, OE, BE, and BG, making a note of the chronological order of the articles when these concepts first appeared.

(Source: own compilation based on WoS data)

Timeline of first published articles related to BE, BG, ME, and OE

The first mention of ME appeared in 1979 in the article entitled “ Marine Economy of Poland 1945–1975 ”. It addressed the growth of two port complexes located on the Polish Baltic Sea coast, Gdansk-Gdynia and Szczecin-Swinoujscie, pointing to the important economic activities in the area such as the export of coal and coke, ships, minerals, cereals, gypsum, rolled steel products, wood, cement, and food. It also pointed to tourism development along the coastal regions that required environmental protection [ 75 ]. Later, in 1992, the article “ The Intercolonial Railway, Freight Rates and The Maritime Economy in Canada ” stated that this infrastructure was a crucial piece in the history of MAE development and a transport link between the maritime islands and the center from Canada [ 31 ].

In 2004 the article “ Employment and Wages for the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economy ” was published on the subject of OE and performed a preliminary analysis of the United States’ coastal and ocean economy between 1990 and 2001 to prepare coherent national estimates of economic values, based on economic and other measures related to the coasts and the oceans [ 27 ].

The article “ The Future of Blue Economy: Lessons for European Union ” marked the beginning of research on BE and made some preliminary considerations about the growing convergence of economic, social, technical, and environmental factors that contributed to generating new opportunities in the world’s oceans. Furthermore, thanks to the cooperation between European ocean industries and government institutions, together with the training of various experts, they became the epicenter of applying the European BE at sea [ 64 ].

In 2013 the BG Strategy, “ Scenarios for Selected Maritime Economic Functions Union ,” appeared and examined the usages of the scenarios of the BG project. It aimed to develop the maritime dimension of the Europe 2020 strategy, with a 15-year horizon (2025–2030). In this regard, the scenarios were understood and developed in two ways: the micro-future scenarios and the general scenarios [ 136 ].

Scientific production analysis

Table 2 shows the evolution of scientific production in the period (2020–1979) by the number of articles, citations, citations per article (average), and the annual h-index.

In 2010, there was an increase in the number of articles and citations resulting from the article, “ The importance of estimating the contribution of the oceans to national economies ” by Kildow and McIlgorm [ 71 ]. The authors stated that the oceans were in trouble and experienced changes that could compromise life on both the sea and the land, affecting the economy and the environment.

The year 2018 stands out for the number of citations, reaching its maximum value of 531 (Fig. 6 ). The most cited article, “ Blue growth: savior or ocean grabbing? ” questions political proposals and places them within the framework of the broader debates on the neo-liberalization of nature [ 8 ]. Other authors with a high number of citations address BG, tracing its roots to the conceptualization of sustainable development under the title “ What is blue growth? The semantics of “Sustainable Development” of marine environments ” [ 37 ]. The authors further manifest the complexity of ocean systems, combined with data and capacity constraints, demanding a pragmatic management approach [ 17 ].

Evolution in the number of publications and citations

The most cited articles closely related to the terms “BE, BG, ME, and OE,” in addition to the authors, journal, date of publication, and total citations, are listed in Table 3 . Of note is the article by Silver et al. [ 118 ], with 89 citations, which addresses how BE became operational and how it was articulated in four factors: oceans as natural capital, good business, the integral part of the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and small-scale fisheries livelihoods. The second-ranked article by Kildow and McIlgorm [ 71 ] addresses the importance of knowing the oceans so that governments can have proactive behaviors in response to the demands of the population and nature in coastal and ocean environments. The third-ranked article, “ BG: savior or ocean grabbing? ”, critically addresses the political proposals, which fail to envision the problems of the environment and climate change.

The remaining articles address the marine sector’s role in the national economy, the concept of BG in the marine environment, the integrated maritime policy, and platforms for harvesting marine renewable energy.

Figure 7 depicts the authors and their links to scientific journals and the most representative keywords. In this instance, Morrissey, McIlgorm, Van der Burg, Morato, Bennett, and Soma have published the greatest volume of articles in Marine Policy , the scientific journal with the highest impact and the greatest number of relevant keywords.

(Source: own compilation using biblioshiny)

Relationships between top authors, journals, and keywords

Analysis of keywords

The keywords used in the article titles and abstracts are then analyzed according to their relevance and co-occurrence to create a co-occurrence map of all the terms used in the 499 selected articles (Fig. 8 ), using Vosviewer software. The minimum number of occurrences of a selected term is set at 25. Of the 12,858 terms found, 133 met the threshold and were included in the final analysis. From these results, a relevance score was calculated. The title and abstract fields were used to extract data. To extract the highest number of terms from the publications, the labels of the structured abstracts and the copyright statements are included.

Trends in keywords used in title and abstract

An analysis of the results reveals that the most productive period, between 2016 and 2020, has produced the most relevant terms. The ten most relevant terms are linked to maritime spatial planning, China, ME, OE, economic development, efficiency, and coastal areas. The most current terms have to do with the marine industry and access. In this sense, due to the boom in emerging marine industries and the support of nation states for marine technology, many Chinese universities have added specialties related to marine technology [ 76 , 134 ]. This industry has become a significant growth engine for China’s economic development [ 77 ]. Access refers to the exploitation of marine resources, coastal and fishing resources, spatial access to coastal communities, and the rights and property related to marine governance [ 2 , 11 , 69 , 109 ].

An analysis of the keywords identifies the most used terms and the most current trends related to the new areas of the concepts studied. The trend analysis depicted in Fig. 9 uses a color scale that goes from blue to yellow and categorizes the terms used in this field of study from the least to the most innovative in the period studied. Trends linked to concepts such as small-scale fishing, degrowth, aquatic species, biofuel, growth of the coastal BE, and internationalization are observed. These recent trends arising from the BE address the need to connect human and industrial activities that obtain their inputs from the sea by creating cooperative alliances at an international level, promoting sectors such as fishing, tourism, and energy. In addition, BE favors environmental sustainability since it uses renewable energy.

Trend analysis based on WoS data

The growth of the coastal BE can be linked to the government of Taiwan [ 20 , 116 , 141 ], which proposes a growth program for the coastal BE at the national level to promote ocean-related industries based on sustainable development by integrating different theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, modeling and management of ecosystem frameworks. In general, farming the sea is based on artificial technologies and it is argued that by developing marine fish farming, it is possible to contribute to the transformation of capture fisheries by integrating the concept of BE [ 24 ]. As for the term BD is understood as the need to address the dominance of the BG by seeking greater integration between society and the oceans [ 38 ]. This requires the withdrawal of specific activities currently in the hands of large corporations, ending the exploitation of localized production. It aims the decommodification of labor and the recovery of the common goods to protect diversity. It is therefore necessary to make visible the risks of strategies based on economic development by suggesting a rethinking of the BE [ 52 , 65 ]. In this sense, the decrease is intended to criticize the traditional ideas of growth and sustainability by promoting an equitable reduction in production and consumption, along with a socially transformative vision [ 22 ]. The role of biofuels in the BE is gaining momentum. The research of Kaşdoğan [ 66 ] examines algae-based biofuel production systems designed on the high seas and integrated with wastewater treatment and carbon dioxide absorption processes to revitalize faith in biofuels in the BE.

Past research has addressed aspects of OE and ME from the perspective of the economic activities derived from the sea, specifically food catches, commercial transport, and the maritime industry [ 10 , 68 ]. Subsequently, the sustainability approach within the MAE was included [ 140 ] along with the specific characteristics, the type of risk, and the uncertain areas of this economy [ 35 , 46 , 111 ] and the continued development of integrated marine policies [ 21 , 34 ].

Despite the tremendous potential of ensuring the oceans’ sustainability, the growth of the BE presents some challenges. One of the most obvious obstacles is the lack of common and agreed-upon goals of BG. For some, BG revolves around maximizing economic growth derived from marine and aquatic resources [ 14 , 57 ]. However, for others, it means maximizing “inclusive” economic growth derived from marine and aquatic resources [ 37 , 54 , 101 , 120 ]. A real example of inclusion is in the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which, like many developing countries, the issues of oceans, climate change, and energy are essential to poverty eradication. It is impossible to suppress poverty unless the health of ocean ecosystems is guaranteed and preserved as they are essential for food security, livelihoods, and economic [ 6 ]. Following the sustainability approach, the CE is building a strong emphasis on becoming a model that brings significant social, economic and environmental benefits [ 26 ].

The concepts of the “BE” and “BG” have been grouped together in a conceptual framework and are used as political discourse throughout the world as a way of representing the possible contribution to human well-being that both aquatic and marine spaces can make. Different interpretations of the concept of the BE are recognized. It is the very diverse definitions that generate a certain imprecision that allows the BE to encompass divergent visions and ideologies [ 25 ].

Fernández-Macho et al. [ 42 ] express the need to promote the BE to foster the progress and growth of maritime sectors, which can and should be sustainable. In this context, the development of integrated maritime policies is based on the belief that maritime zones can achieve higher growth rates, pointing out that the European Atlantic Arc could contribute to this BG.

Most activities related to the economic exploitation of the maritime environment carried out by humans do not conform to the notions of a “BE” since this economic exploitation does not often focus on a sustainable maritime environment [ 104 ]. Conflicts between sectors can emerge due to the nature of the resource itself (as it is a limited resource), its use and the commitment to develop efficient management of ocean resources, for example tourism versus offshore hydrocarbon extraction [ 72 ] or even within the same sector, with differences between the fishing fleet, fish farms and small-scale artisanal fisheries. Therefore, it is important to generate synergies between the different sectors that make up the BE in order to contribute to the economic development of the area and achieve the SDGs together, this being a local challenge (bottom-up strategy). Decisions could influence the sustainable growth of the BE in highly contested regions because both companies and political authorities are influenced by economic interests and by stakeholders that have power in decision-making. This could result in sustainable growth having a stronger influence than the effects of climate change, making it a more flexible and adaptable approach to policymaking that considers changing economic, social, and environmental realities [ 56 ].

Coastal communities are directly affected by the BE and the effective management of ocean resources for BG. Although the term ocean economics is often promoted as something new, there are historical analogies that can provide insights for contemporary planning and implementation of BG [ 99 ]. In this sense, thanks to the use and treatment of raw materials of marine origin, such as macroalgae, their multiple uses are essential for the efficient recovery of marine biomass [ 100 ].

While the protection of marine areas is considered a fundamental part of mitigating climate change, on a practical level, its success is overshadowed by the current expansion of offshore drilling for oil and gas [ 15 ]. The prospects for growth in the OE are promising because ocean industries address issues such as food security, energy security, and climate change [ 139 ]. On the other hand, there are discrepancies regarding the legitimacy of the different sectors that make up the BE, specifically the industries with high carbon intensity and the emerging seabed mining industry [ 132 ]. Numerous authors warn of the danger of privatizing ocean spaces through the BE [ 13 , 15 , 109 , 132 ].

Due to the current transformation of the oceans as places of integral industrialization, it is necessary to reflect on the experiences obtained from fishing and fisheries policies to understand and intervene in modernization processes and practices [ 4 ].

Another aspect to consider is climate change. Due to the negative consequences for coastal populations caused by rising sea levels, it is vital to develop defensive infrastructures. Since the turn of the century, the loss of landmass in the Greenland ice sheet has been accelerating [ 127 ]. It is a topic of great interest for both scientific research and public policy as sea level rise is influenced by regional and local factors, with coastal areas suffering the consequences of sea-level rise [ 3 , 49 , 50 , 91 , 115 , 123 ].

Changes in the balance of surface mass, relative to changes in solid ice discharge, are vitally important across the Arctic areas and will continue in the future [ 84 ]. For example, the Netherlands, a region crisscrossed by large rivers such as the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt, is protected by a network of levees. Approximately 59% of its territory is at risk of flooding, 26% is under the sea level and 29% can flood if the rivers overflow. According to the commission that manages the Delta Plan, which addresses the threat of water, a temperature increase of two degrees in the North Sea could mean a rise of between 1 and 2 m.

Scientific studies about New York City reveal that the sea level could rise by 2 m by 2100, endangering the survival of Manhattan, a threat for which the city is already taking measures [ 90 ]. In Florida, the effects of climate change are likely to include flooding associated with rising sea levels, increased invasive species, damage to coral reefs, and increasing frequency of damaging hurricanes. Tide levels along the US eastern seaboard of the United States during the past century were spatially variable, with the relative sea level rising more rapidly along the Mid-Atlantic Bay than along the Bay of the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Maine [ 97 ]. Other authors [ 73 ] state that rising sea levels, tides, extreme weather conditions, high temperatures, and ocean acidification present serious problems that could affect shipping, shipbuilding, the fishing industry, and coastal tourism and even compromise human health and labor-intensive production activities, such as the sea salt industry, sea fishing and the use of seawater.

In our view, there is a need to encourage international cooperation with countries with a lower HDI in aspects related to the BE, CE and BG through the transfer of knowledge, skills, experiences and technologies that will contribute to achieving the SDGs, bringing significant benefits to both the community and the environment.

The BE presents significant challenges at an economic, social, and environmental level, which is why the BG strategy is presented as the key piece of the puzzle to guarantee environmental sustainability and efficient management of the seas and oceans’ resources. In this context, the SDGs imply that economic development is both inclusive and respectful of the environment, and it is necessary to find a balance between economic, social and environmental spaces. For example, one cannot consider eradicating poverty without guaranteeing the health of ocean ecosystems that are fundamental to food security, livelihoods, and economic development. Therefore, it is urgent to set goals with objectives and indicators that demand productive, healthy, and resilient oceans.

As analyzed, BE is a recent term rooted in sustainable development, so it needs more time for it to be adopted by all economic agents, politicians, and society in general. Thanks to the BG Strategy, it is possible to continue with economic activities arising from the seas and oceans in a more sustainable way that reduces the direct and indirect effects of its execution and minimize the negative impact on the ecosystem.

Regarding scientific production related to these concepts, there is a noticeable growing trend in the number of articles published in journals with high impact factors, especially in the last decade, which is evidence of a growing interest in investigating these terms and this novel field. Although in practice, the BE has always been present in the economic activity and the political agenda of all the countries of the world.

Analysis of keyword trends shows the need to protect coastal areas and traditional activities against the marine industry. These include the urgent transformation of large farms, waste treatment, and a commitment to cleaner energy that respects maritime ecosystems. The oceans are recognized as being essential to sustaining life on Earth, and the overexploitation of their resources jeopardizes their ability to continue to provide food, economic benefits, and environmental services to society. Another critical issue is the role that community ecotourism plays within the dynamics of the BE since marine and coastal tourism constitutes one of the largest and fastest-growing segments of tourism. There are sustainability problems related to the marine tourism sector, especially in protected areas, which could be reduced if the BG strategy is further promoted.

The main conclusion of this research is that BE poses some fundamental conflicts of interest. On the one hand, some studies support growth and development, while others prioritize the protection of ocean resources. Thus, it is essential to harness resources and promoting renewable energies with the resources offered by the oceans and seas, create alliances with different stakeholders, unite efforts, and find common elements to continue with the BG, taking into account each community’s problems and constituting a significant global challenge.

One of the limitations of this study is the difficulty in measuring the impacts of economic activity and therefore quantifying the environmental impacts. Therefore, it would be interesting to carry out studies that can provide solid arguments to support it [ 85 , 122 ].

Possible future lines of research on the BE could focus on incorporating this model of the CE since few articles have addressed this aspect jointly. The relationship between BE and CE should go beyond addressing the issue of global marine waste, renewable energy and climate change but rather be an integrated part of the BG strategy, the circular BG strategy in a broader sense: new components and more respectful treatments, less polluting marine minerals, sustainable management and the equitable distribution of marine resources. Regarding the political agenda, there should be specific lines of financing that support research into the CE and sectors of the BE. Together, the two must be integrated to achieve more efficient and sustainable results.

New researchers, experts, public institutions, and private companies who wish to understand the roots of the BE and its evolution over time may find this article useful to design and develop strategies that lead to its efficient management, preservation, and sustainability.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on request.

Abbreviations

Bilateral contracts

• Blue Economy

Blue degrowth

• Blue growth

Circular economy

Energy storage systems

Human Development Index

• Maritime economy
• Marine economy

Micro-turbines

• Ocean economy

Photovoltaic systems

Sustainable development goals

Wind turbines

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Rosa María Martínez-Vázquez, Juan Milán-García & Jaime de Pablo Valenciano

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Martínez-Vázquez, R.M., Milán-García, J. & de Pablo Valenciano, J. Challenges of the Blue Economy: evidence and research trends. Environ Sci Eur 33 , 61 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-021-00502-1

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The Blue Economy - Sustainability, Innovation, and our Ocean

Course Description

Earth's defining feature is the ocean and it is the reason that life exists. It produces oxygen, absorbs carbon dioxide, and contributes to freshwater renewal. The ocean provides important goods and services to all of society, connecting countries and cultures while supporting ecosystems that cross national boundaries. It is a major part of the world economy, with more nations looking to the ocean to enhance livelihoods and wellbeing, particularly coastal communities and island nations. Some nations are looking at their large lakes and rivers to do the same.

The concept of the blue economy is a loosely defined development model that builds on that of the green economy and encompasses a range of activities and policy aspirations that vary globally. These aspirations are influenced by economic growth and socio-ecological sustainability priorities. Equitable, just, and sustainable blue economy frameworks will require innovative governance and practice across all levels of society. This course will explore the key components of the blue economy and link these to practical examples.

Course Contents

Week 1: Introduction to the Blue Economy 1.1  Course orientation 1.2  What is the blue economy? 1.3  The key principles of the blue economy

Week 2: Innovation and the Blue Economy 2.1  Coastal and ocean industries 2.2  Blue economy stakeholders 2.3  Blue economy innovations

Week 3: The Blue Economy in Practice 3.1  Blue economy knowledge support 3.2  National blue economy strategies

Week 4: Understanding Ecosystem Services 4.1  Introduction to ecosystem services 4.2  Our reliance on ecosystem services 4.3  Ecosystem threats

Week 5: Ecosystem Services and Global Ocean Economies 5.1  Valuing ecosystem services 5.2  The fundamental techniques used to value natural resources and ecosystem services 5.3  Natural capital and the blue economy  

Why should you do this course?

The benefits of developing a sustainable blue economy are not only relevant to coastal and ocean nations, but also to landlocked countries who indirectly benefit from (and impact) the resources and services provided by the ocean. Additionally, this course is well aligned with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal #14 - Life Below Water, focused on conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources, as well as many more of the SDGs.

Over five weeks, you'll discover the potential that the blue economy has to drive innovative ocean engagement. Through discussion forums with experts, videos and readings, you'll get to interact and collaborate with other learners. Our self-assessment model means you only take quizzes when you're ready. You will also receive a certificate upon completion to verify your achievement. If you spend 4-5 hours of your time per week on this course, you should be able to complete it in five weeks.

Target audience

The course is designed as an introductory course to attract participants from various backgrounds, both technical and non-technical. The integrated, cross-sectoral nature of the blue economy provides opportunity for new knowledge to be developed, regardless of how much or how little you may know.

Outcomes of this Course

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

• Discuss the blue economy, its priorities and some of the challenges in operationalising a blue economy.
• Identify ocean sectors that form part of the ocean economy and those that have the potential to build a sustainable ocean economy.
• Recognise the importance of natural capital and ecosystem services to the blue economy.

Certificates

Two levels of certification are available.

Certificates of Participation will be awarded to participants who pass two quizzes with 70% or more and contribute to at least two forum discussions.

Certificates of Completion will be awarded to those who meet the requirements for a Certificate of Participation as well as completing a final Position Statement.  

Course Team

LEAD INSTRUCTOR

Kelly Hoareau has over 15 years' experience in environmental, sustainability and leadership roles, with first-hand experience of working in Africa and with various small island developing states and coastal nations, across marine and terrestrial ecosystems. She is the former and founding Director of the University of Seychelles’ James Michel Blue Economy Research Institute and a co-founder and management committee member of UniSey’s Island Biodiversity Conservation centre. She is currently working full time on her PhD which explores the role that knowledge systems play in supporting a more sustainable blue economy.

Affiliations: Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre; Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies; Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania, Australia. James Michel Blue Economy Research Institute and Island Biodiversity Conservation centre, University of Seychelles, Seychelles.

Other Information

Level: Introductory

Prerequisites: None

Language: English

Workload: 4-5 hours per week (20-25 hours total)

Instructors

Kelly Hoareau , James Michel Blue Economy Research Institute and Island Biodiversity Conservation centre, University of Seychelles.

  This platform made available   courtesy Commonwealth of Learning

Copyright 2022· All rights reserved

Designed by Zymphonies

Introduction to the Blue Economy

Develop a deeper understanding of the blue economy, and what it means to our world in this online, self-paced course. The discounted price of $59 for the course expires on August 15, 2024.

The blue economy describes a way of thinking about sustainably generating wealth from the ocean. Whether you are a policy maker, fisher, scientist, or technologist, this introductory course is designed to teach a shared understanding of what comprises the blue economy, and how we might manage it, measure its output, and finance it. 

This three- to five-hour self-paced course will expand your knowledge of the blue economy and lay a foundation for deeper learning in more specialized topics.

This noncredit course is taught by Dr. Charles Colgan , the director of research for the Center for the Blue Economy (CBE) and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics (JOCE).

Learn Online on Your Schedule

The Introduction to the Blue Economy course is a fully online and self-paced course. You’ll enjoy the flexibility to learn on your own time, from anywhere in the world.

Dive Into Ocean Economics

In this course you will learn:

• The diverse components that define the blue economy.
• The challenges of managing complex social and economic systems as they work together.
• The fundamentals of ocean accounting and how this evolving field can keep track of the contributions of the blue economy.
• The basics of the rapidly evolving field of blue economy finance that brings together public and private finance to provide the resources needed. 

This Course Is for You If …

• You are a professional in any field with interest in or responsibility for ocean and coastal policy.
• You are interested in learning about current important ideas about the ocean.
• You want to learn the fundamentals of ocean accounting.
• You are looking for a basic understanding of financial resources for ocean environmental conservation.
• You want an overview of the blue economy before exploring more detailed subjects.

Course Specifics

• Type / Modality : Online
• Estimated completion time : 3–5 hours
• Number of modules : 4
• Language of instruction : English
• Activities and content : Video lessons, readings, short knowledge checks, case studies, and self-reflection activities.
• Requirements : A networked computer or mobile device is required, as is the capability to stream multimedia audio and video.
• Completion rewards : After you successfully complete this course, you’ll earn a certificate of completion and a badge to share on your social media profiles and with current and potential employers.
• Registration price : $99
• Limited time discounted price : $59 (expires on August 15, 2024)
• Middlebury Institute admitted students : Students admitted to our master’s degree programs can register for free; check your  MIcommunity  admitted students group for more info!
• Middlebury Institute current students, faculty, and staff : Register for free.

Contact Us

• If you have any questions about the course, please contact [email protected] . 
• For more on the blue economy, visit the Center for the Blue Economy .
• This course does not count for credit toward a master’s program. If you are interested in a master’s program, visit our MA in Environmental Policy and Management .

Worldwide Thesis Database & PhD tips

Access database of worldwide thesis, ecosystem services and the blue economy: navigating power and values.

Reconciling competing interests is a key challenge for environmental governance, especially in marine ecosystems, which are facing a combination of environmental pressures and high levels of human dependence. At the same time, there is increasing interest in oceans as a source of economic growth. Marine ecosystems are often characterised by legal plurality, which adds another challenge for effective governance. Marine ecosystems governance is therefore complex, and it has been proposed that interactive governance that aligns the values and principles of different governance actors is needed to address multiple interlinked, but sometimes also competing, goals and interests. Contemporary governance approaches increasingly emphasise the interlinked interests of humans and nature, as demonstrated the concept of ecosystem services and the recently emerged blue economy. Ecosystem services are defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 p. v). The blue economy has various definitions, that commonly emphasise “improvement of human wellbeing and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities” (The Commonwealth 2020 p. 1) Ecosystem services and the blue economy are thought to together offer potential for the alignment of different interests through their emphasis on multiple and interlinked goals for environmental governance. Whilst the blue economy informs wider policy discourse, ecosystem services can be seen as the materialisation of this discourse through capturing preferences and values on the ground. However, aiming for the simultaneous optimisation of different dimensions does not guarantee alignment of values, worldviews and images within or among elements of governance, and across scale. The question remains whether these increasingly dominant approaches to marine environmental governance succeed in demonstrating the importance of biodiversity whilst integrating diverse social, economic, and environmental interests. The ecosystem services concept tends to be directed at the system to be governed (e.g. ecosystems and resource users), whereas the blue economy concept is directed at the governing system (i.e. national governments and decision makers), and although they are related, it is not clear to what extent they are capable of connecting these different scales. In this thesis, I set out to develop a better understanding of the extent to which the evolving landscape of marine environmental governance contributes to aligning the values, worldviews and images of the governing system with those of the system-to-be-governed. To achieve this, I examine the blue economy and ecosystem services using different methods, from different angles, and at different scales. Thus, my aim is to assess the ability of both concepts to engage with a variety of actors in principle (in research and policy discourse), and the shape they take in practice, where they impact resource users. Successes would suggest interaction and negotiation among actors is possible such that the long-term underlying values, which shape governance, can inform and are informed by the short-term preferences, that are time-bound, and shape management on the ground. Specifically, in my thesis I ask whether an ecosystem service approach, which is focused on preferences, adequately captures the full range of peoples’ diverse and plural values, and whether the blue economy is reflective of these values on the ground. Therefore, the contribution of this thesis is the exploration of how values, worldviews and images interact to shape governance at local, national, and international scales. I use bibliometric and network analysis to assess interdisciplinarity in ecosystem services research. My approach focuses on evaluating the extent to which an article’s citations draw on knowledge from across disciplinary boundaries. I find that research on ecosystem services continues to grow exponentially, and that there is an increasing number of disciplines involved. This increase is also reflected in the growing number of social science disciplines that publish on ecosystem services. However, the proportion of social science involvement has remained stable over the years, and ecology-based knowledge, and therefore worldviews, remain the most influential in the field. Interestingly, economics, often highlighted as having a disproportionate influence in ecosystem services, appears marginal in the field’s development and network. Nevertheless, the growth of social science involvement in ecosystem services research points at potential for the inclusion of heterogeneous knowledge and plural worldviews. This could help the concept to return to its goal of connecting ecological functioning with human well-being, thereby raising support for conservation. Next, I apply the ecosystem services concept in a resource user-setting, eliciting preferences for specific ecosystem services through a ranking exercise and exploring the link with underlying values. I find that preferences are associated with underlying values that overall are considered unimportant, and that directly asking people to explain their preferences gives better insight into the reasons why they ranked the services the way they do. In addition, the reasons that people give were more aligned with the general values structure of Seychelles, which prioritises self-transcendence values over self-enhancement. I identify a need for the explicit deliberation of values in environmental governance, in order to align the realities of the system that is being governed with the institutions of the governing system, but also with their underlying values, worldviews, images and principles. Following this, I apply Q-methodology and interviews with people in roles of formal decision-making in environmental governance to explore images of the blue economy as expressed in perspectives on the concept in Seychelles. I find three perspectives on the blue economy in Seychelles: supportive in principle, critical in practice; pragmatic and accepting; and idealistic. These perspectives reflect some of the international critique on the concept, for instance doubts around the reconciliation of environmental and economic interests. However, I find that much of international discourse was not reflected in the perspectives in Seychelles, and very limited attention for the social dimension of the blue economy. Social concerns were only expressed by one of the actors, who was found to be of very low influence in the network of actors involved in the blue economy. Finally, building on interviews and observations from the wider governance landscape, I consider power relations within Seychelles as a part of the increasingly dominant blue economy narrative internationally. I find that internationally, the blue economy is maintained as influential through persuasion and the creation of a ‘common sense’, presenting the possibility of triple wins through rational management. On the ground, despite the sense that there are critical voices as Seychelles is shaping the blue economy, outward discussion is stifled by depoliticised decision-making processes, leading to simmering discontent that is only expressed in private. The internationally hegemonic status of the blue economy concept persists locally. Throughout my thesis, themes of values, power, depoliticization and dissent emerge as critical issues in the alignment of different governance actors. Ecosystem services take place within the system-to-be-governed, whereas the blue economy is a powerful discourse in the governing system. Therefore, both approaches present the possibility of complementing each other to facilitate alignment between the system that is being governed and the governing system and mediate their interactions. However, this alignment is inhibited by a lack of deliberation on values, worldviews and images that underpin governance, and are therefore essential to discuss. This lack of deliberation is facilitated by power dynamics and depoliticization. Power is mediated by the boundary object status of both ecosystem services and the blue economy, which although versatile, also can stifle discussion about incompatible interpretations of both concepts. Boundary objects can become a source of power by creating a ‘common sense’ in which conflicting interests are resolved rhetorically, thereby gaining power through persuasion. The boundary object status of the blue economy also contributes to the depoliticization of discussions, prioritising techno-managerial approaches instead. However, I also found that dissent is emerging both on the ground and in academic critique. This dissent is leading to calls for more deliberative and participatory approaches to the blue economy and ecosystem services, which would allow for exploration of the shared values, worldviews and images that underpin environmental governance. Thereby, pressures on and demands from marine ecosystems could be reconciled through interaction between different elements of society. Comparing people’s attitudes towards these underlying aspects of governance opens up processes of power, giving insight into whose values count, and which images are leading governance visions. Concepts that seek to reconcile competing interests by integrating and optimising their demands offer potential, but need to be applied with explicit recognition of power relations and conflicting values.

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• Research & innovation
• Global Challenges Program
• Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones

Launching a Blue Economy

• Blue Carbon
• Blue Futures
• From Power Plant to Table
• Greenhouse Gas Sensors for Blue Carbon
• Microplastic Pollution in Waterways
• Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF)
• Water quality and biodiversity during bushfires

The Launching a Blue Economy project has placed UOW and Global Challenges at the forefront of global research in the field of Blue Economies. This project’s aims are to use innovative, integrated and cross-sectoral research to promote a sustainable development model to maximise the social, environmental, and economic benefits derived from the oceans. The Global Challenges Blue Economy research agenda has been growing since 2016 from an initial seed grant. This has since resulted in a number of additional research projects. Three ‘sub-projects’ currently fall under the Blue Economy umbrella.

• Online Story Map

Laying the foundations for a southern NSW Blue Economy

This is the largest of the active Blue Economy projects being undertaken in UOW. Now in the second stage of the study, the project is designed to put previously identified strategies into practice by working with more organisations and assessing what blue economy base exists in the region, what areas the region are excelling in, what the challenges are, where opportunities exists, and where the region has a competitive advantage.

This project aims to ‘take stock’ of the existing state of play in relation to Blue Economy opportunities focusing on five key areas: ocean accounts, spatial mapping, social and cultural values, the governing system and innovation. This project is listed as a pilot project for a United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP), in their exploration of ocean accounting methodologies.

By exploring the concept of blue economies and creating an optimised example here on the South Coast of NSW the Global Challenges research aims to change the way the world uses its oceans to improve the lives of those dependent on it. On World Oceans Day of 2019 the team launched an interactive online  story mapping tool to engage communitiesand encourage them to have their say on what will make a sustainable and successful Blue Economy.

• Making The Blue Economy A Sustainable Reality , Forbes, 21 June 2019
• Oceans a part of economy under new 'blue' project , Illawarra Mercury, 9 June 2019
• South Coast communities invited to road test the ‘blue economy' , UOW Media, 6 June 2019

Principal Investigator:  Dr Michelle Voyer

Ocean accounts.

• Dr Shanaka Herath 
• A/Prof Charles Harvie
• Prof Alistair McIlgorm

Spactial mapping

• Prof Kerrylee Rogers
• Dr Emma Asbridge  

Social and cultural values

• Dr Susan Ballard
• Dr  Chris Brennan-Horley
• Vincent Bicego
• Jen Saunders
• A/Prof Michael Adams

Governing system

• Genevieve Quirk
• Prof Robin Warner
• Richard Kenchington
• Mary Kaidonis
• A/Prof Faisal Hai  
• Lana Kajlich
• Dr Hugh Forehead
• Astrid Vachette
• Prof Pascal Perez

Sun, sand, sea and sustainability (S4): developing a sustainable tourist community classification methodology

In partnership with Shoalhaven City Council, this project is specifically focused on addressing the challenges of strategic planning in relation to sustainable marine tourism. The aim of this research project is:

• To develop a methodology which classifies communities according to a range of characteristics which will constrain or enhance sustainability objectives, such as population size, visitation levels and infrastructure availability.
• To assess the vulnerability of destinations to pressures which will impact the sustainability of these communities, and their associated tourism growth.

This system of classification will be trialled in the Shoalhaven City Council (SCC) area, and will ultimately assist SCC to tailor tourism planning, marketing and service provision to meet the needs of different ‘types’ of coastal communities.

• Dr Emma Heffernan  (team leader)
• A/Prof Faisal Hai
• Dr Fariba Ramezani
• Dr Michelle Voyer
• Dr Troy Heffernan
• Prof Richard Kenchington
• Dr Greg Kerr
• Dr Anna Lewis

Transmedia narratives: the southern NSW blue economy

This project is exploring narratives and visual representations of a Blue Economy’. It aims to use transmedia mapping to:

• draw connections between human engagements with the south coast and the stories, systems, and practices that shape human‐(ocean) relations locally.
• seek a nuanced understanding of the ways cultural expression such as art and writing not only represents the ocean, but also creates community, defines public and private space, and helps shape the rhetoric and decision making involving the ocean’s stewardship.
• contextualize scientific and policy analysis by including the historical, humanistic, social, emotional, and cultural dimensions that inflect and affect them.
• Susan Ballard  (team leader)
• Dr  Sarah Hamlyton
• A/Prof  Michael Adams
• Jade Kennedy
• Dr  Lucas Ihlein
• Dr Chris Brennan-Horley
• Michelle Voyer

This project is working towards the  UN Sustainable Development Goals :

• Future Students
• Parents and Families

Graduate School of Oceanography

• News & Events

Research | Blue Economy

How can rhode island invest in its blue economy as a means to grow sustainably.

Rhode Island has always supported and benefited from its blue economy and marine-based businesses that rely on the state’s considerable coastal and ocean resources. Today, this $5 billion-plus economy employs more than 6% of Rhode Islanders across seven sectors. The future of a sustainable blue economy in the Ocean State depends on a rich quality of place, the protection and management of resilient coastal and ocean assets, a skilled workforce and thriving innovation.

The Value of Rhode Island’s Blue Economy

The Value of Rhode Island's Blue Economy: Executive Summary

Faces of the blue economy.

<!–

Active Projects

• University of Rhode Island Weekly Fish Trawl
• Ocean Observatories Initiative Facility Board (OOIFB) Administrative Support Office

–>

Principal Investigators | Blue Economy

Jeremy S. Collie

Professor of Oceanography

401.874.6859 [email protected]

Tracey Dalton

Director, Rhode Island Sea Grant

Jennifer McCann

Senior Coastal Resources Manager

401-874-6127 [email protected]

Melissa Omand

Associate Professor of Oceanography

401.874.6610 [email protected]

Candace A. Oviatt

401.874.6661 [email protected]

Tatiana Rynearson

401.874.6022 [email protected]

Professor of Oceanography, Director of the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute

[email protected]

Elin Torell

401.874.6103 [email protected]

401.874.6233 [email protected]

Hongjie Wang

Assistant Professor of Oceanography

401.874.6141 [email protected]

Notably…

• Q&A: URI Oceanography Dean Talks Climate Change, the Blue Economy and UFOs
• Investment on Navy Base Points to Blue, Green Economic Development
• Ribbon-cutting for new pier at URI’s Narragansett Bay Campus ushers in new era

Related Programs

Coastal Resources Center

Focused on Capable Communities, Healthy Habitats and Sustainable Seafood.

Rhode Island Sea Grant

Enhancing environmental stewardship, economic development and responsible use of coastal and marine resources.

GSO website search

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Achieving a blue economy through the circular initiatives: a path towards sustainable marine living resources

• Research Article
• Published: 23 January 2024
• Volume 31 , pages 13656–13672, ( 2024 )

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• Le Thanh Ha   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4517-9097 1  

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This paper empirically examines the role of circularity performance on the performance of marine living resources to prove its role in promoting a sustainable blue economy. We use five different metrics to quantify the marine living resources of nations in the European regions, including the value added at the factor costs of small-scale capture fisheries, shellfish aquaculture, freshwater aquaculture, marine aquaculture, and large-scale capture fisheries. By using various econometric techniques, we provide evidence of the importance of circularity performance in improving the sustainability of the blue economy in the European region during the 2009–2020 period. However, it is more likely that this effect is only positive in the long term. In the long run, circularity performance affects many marine living resource components in a statistically meaningful way.

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Challenges of the Blue Economy: evidence and research trends

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Ha, L.T. Achieving a blue economy through the circular initiatives: a path towards sustainable marine living resources. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31 , 13656–13672 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-31951-9

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Announcements

Science and research key for a sustainable blue economy

Kenya, together with Canada, Japan and Portugal, hosted a high-level Blue Economy side event on 15 October 2021 in New York on the sidelines of Kenya taking over the Presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of October 2021.

Lawrence Nzuve

Government officials and other dignitaries pose for a group photo after the SBEC book launch. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kenya.

The event brought together representatives from several country permanent missions in New York and envoys, including Ambassador Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. Other participants included UNESCO-IOC and UNEP representatives, the African Union Commission, the UN Global Compact, various multilateral, private sector, NGO and philanthropic organizations, as well as leading global research and knowledge communities.

The signature objective for the event is the official book launch of Science, Research and Innovation for Harnessing the Blue Economy, which covers the Science and Research Symposium segment of the 2018 Sustainable Blue Economy Conference (SBEC)  that was hosted by the Government of Kenya. The legacy publication is a collaborative initiative between the Government of Kenya and the Stockholm Environment Institute and it represents the critical developments that have taken place since the 2018 conference. The 156-page book highlights a broad range of red-letter topics canvassed by the knowledge community, including the place of science and research in the blue economy, the sustainable use of minerals and energy resources, including deep sea mining, climate change and the blue economy, sustainable shipping, maritime transport and management of coastal zones, as well as the governance and security of the blue economy. It also highlights a barrage of new initiatives triggered by SBEC 2018 and intended to advance the promise of the blue economy globally.

Speaking at the launch event, Amb. Thomson congratulated the Government of Kenya for ensuring the publication of the book, noting that it was “a timely contribution to the repertoire of knowledge, scientific information and innovations that have the potential to influence on-the-ground actions across the world that are necessary to inform SDG 14 and all other SDGs that have a water and ocean dimension.” He added that it remains impossible “to have a healthy planet without a healthy ocean and that a sustainable blue economy is humanity’s only hope for a future that can be bequeathed to the next generation.”

For his part, Dr Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO described the launch as “a timely happening in the first year of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)”. He added that there is no doubt that the scientific knowledge and innovations showcased at the 2018 Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, which are captured in the book, will be relevant to actions by governments, scientists, civil society and the private sector as they generate “the science we need for the ocean we want”.

“Scientific discourse must be at the centre of interventions aimed at reversing global environmental change which has profound social and human dimensions,” said Dr Ryabinin, adding that the organization is committed to promoting intergovernmental cooperation in order to generate knowledge about the nature and resources of the ocean and coastal areas and to apply that knowledge to the management, sustainable development, marine environment protection and decision-making processes within its Member States.

The side event in New York also builds on momentum for the 2022 United Nations Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14  scheduled to be co-hosted by Kenya and Portugal in Lisbon in 2022. The decision to host the high-level event in New York is also momentous, as it marks the first year of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development  with the goal “to generate the scientific knowledge and underpinning infrastructure and partnerships needed for sustainable development of the ocean”.

The Nairobi Statement of Shared Intent on Advancing the Blue Economy  , the political outcome of SBEC 2018, acknowledged that science and research are crucial for policy development and implementation, and called for an interdisciplinary approach to science and research that includes biophysical science, law and policy, human geography, and accounting and finance, which are all required in generating state-of-the-art evidence-based knowledge and information to inform policy- and decision making.

“The publication of this book underlines my very strong conviction that scientific knowledge and the unceasing quest for it is the cornerstone of every human advancement,” said Amb. Macharia Kamau, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of the Republic of Kenya, who wrote the preface of the newly launched book. He added that he looks forward to an even more robust engagement of African scientists and knowledge and technology communities in the quest for a sustainable blue economy.

The book notes that a key challenge to advancing the promise of blue economy in developing countries, especially in small island development states and Africa in general, is the lack of scientific capacity. The Global Ocean Science Report  concluded that major disparities exist in the capacity around the world to undertake marine scientific research. Through its global strategy for the Ocean and Biodiversity, SEI focuses on bridging science and policy through the quartet identified as sources of marine pollution: coastal resilience and adaptation, governance of the blue economy, commodity-driven land-use change and biodiversity loss.

Our work with climate adaptation in coasts and islands is informing governments around the world on integrating aspects related for example to cascading risks, vulnerabilities and justice into spatial planning and environmental policy

Prof. Måns Nilsson, Executive Director of SEI

Working to strengthen capacity in developing countries, SEI’s regional presence in Asia, Africa and Latin America enables it to develop partnerships and closer working relationships with national governments and regional multilateral institutions. As part of actions to strengthen science for environment and climate diplomacy, SEI Africa collaborates with the Government of Kenya in several other areas, including the lead-up to both the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow and the 2022 UN Ocean Conference.

“While major disparities exist in capacities around the world to undertake blue economy scientific research necessary for proper management of human activities, our success to this end lies in our ability to build partnerships and strengthen synergies,” noted Dr Francis Owino, principal secretary responsible for the Blue Economy of the Government of Kenya.

As part of our commitment to build the scientific knowledge base for informed policy action on blue economy in Africa, supporting the Government of Kenya to publish this book was a natural step for SEI. We are delighted to have made the dream of the book become a reality and are extremely proud of this partnership

Dr Philip Osano, SEI Africa Centre Director

Dr Osano was also a member of the book’s editorial committee that coordinated the compilation and editorial work on the book under Chief Editor Prof. George Outa, an SEI Affiliated Researcher on environment and climate diplomacy.

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PhD Scholarship in Marine Conservation and Blue Economy

Monash university.

Job No.: 665840

Location: Clayton campus

Employment Type: Full-time

Duration: 3.5-year fixed-term appointment

Remuneration: The successful applicant will receive a Research Living Allowance, at current value of $35,013AUD per annum 2024 full-time rate (tax- free stipend), indexed plus allowances as per RTP stipend scholarship conditions at: www. monash.edu/graduate-research/future- students/scholarships/scholarship-policy-and-procedures. Domestic applicants will be prioritised, however, a tuition fee scholarship and Single Overseas Health Cover (OSHC) will be provided for a successful international awardee.

The Opportunity

This PhD scholarship will align with the Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project, ‘Sustainable Business Models for Marine Conservation' , conducted by Dr Benjamin Thompson .

Marine conservation remains severely underfunded despite the pressing need to safeguard ocean resources, ecosystems, and coastal communities effectively and equitably. Alongside philanthropic donations and grants, innovative financing models for marine conservation are now emerging through private sector actors such as corporations, entrepreneurs, and investors. Dr Thompson's project will investigate under which circumstances sustainable business models can be developed to generate profit alongside positive marine conservation outcomes. The successful applicant will develop a relatable but distinct project; for example, examining relationships between the ecological, social, governance, financial, and/or business aspects of marine conservation, and optionally, linking to broader developments around the blue economy around sustainable use of the oceans.

Undertaking this PhD as part of a larger project has several advantages. First, the successful candidate will be integrated into an already successful research agenda that has been funded by the ARC, and will have access to funding to support for fieldwork travel and conference attendance. Second, the candidate will benefit from expert supervision from research leaders in environmental social science. Finally, the candidate will benefit from being part of outcomes from the research, which may include co-authored publications, funded symposia, school-engagement exercises, and future grant applications.

Monash University is ranked 42nd in the world in the 2024 QS World University Rankings. It is also ranked 21st in the world for performance against the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the 2023 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings. Monash is the largest university in Australia and the applicant will be based at the Clayton campus in Melbourne – regularly ranked among the most livable cities in the world. The School of Social Science sits within the Faculty of Arts, and collaborates extensively with the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Business and Economics, and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI), among others.

Candidate Requirements

The successful applicant will have at least one degree in a relevant discipline (e.g., geography, environmental science, business, economics, finance). Specific experience across conservation science, human geography, environmental finance, and/or corporate sustainability would be advantageous. They will also have experience conducting social science research methods, whilst experience with other research methods such as geospatial analysis, ecological census techniques, and/or economic and financial analysis would be advantageous. Dr Thompson's project will afford the successful applicant optional opportunities for fieldwork in Fiji and the Philippines, but applicants are welcome to propose fieldwork in countries where they have pre- existing existing connections, including Australia.

The successful applicant will have an excellent academic track record. In its assessment, the selection committee will prioritise applicants who hold an Australian (or equivalent international) Honours or Master's degree (both in a relevant field), with a significant research component and with first- class honours/H1 awarded. Candidates are advised to discuss their experience with prior research projects (e.g., Masters thesis) including the methods used, in their application.

Details of eligibility requirements, including English-language proficiency skills, to undertake a PhD in the Faculty of Arts are available at arts.monash.edu/graduate-research/application-process. Applicants should ensure they familiarise themselves with these requirements before deciding whether they should apply.

Scholarship holders must be enrolled full-time and on campus in Melbourne. Please note: applicants who already hold a PhD will not be considered.

The successful applicant will be expected to enroll by September 2024 . However, there may be some flexibility as to the date of commencement.

You are required to discuss your research proposal with Dr Benjamin S. Thompson, School of Social Sciences, Email: [email protected] before you submit an Expression of Interest.

Submit an Expression of Interest

EOIs shall comprise:

• A cover letter that includes a brief statement of the applicant's suitability and desire to undertake a PhD in this area
• A brief research proposal not exceeding 750 words in length (excluding references) that fits within the project scope, demonstrates some understanding of the research area, and suggests a few potential research questions of interest
• A curriculum vitae, including a list of any published works, conference presentations, and relevant work experience. Degree grades / WAMs and thesis grades should be clearly stated
• A full statement of academic record and official grading system (if available), supported by scanned copies of relevant certified documentation
• English language proficiency test results (if applicable)
• Contact details of 2 academic referees
• Copy of your current passport (if available)

Once you have discussed your EOI with Dr Benjamin Thompson, please submit your Expression of Interest Form and indicate that you are applying for a “Special Scholarship Scheme – PhD Scholarship in Marine Conservation and Blue Economy”.

Closing Date

Monday 1 July 2024, 11:55pm AEST

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2019 2019: The Regional Blue Economy: Viewing a Healthy Ocean as Economic Opportunity and Moral Obligation

Chancellor Johnson contributed an op-ed in the New England Board of Higher Education Journal about the university's marine science and technology initiative

This article originally appeared in the New England Board of Higher Education Journal.

“It is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean.” —President John F. Kennedy, Sept. 14, 1962, Newport, R.I.

Half a century after President Kennedy made those remarks, our collective future as a planet, as regions, and as communities is tied closer to the ocean than ever before. There is a fast-emerging consensus—at the global, national and local levels—that the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, offers real economic opportunity beyond the centuries-old industries of commercial fishing and shipping, but also imposes a solemn obligation to protect it and coastal environments from rapid degradation.

“The blue economy concept seeks to promote economic growth, social inclusion and the preservation or improvement of livelihoods while at the same time ensuring environmental sustainability of the oceans and coastal areas,’’ states the World Bank’s 2017 report, The Potential of the Blue Economy.

The Organization for Ocean Cooperation and Development projects that from 2010 to 2030, the blue economy will double in size to $3 trillion and account for 40 million jobs worldwide. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that coastal counties (not including Alaska) comprise just 10% of the U.S. land mass, they are home to 40% of the population.

Leaders in government, industry and academia along the SouthCoast of Massachusetts, Cape Cod and Rhode Island now understand that we have a once-in-a-century opportunity to reinvent our own coastal economic ecosystem and set an example for other communities around New England and the nation.

UMass Dartmouth is leading a regional effort funded by the U.S. Economic Development Agency, area banks and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to grow a marine technology corridor that spans I-195 from Narragansett Bay, through the urban centers of New Bedford and Fall River, and across the Cape Cod Canal.

Massachusetts Congressman Bill Keating, whose district includes the nation’s leading fishing port in New Bedford and the prime seaside tourist destination of Cape Cod, is pushing for the subregions on both sides of the Cape Cod Canal to collaborate. Congressman Joe Kennedy, whose Massachusetts district borders Rhode Island, has called on leaders on both sides of the state line to leverage their economic and cultural affinities.

The Fall River and New Bedford Chambers of Commerce, rivals for decades, recently announced plans to formally integrate as the SouthCoast Chamber, essentially one chamber representing the interests of 1,600 businesses from the Rhode Island state line to the Cape Cod Canal.

The first step in building our regional blue economy is a UMass Dartmouth Public Policy Center analysis of the marine technology industry to be released this fall. Step two will be a coordinated engagement of marine technology firms in the development of a real strategy to grow their industry in our region. This will include marketing the region as fertile ground to grow marine technology enterprises.

These efforts illustrate a new belief that it is better to grow the region’s economic pie so that all can eat rather than fighting over the slices.

The cornerstones of a vibrant regional blue economy exist and are ready to be built upon:

• Commuter rail service from Boston to the SouthCoast begins in 2023.
• The area is home to world-class public and independent higher education and research institutions.
• New Bedford, the top commercial fishing port in the nation, is an emerging leader in offshore wind development, and a cargo-shipping powerhouse.
• Fall River is re-engineering its waterfront and attracting commercial and residential development related to offshore wind and expanded commuter rail service.
• Vibrant marine technology companies such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Ocean Server, Teradyne and Aquabotix have a presence in the region.
• A vibrant cultural scene leverages our connection to the sea (think New Bedford Whaling Museum, Fall River’s Battleship Cove, Cape Cod’s National Seashore, and Newport for starters)

Tangible signs of progress abound. A long-dormant, 14-acre parcel of waterfront property in New Bedford was just purchased to be redeveloped as a shipbuilding facility. Just 20 miles away at Somerset’s Brayton Point, Anbaric has announced plans to invest $645 million in a waterfront energy conversion and storage facility.

UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology is leading research related to the impacts of offshore wind development on commercial fishing, and recently completed an analysis of how commercial fishing ports will need to adapt to the movement of fish stocks due to climate change.

The next steps need to be:

• Form the regional marine technology industry alliance to guide strategy.
• Invest in higher education and research to attract, develop and retain faculty, staff and student talent.
• Proactively match university research expertise with industry need.
• Create an environment for entrepreneurs, innovators and investors to interact and create.
• Improve STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) education in local schools, especially those schools with high numbers of students for whom English is a second language.
• Streamline pathways from community college to four-year universities. UMass Dartmouth, Bristol Community College and Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fall River recently launched a partnership in which Diman students earn an engineering degree in three years.
• Develop incentives for college graduates to remain in the region. In other parts of the country, communities are using tactics ranging from college debt payments to direct sales pitches from mayors to retain young people.
• Identify individuals across the region who have started their college education but stopped and help them complete their degree or secure a credential that positions them to succeed.

The SouthCoast, Cape Cod and Rhode Island as a region must come together to create a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Blue Economy to create the next wave of business development in the Northeast.

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Dec 23, 2019 Center for Marketing Research holds community industry dinner

Dec 20, 2019 Legislators honor the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives

Dec 19, 2019 SouthCoast Development Partnership awarded $50,000 to further the Southeastern Massachusetts Blue Economy Corridor initiative

Dec 18, 2019 UMass leadership statement on the public higher education endowment match incentive program

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Did you know June is National Oceans Month? Beyond packing up your towel, snacks, and umbrella to head to the beach, you could celebrate by diving into career paths that protect, restore, and harness the power of the ocean. These careers span diverse segments of the blue economy—a term defined by the World Bank to encompass the many sectors that support “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.” 

“There are so many different career opportunities out there and all different skills are needed,” said Arielle Cardinal, a program manager at the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “If you’re passionate about the ocean, there is a job for you. You’ll find that those who work in an ocean-related career are most likely passionate about it, and willing to share their experiences and advice.”  

Read on to find your dream job and celebrate Oceans Month every month. 

Ocean Engineer

Miguel Quintero is an ocean engineer at the U.S. Navy’s Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Carderock Division in Maryland, which serves as the Navy’s experts for maritime technology. Quintero grew up surfing, and was told that if he became an ocean engineer that he could always be by the ocean. Thanks to that advice, a great career was born.  

Quintero collaborated with the DOE is to validate wave energy conversion devices, which harness the power of the waves for energy. Quintero has simulated a wide range of wave energy conversion devices at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin—a 12-million-gallon indoor ocean with depths ranging from 20 to 35 feet. 

"If you like working with your hands and not doing the same thing every day, then being an ocean engineer is a great career path to go," Quintero said in a profile last year. "You get to work pretty much everywhere; you just have to find what you're passionate about and go for it." 

Marine Ecologist

John Vavrinec is a marine ecologist at the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory. He earned his PhD in Oceanography at the University of Maine and previously worked at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries in Seattle. 

As a marine ecologist, Dr. Vavrinec is the PNNL dive officer in charge of the scientific dive team at the Lab’s Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory. These scientists perform a range of studies including substrate (underwater rock layers) assessments and data collection, habitat restoration, underwater sampling, equipment deployment, and underwater videography and photography. His work as a marine ecologist takes him to many places including all around Puget Sound, Washington, and the Columbia River in Florida.  He’s also traveled to New England, Hawaii, and even Kuwait. Read more about John in his Ocean Month profile from 2020  here . 

Policy Analyst

Rukmani Vijayaraghavan works on funding mechanisms to support innovation in water power, including the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office’s Powering the Blue Economy Initiative. She’s a trained astrophysicist, with a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia with the National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics. 

Now, Vigayaraghavan works on shaping the Powering the Blue Economy Initiative to understand the power requirements of emerging coastal and maritime markets and advance technologies that integrate marine renewable energy to relieve power constraints and promote economic growth. 

This means she’s developing and implementing activities aimed at growing capabilities to connect end users and customers with technological solutions in the blue economy.  She also works toward establishing research projects at the national labs  to support the development and commercialization of promising technologies. You can read more about this work  here . 

Communications Specialist

Shannon Bates has an eight-year-old who is obsessed with oceanic facts – good thing for him his mom is a communications partner at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Bates started at PNNL as a high school intern and worked her way towards a career in communications. While working at PNNL, she obtained a bachelor degree in Digital Technology and Culture from Washington State University. 

As a communications specialist, Bates interfaces with researchers and PNNL leadership, and handles everything from editing their journal articles to amplifying their research on social media. She also supports the Lab by coordinating virtual tours of the Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory and Aquatic Research Laboratory. 

“I get to work with divers, oceanographers, fish ecologists, and more,”  Bates said.  “They love what they do—as do I. If your desire is to work in, on, or around the ocean, then you should absolutely do it.” 

Earth Scientist

Karthik Balaguru is an Earth Scientist at PNNL’s Marine Coastal and Research Laboratory. He conducts research in the broad areas of upper-ocean dynamics and climate variability with a particular focus on tropical cyclone-ocean interaction. 

Balaguru obtained a bachelors and masters in ocean engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.  Subsequently, he obtained a Ph.D. in physical oceanography from Texas A&M University. He then joined PNNL as a post-doctoral research associate and continues to work there as a staff scientist. The discovery of the natural world excites him, and Balaguru said he finds his research very satisfying. He’s studying how we can improve the understanding and predictability of tropical cyclones, research which could potentially benefit society. 

Water Research Technician

Chong Vue’s background in electrical and mechanical systems prepared him well for his current job as a water research technician at DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He develops research data acquisition systems from scratch, in order to collect information for the wind and water power engineering teams at the Lab. These systems are deployed in water buoys, water turbines, or wind turbines. This means he spends time drawing, running tests, tinkering, and even climbing up wind turbines. 

Vue went to San Diego Miramar college, and earned an Associate in Science focusing on automotive technology. 

“The work I do is important because you have to think about what is more sustainable – not just for the human population, but for Earth,” Vue said  in a profile  last year. “There’s energy all around us. We just need to harvest it, and this is the start.” 

Program Manager

Arielle Cardinal works at the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in their Water Power Program. As a Program Manager, she’s responsible for overseeing and coordinating the planning, management, execution, and reporting of all work associated with the Water Power Program at NREL. Cardinal also manages the Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, a major STEM outreach effort of the Department of Energy. 

What is it like to work as a program manager in the ocean sector? For Cardinal, she keeps busy managing a portfolio of approximately 60 projects totaling $45 Million annually by overseeing and coordinating the planning, execution, and reporting of all work associated with the NREL Water Power Program. She analyzes budget data, prepares project plans, tracks project deliverables, plans project budgets, compiles quarterly reports, and resolves resource conflicts – all in a day’s work! Read more about Arielle  here . 

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Home  /  Distance Education  /  Master's Degrees Online  /  SMBA in Blue Economy

Blue Economy

Sustainable master of business administration.

Next  start date  is August 12. No GRE needed and applying is free!!

Drive ocean innovation and

Shape the future of sustainable marine industries..

An online degree in Blue Economy offers the perfect blend of business acumen, marine sciences, and sustainability practices, preparing you to lead in this rapidly growing field. You’ll gain hands-on experience through real-world projects and capstone experiences, ensuring you’re job-ready for diverse careers such as marine resource management, sustainable tourism, and marine policy. With a global perspective, you’ll tackle pressing environmental challenges, driving sustainable growth in the blue economy. Plus, the flexibility of online learning means you can balance your education with your personal and professional life.

Program Overview

The Sustainable MBA in Blue Economy prepares students to drive sustainable economic growth through responsible marine resource utilization. This interdisciplinary program blends business fundamentals with marine sciences, coastal resilience, and blue economy principles. Students analyze the environmental, economic, and social impacts of ocean-based industries to develop sustainable strategies balancing growth and conservation. The curriculum covers marine ecology, climate change adaptation, coastal community resilience, marine resource policies, and sustainable coastal tourism. Graduates gain expertise navigating the blue economy’s complex challenges and opportunities. They are prepared for careers in marine resource management, coastal planning, sustainable tourism, environmental policy, and related fields. Graduates will lead the transition to a more sustainable and prosperous blue economy, promoting economic empowerment and inclusive growth for coastal communities worldwide. 

Career Outlook

Earn your degree.

Unlock new opportunities..

Chief Sustainability Officer jobs in the U.S., 2022.

Chief Sustainability Officer average pay, 2022.

Projected Job Openings for Chief Sustainability Officers jobs through 2032. 

*Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unity Environmental University cannot guarantee employment. Salary data represents averaged earnings for the occupations listed and includes workers at all levels of education and experience.

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Experiential and Immersive Coursework

Economics and Policy of Marine Resources

This course dives into managing marine resources. Students explore economic ideas behind using and protecting them, along with policies for sustainable management. They’ll value marine resources, analyze conservation projects, and study the social and economic effects of marine policies. Real-world examples will showcase policy approaches and economic impacts in different marine areas. The course stresses combining economics, policy, and science to create sustainable marine resource management strategies.

Coastal Zone Resilience and Management

This course tackles building resilience in coastal zones. Students will explore the natural and human forces shaping these areas, along with threats like climate change. They’ll analyze successful management practices and develop plans to make coasts more resistant to environmental, social, and economic challenges. The course stresses combining science, economics, policy, and community involvement for sustainable coastal management.

Sustainable Coastal and Marine Tourism

This course dives into sustainable tourism for coasts and oceans. Students will explore how tourism impacts these environments and communities, both positive and negative. They’ll learn to balance economic benefits with protecting the environment and ensuring fairness for locals. The course covers sustainable tourism principles, climate change’s effects, and tourism regulations. Through real-world examples and projects, students will develop plans for sustainable tourism that aid conservation and empower coastal communities.

Degree Requirements and Courses

The Sustainable MBA in Blue Economy degree requires 36 credits with a minimum 3.0 GPA. For more requirements, view our full course catalog . Then apply online  for free to get started.

Frequently Asked Questions

Blue Economy focuses on sustainable utilization of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs, while preserving marine ecosystems. This interdisciplinary field encompasses sectors like renewable energy, sustainable fisheries, marine biotechnology, and eco-friendly tourism, balancing economic development with environmental conservation.

A  Sustainable Master of Business Administration (SMBA)  includes the foundational concepts of a Master of Business Administration (MBA), while also integrating principles of environmental and social responsibility to prepare future business leaders to drive long-term economic success that includes ecological resilience and societal well-being. 

SMBA Core: 21 credits

• PROF 510 Communication for Environmental Professionals 
• PROF 515 Ethical Practice and Policy 
• SUST 525 Making the Invisible Visible: The ESG Proposition 
• SBUS 505 Accounting & Finance for Sustainable Solutions 
• SUST 515 Leading Sustainable Change
• MKTG 505 Marketing Research 
• SBUS 590 Sustainable MBA Capstone I: Planning Green Business Initiatives

Major Program Core: 15 credits

• MARI 505 Dynamics of Marine Ecosystems
• MARI 630 Economics and Policy of Marine Resources
• MARI 633 Coastal Zone Resilience and Management
• SUST 510 Climate Dynamics
• SUST 623 Sustainable Coastal and Marine Tourism

For course requirements and a better look into your program, view our full course catalog . Then apply online for free to get started.

Your online education should be affordable and manageable. Thanks to our promise to keep tuition flat through 2030 , you won’t be burdened with unexpected increases or fees. Our team of distance education concierges will work with you through the admissions process to help you plan and pay for your degree. Learn more about the costs here.

The timeframe for completion is up to you! Enroll in 6 credits per term and complete the program in a little over one year . Alternatively, opt for part-time study by taking one course at a time. Whichever path you choose, we’re here to support your educational journey every step of the way. Contact your concierge or advisor to create your personalized plan.

Program Features

+  Career Focus  –  Unity ranks in the top 15% of colleges for social mobility according to CollegeNET. Demand for employees with green skills is growing daily, and the sustainability core in every master’s program at Unity means that you’ll graduate with an environmental consciousness applicable to every career path.

+  Earn While You Learn  –  Our asynchronous model is designed to provide flexibility, allowing you to balance your studies with professional and personal commitments.

+  World Renowned Faculty  –  Learn from faculty who are working in their field, bringing their professional network and real-world insights into the virtual classroom, fostering valuable connections for your future career.

+  Applied Learning  –  You’ll be required to engage your local community and environment while completing your master’s degree, giving you practical, hands-on experience while allowing you to translate theoretical knowledge into real-world solutions. 

+  Personalized Support  –  You can rely on one-on-one professional advising, career support from your first day, unlimited mental health counseling, and more.

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How the Diploma Divide Is Remaking American Politics

Education is at the heart of this country’s many divisions..

Blue America is an increasingly wealthy and well-educated place.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Americans without college degrees were more likely than university graduates to vote Democratic. But that gap began narrowing in the late 1960s before finally flipping in 2004 .

John F. Kennedy lost college-educated voters by a two-to-one margin yet won the presidency thanks to overwhelming support among white voters without a degree. Sixty years later, our second Catholic president charted a much different path to the White House, losing non-college-educated whites by a two-to-one margin while securing 60 percent of the college-educated vote. The latest New York Times /Siena poll of the 2022 midterms showed this pattern holding firm, with Democrats winning 55 percent of voters with bachelor’s degrees but only 39 percent of those without.

A more educated Democratic coalition is, naturally, a more affluent one. In every presidential election from 1948 to 2012, white voters in the top 5 percent of America’s income distribution were more Republican than those in the bottom 95 percent. Now, the opposite is true: Among America’s white majority, the rich voted to the left of the middle class and the poor in 2016 and 2020, while the poor voted to the right of the middle class and the rich.

In political-science parlance, the collapse of the New Deal–era alignment — in which voters’ income levels strongly predicted their partisan preference — is often referred to as “class dealignment.” The increasing tendency for politics to divide voters along educational lines, meanwhile, is known as “education polarization.”

There are worse things for a political coalition to be than affluent or educated. Professionals vote and donate at higher rates than blue-collar workers. But college graduates also comprise a minority of the electorate — and an underrepresented minority at that. America’s electoral institutions all give disproportionate influence to parts of the country with low levels of educational attainment. And this is especially true of the Senate . Therefore, if the coalitional trends of the past half-century continue unabated — and Democrats keep gaining college-educated votes at the expense of working-class ones — the party will find itself locked out of federal power. Put differently, such a development would put an increasingly authoritarian GOP on the glide path to political dominance.

And unless education polarization is substantially reversed , progressives are likely to continue seeing their reform ambitions pared back sharply by Congress’s upper chamber, even when Democrats manage to control it.

These realities have generated a lively intra-Democratic debate over the causes and implications of class dealignment. To some pundits , consultants, and data journalists , the phenomenon’s fundamental cause is the cultural divide between educated professionals and the working class. In their telling, college graduates in general — and Democratic college graduates in particular — tend to have different social values, cultural sensibilities, and issue priorities than the median non-college-educated voter. As the New York Times ’s Nate Cohn puts the point, college graduates tend to be more cosmopolitan and culturally liberal, report higher levels of social trust, and are more likely to “attribute racial inequality, crime, and poverty to complex structural and systemic problems” rather than “individualist and parochial explanations.”

What’s more, since blue America’s journalists, politicians, and activists are overwhelmingly college graduates, highly educated liberals exert disproportionate influence over their party’s actions and identity. Therefore, as the Democrats’ well-credentialed wing has swelled, the party’s image and ideological positioning have grown more reflective of the professional class’s distinct tastes — and thus less appealing to the electorate’s working-class majority.

This theory does not sit well with all Democratic journalists, politicians, and activists. Some deny the existence of a diploma divide on cultural values, while others insist on its limited political salience. Many progressives attribute class dealignment to America’s pathological racial politics and/or the Democrats’ failures of economic governance . In this account, the New Deal coalition was unmade by a combination of a backlash to Black Americans’ growing prominence in Democratic politics and the Democratic Party’s failures to prevent its former working-class base from suffering decades of stagnant living standards and declining life expectancy .

An appreciation of these developments is surely indispensable for understanding class dealignment in the United States. But they don’t tell the whole story. Education polarization is not merely an American phenomenon; it is a defining feature of contemporary politics in nearly every western democracy . It is therefore unlikely that our nation’s white-supremacist history can fully explain the development. And though center-left parties throughout the West have shared some common failings, these inadequacies cannot tell us why many working-class voters have not merely dropped out of politics but rather begun voting for parties even more indifferent to their material interests.

In my view, education polarization cannot be understood without a recognition of the values divide between educated professionals and working people in the aggregate. That divide is rooted in each class’s disparate ways of life, economic imperatives, socialization experiences, and levels of material security. By itself, the emergence of this gap might not have been sufficient to trigger class dealignment, but its adverse political implications have been greatly exacerbated by the past half-century of inequitable growth, civic decline, and media fragmentation.

The college-educated population has distinct ideological tendencies and psychological sensibilities.

Educated professionals tend to be more socially liberal than the general public. In fact, the correlation between high levels of educational attainment and social liberalism is among the most robust in political science. As early as the 1950s, researchers documented the tendency of college graduates to espouse more progressive views than the general public on civil liberties and gender roles. In the decades since, as the political scientist Elizabeth Simon writes , this correlation has held up with “remarkable geographical and temporal consistency.” Across national boundaries and generations, voters with college degrees have been more likely than those without to support legal abortion, LGBTQ+ causes, the rights of racial minorities, and expansive immigration. They are also more likely to hold “post-material” policy priorities — which is to say, to prioritize issues concerning individual autonomy, cultural values, and big-picture social goals above those concerning one’s immediate material and physical security. This penchant is perhaps best illustrated by the highly educated’s distinctively strong support for environmental causes, even in cases when ecological preservation comes at a cost to economic growth.

Underlying these disparate policy preferences are distinct psychological profiles. The college educated are more likely to espouse moral values and attitudes associated with the personality trait “ openness to experience .” High “openness” individuals are attracted to novelty, skeptical of traditional authority, and prize personal freedom and cultural diversity. “Closed” individuals, by contrast, have an aversion to the unfamiliar and are therefore attracted to moral principles that promote certainty, order, and security. Virtually all human beings fall somewhere between these two ideal types. But the college educated as a whole are closer to the “open” end of the continuum than the general public is.

All of these distinctions between more- and less-educated voters are probabilistic, not absolute. There are Catholic theocrats with Harvard Ph.D.’s and anarchists who dropped out of high school. A nation the size of the U.S. is surely home to many millions of working-class social liberals and well-educated reactionaries. Political attitudes do not proceed automatically from any demographic characteristic, class position, or psychological trait. At the individual level, ideology is shaped by myriad historical inheritances and social experiences.

And yet, if people can come by socially liberal, “high openness” politics from any walk of life, they are much more likely to do so if that walk cuts across a college campus. (And, of course, they are even more likely to harbor this distinct psychological and ideological profile if they graduate from college and then choose to become professionally involved in Democratic politics.)

The path to the professional class veers left.

There are a few theoretical explanations for this. One holds that spending your late adolescence on a college campus tends to socialize you into cultural liberalism: Through some combination of increased exposure to people from a variety of geographic backgrounds, or the iconoclastic ethos of a liberal-arts education, or the predominantly left-of-center university faculty , or the substantive content of curricula, people tend to leave college with a more cosmopolitan and “open” worldview than they had upon entering.

Proving this theory is difficult since doing so requires controlling for selection effects. Who goes to college is not determined by random chance. The subset of young people who have the interests, aptitudes, and opportunities necessary for pursuing higher education have distinct characteristics long before they show up on campus. Some social scientists contend that such “selection effects” entirely explain the distinct political tendencies of college graduates. After all, the “high openness” personality trait is associated with higher IQs and more interest in academics. So perhaps attending college doesn’t lead people to develop culturally liberal sensibilities so much as developing culturally liberal sensibilities leads people to go to college.

Some research has tried to account for this possibility. Political scientists in the United Kingdom have managed to control for the preadult views and backgrounds of college graduates by exploiting surveys that tracked the same respondents through adolescence and into adulthood. Two recent analyses of such data have found that the college experience does seem to directly increase a person’s likelihood of becoming more socially liberal in their 20s than they were in their teens.

A separate study from the U.S. sought to control for the effects of familial background and childhood experiences by examining the disparate “sociopolitical” attitudes of sibling pairs in which one went to college while the other did not. It found that attending college was associated with greater “support for civil liberties and egalitarian gender-role beliefs.”

Other recent research , however, suggests that even these study designs may fail to control for all of the background factors that bias college attendees toward liberal views before they arrive on campus. So we have some good evidence that attending college directly makes people more culturally liberal, but that evidence is not entirely conclusive.

Yet if one posits that higher education does not produce social liberals but merely attracts them, a big theoretical problem remains: Why has the population of social liberals increased in tandem with that of college graduates?

The proportion of millennials who endorse left-wing views on issues of race, gender, immigration , and the environment is higher than the proportion of boomers who do so. And such views are more prevalent within the baby-boom generation than they were among the Silent Generation. This cannot be explained merely as a consequence of America’s burgeoning racial diversity, since similar generational patterns have been observed in European nations with lower rates of ethnic change. But the trend is consistent with another component of demographic drift: Each successive generation has had a higher proportion of college graduates than its predecessor. Between 1950 and 2019, the percentage of U.S. adults with bachelor’s degrees increased from 4 percent to 33 percent.  

Perhaps rising college attendance did not directly cause the “high-openness,” post-material, culturally progressive proportion of the population to swell. But then, what did?

One possibility is that, even if mass college attendance does not directly promote the development of “high openness” values, the mass white-collar economy does. If socially liberal values are well suited to the demands and lifeways inherent to professional employment in a globally integrated economy, then, as such employment expands, we would expect a larger share of the population to adopt socially liberal values. And there is indeed reason to think the professional vocation lends itself to social liberalism.

Entering the professional class often requires not only a four-year degree, but also, a stint in graduate school or a protracted period of overwork and undercompensation at the lowest ranks of one’s field. This gives the class’s aspirants a greater incentive to postpone procreation until later in life than the median worker. That in turn may give them a heightened incentive to favor abortion rights and liberal sexual mores.

The demands of the professional career may influence value formation in other ways. As a team of political scientists from Harvard and the University of Bonn argued in a 2020 paper , underlying the ideological divide between social liberals and conservatives may be a divergence in degrees of “moral universalism,” i.e., “the extent to which people’s altruism and trust remain constant as social distance increases.” Conservatives tend to feel stronger obligations than liberals to their own kin and neighbors and their religious, ethnic, and racial groups. Liberals, by contrast, tend to spread their altruism and trust thinner across a wider sphere of humanity; they are less compelled by the particularist obligations of inherited group loyalties and more apt to espouse a universalist ethos in which all individuals are of equal moral concern, irrespective of their group attachments.

Given that pursuing a professional career often requires leaving one’s native community and entering meritocratic institutions that are ideologically and legally committed to the principle that group identities matter less than individual aptitudes, the professional vocation may favor the development of a morally universalistic outlook — and thus more progressive views on questions of anti-discrimination and weaker identification with inherited group identities.

Further, in a globalized era, white-collar workers will often need to work with colleagues on other continents and contemplate social and economic developments in far-flung places. This may encourage both existing and aspiring professionals to develop more cosmopolitan outlooks.

Critically, parents who are themselves professionals — or who aspire for their children to secure a place in the educated, white-collar labor force — may seek to inculcate these values in their kids from a young age. For example, my own parents sent me to a magnet elementary school where students were taught Japanese starting in kindergarten. This curriculum was designed to appeal to parents concerned with their children’s capacity to thrive in the increasingly interconnected (and, in the early 1990s American imagination, increasingly Japanese-dominated) economy of tomorrow.

In this way, the expansion of the white-collar sector may increase the prevalence of “high-openness” cosmopolitan traits and values among rising generations long before they arrive on campus.

More material security, more social liberalism.

Ronald Inglehart’s theory of “ cultural evolution ” provides a third, complementary explanation for both the growing prevalence of social liberalism over the past half-century and for that ideology’s disproportionate popularity among the college educated.

In Inglehart’s account, people who experience material security in youth tend to develop distinctive values and preferences from those who do not: If childhood teaches you to take your basic material needs for granted, you’re more likely to develop culturally progressive values and post-material policy priorities.

Inglehart first formulated this theory in 1971 to explain the emerging cultural gap between the baby boomers and their parents. He noted that among western generations born before World War II, very large percentages had known hunger at some point in their formative years. The Silent Generation, for its part, had come of age in an era of economic depression and world wars. Inglehart argued that such pervasive material and physical insecurity was unfavorable soil for social liberalism: Under conditions of scarcity, human beings have a strong inclination to defer to established authority and tradition, to distrust out-groups, and to prize order and material security above self-expression and individual autonomy.

But westerners born into the postwar boom encountered a very different world from the Depression-wracked, war-torn one of their parents, let alone the cruel and unforgiving one encountered by common agriculturalists since time immemorial. Their world was one of rapid and widespread income growth. And these unprecedentedly prosperous conditions engendered a shift in the postwar generation’s values: When the boomers reached maturity, an exceptionally large share of the cohort evinced post-material priorities and espoused tolerance for out-groups, support for gender equality, concern for the environment, and antipathy for social hierarchies.

Since this transformation in values wasn’t rooted merely in the passage of time — but rather in the experience of abundance — it did not impact all social classes equally. Educated professionals are disproportionately likely to have had stable, middle-class childhoods. Thus, across the West, the post-material minority was disproportionately composed of college graduates in general and elite ones in particular. As Inglehart reported in 1981 , “among those less than 35 years old with jobs that lead to top management and top civil-service posts, Post-Materialists outnumber Materialists decisively: their numerical preponderance here is even greater than it is among students.”  

As with most big-picture models of political development, Inglehart’s theory is reductive and vulnerable to myriad objections. But his core premise — that, all else being equal, material abundance favors social liberalism while scarcity favors the opposite — has much to recommend it. As the World Values Survey has demonstrated, a nation’s degree of social liberalism (a.k.a. “self-expression values”) tightly correlates with its per-capita income. Meanwhile, as nations become wealthier, each successive generation tends to become more socially liberal than the previous one.

Critically, the World Values Survey data does not show an ineluctable movement toward ever-greater levels of social liberalism. Rather, when nations backslide economically, their populations’ progressivism declines. In the West, recessions have tended to reduce the prevalence of post-material values and increase support for xenophobic parties. But the relationship between material security and cultural liberalism is demonstrated most starkly by the experience of ex-communist states, many of which suffered a devastating collapse in living standards following the Soviet Union’s fall. In Russia and much of Eastern Europe, popular support for culturally progressive values plummeted around 1990 and has remained depressed ever since.

Inglehart’s theory offers real insights. As an account of education polarization, however, it presents a bit of a puzzle: If material security is the key driver of social liberalism, why have culture wars bifurcated electorates along lines of education instead of income? Put differently: Despite the material security provided by a high salary, when one controls for educational attainment, having a high income remains strongly associated with voting for conservatives.

One way to resolve this tension is to stipulate that the first two theories of education polarization we examined are also right: While material security is conducive to social liberalism, the college experience and demands of professional-class vocations are perhaps even more so. Thus, high-income voters who did not go to college will tend to be less socially liberal than those who did.

Separately, earning a high income is strongly associated with holding conservative views on fiscal policy. Therefore, even if the experience of material security biases high-income voters toward left-of-center views on cultural issues, their interest in low taxes may nevertheless compel them to vote for right-wing parties.

Voters with high levels of education but low incomes, meanwhile, are very often children of the middle class who made dumb career choices like, say, going into journalism. Such voters’ class backgrounds would theoretically bias them toward a socially liberal orientation, while their meager earnings would give them little reason to value conservative fiscal policy. Perhaps for this reason, “ high-education low-income voters ” are among the most reliably left-wing throughout the western world.

In any case, whatever qualifications and revisions we would wish to make to Inglehart’s theory, one can’t deny its prescience. In 1971, Inglehart forecast that intergenerational value change would redraw the lines of political conflict throughout the West. In his telling, the emergence of a novel value orientation that was disproportionately popular with influential elites would naturally shift the terrain of political conflict. And it would do so in a manner that undermined materialist, class-based voting: If conventional debates over income distribution pulled at the affluent right and the working-class left, the emerging cultural disputes pulled each in the opposite direction.

This proved to be, in the words of Gabriel Almond, “one of the few examples of successful prediction in political science.”

When the culture wars moved to the center of politics, the college educated moved left.

Whether we attribute the social liberalism of college graduates to their experiences on campus, their class’s incentive structures, their relative material security, or a combination of all three, a common set of predictions about western political development follows.

First, we would expect to see the political salience of cultural conflicts start to increase in the 1960s and ’70s as educated professionals became a mass force in western politics. Second, relatedly, we would expect that the historic correlation between having a college degree and voting for the right would start gradually eroding around the same time, owing to the heightened prominence of social issues.

Finally, we would expect education polarization to be most pronounced in countries where (1) economic development is most advanced (and thus the professional sector is most expansive) and (2) left-wing and right-wing parties are most sharply divided on cultural questions.

In their paper “Changing Political Cleavages in 21 Western Democracies, 1948–2020,” Amory Gethin, Clara Martínez-Toledano, and Thomas Piketty confirm all of these expectations.

The paper analyzes nearly every manifesto (a.k.a. “platform”) put forward by left-wing and right-wing parties in the past 300 elections. As anticipated by Inglehart, the researchers found that right-wing and left-wing parties began to develop distinct positions on “sociocultural” issues in the 1970s and that these distinctions grew steadily more profound over the ensuing 50 years. Thus, the salience of cultural issues did indeed increase just as college graduates became an electorally significant demographic.

As cultural conflict became more prominent, educated professionals became more left-wing. Controlling for other variables, in the mid-20th century, having a college diploma made one more likely to vote for parties of the right. By 2020, in virtually all of the western democracies, this relationship had inverted.

Some popular narratives attribute this realignment to discrete historical events, such as the Cold War’s end, China’s entry into the WTO, or the 2008 crash. But the data show no sudden reversal in education’s political significance. Instead, the authors write, the West saw “a very progressive, continuous reversal of educational divides, which unfolded decades before any of these events took place and has carried on uninterruptedly until today.” This finding is consistent with the notion that class dealignment is driven by gradual changes in western societies’ demographic and economic characteristics, such as the steady expansion of the professional class.

The paper provides further support for the notion that education polarization is a by-product of economic development: The three democracies where college-educated voters have not moved sharply to the left in recent decades — Ireland, Portugal, and Spain — are all relative latecomers to industrialization.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the authors established a strong correlation between “sociocultural polarization” — the degree to which right-wing and left-wing parties emphasize sharply divergent cultural positions — and education polarization. In other words: Countries where parties are highly polarized on social issues tend to have electorates that are highly polarized along educational lines.

It seems reasonable then to conclude (1) that there really is a cultural divide between educated professionals and the working class in the aggregate and (2) that this gap has been a key driver of class dealignment. Indeed, if we accept the reality of the diploma divide, then an increase of education-based voting over the past 50 years would seem almost inevitable: If you have two social groups with distinct cultural values and one group goes from being 4 percent of the electorate to 35 percent of it, debates about those values will probably become more politically prominent.

And of course, mass higher education wasn’t the only force increasing the salience of social conflict in the West over the past half-century. If economic development increased the popularity of “post-material” values, it also made it easier for marginalized groups to contest traditional hierarchies. As job opportunities for women expanded, they became less dependent on the patriarchal family for material security and thus were more liable to challenge it. As racial minorities secured a foothold in the middle class, they had more resources with which to fight discrimination.

And yet, if an increase in sociocultural polarization — and thus in education polarization — is a foregone conclusion, the magnitude of these shifts can’t be attributed to the existence of cultural divides alone.

Rather, transformations in the economic, civic, and media landscapes of western society since the 1970s have increased the salience and severity of the diploma divide.

When the postwar bargain collapsed, the center-left failed to secure workers a new deal.

To polarize an electorate around cultural conflicts rooted in education, you don’t just need to increase the salience of social issues. You also need to reduce the salience of material disputes rooted in class. Alas, the economic developments of the past 50 years managed to do both.

The class-based alignment that defined western politics in the mid-20th century emerged from a particular set of economic conditions. In the early stages of industrialization, various factors had heightened the class consciousness of wage laborers. Such workers frequently lived in densely settled, class-segregated neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity of large labor-intensive plants. This close proximity cultivated solidarity, as divisions between the laborer’s working and social worlds were few. And the vast scale of industrial enterprises abetted organizing drives, as trade unions could rapidly gain scale by winning over a single shop.

By encouraging their members to view politics through the lens of class and forcing political elites to reckon with workers’ demands, strong trade unions helped to keep questions of income distribution and workers’ rights at the center of political debate and the forefront of voters’ minds. In so doing, they also helped to win western workers in general — and white male ones in particular — unprecedented shares of national income.

But this bargain between business and labor had always been contingent on robust growth. In the postwar era of rising productivity, it was possible for profits and wages to increase in tandem. But in the 1970s, western economies came under stress. Rising energy costs and global competition thinned profit margins, rendering business owners more hostile to labor’s demands both within the shop and in politics. Stagflation — the simultaneous appearance of high unemployment and high inflation — gave an opening to right-wing critics of the postwar order, who argued that the welfare state and pro-labor macroeconomic policies had sapped productivity.

Meanwhile, various long-term economic trends began undermining industrial unionism. Automation inevitably reduced the labor intensity of factories in the West. The advent of the shipping container eased the logistical burdens of globalizing production, while the industrialization of low-wage developing countries increased the incentives for doing so. Separately, as western consumers grew more affluent, they began spending less of their income on durable goods and more on services like health care (one needs only so many toasters, but the human desire for greater longevity and physical well-being is nigh-insatiable). These developments reduced both the economic leverage and the political weight of industrial workers. And since western service sectors had lower rates of unionization, deindustrialization weakened organized labor.

All this presented center-left parties with a difficult challenge. In the face of deindustrialization, an increasingly anti-labor corporate sector, an increasingly conservative economic discourse, an embattled union movement, and a globalizing economy, such parties needed to formulate new models for achieving shared prosperity. And they had to do so while managing rising cultural tensions within their coalitions.

They largely failed.

Countering the postindustrial economy’s tendencies toward inequality would have required radical reforms. Absent policies promoting the unionization of the service sector, deindustrialization inevitably weakened labor. Absent drastic changes in the allocation of posttax income, automation and globalization redistributed economic gains away from “low skill” workers and toward the most productive — or well-situated — professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs.

The United States had more power than any western nation to standardize such reforms and establish a relatively egalitarian postindustrial model. Yet the Democratic Party could muster neither the political will nor the imagination to do so. Instead, under Jimmy Carter, it acquiesced to various policies that reinforced the postindustrial economy’s tendencies toward inequality, while outsourcing key questions of economic management to financial markets and the Federal Reserve. The Reagan administration took this inegalitarian and depoliticized model of economic governance to new extremes. And to highly varying degrees, its inequitable and market-fundamentalist creed influenced the policies of future U.S. administrations and other western governments.

As a result, the past five decades witnessed a great divergence in the economic fortunes of workers with and without college diplomas, while the western working class (a.k.a. the “lower middle class”) became the primary “losers” of globalization .

The center-left parties’ failures to avert a decline in the economic security and status of ordinary workers discredited them with much of their traditional base. And their failure to reinvigorate organized labor undermined the primary institutions that politicize workers into a progressive worldview. These shortcomings, combined with the market’s increasingly dominant role in economic management, reduced the political salience of left-right divides on economic policy. This in turn gave socially conservative working-class voters fewer reasons to vote for center-left parties and gave affluent social liberals fewer reasons to oppose them. In western nations where organized labor remains relatively strong (such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland), education polarization has been relatively mild, while in those countries where it is exceptionally weak (such as the United States), the phenomenon has been especially pronounced.

Finally, the divergent economic fortunes of workers and professionals might have abetted education polarization in one other way: Given that experiencing abundance encourages social liberalism — while experiencing scarcity discourages it — the past half-century of inequitable growth might have deepened cultural divisions between workers with degrees and those without.

The professionalization of civil society estranged the left from its working-class base.

While the evolution of western economies increased the class distance between college graduates and other workers, the evolution of western civil societies increased the social distance between each group.

Back in the mid-20th century, the college educated still constituted a tiny minority of western populations, while mass-membership institutions — from trade unions to fraternal organizations to political parties — still dominated civic life. In that context, an educated professional who wished to exercise political influence often needed to join a local chapter of a cross-class civic association or political party and win election to a leadership position within that organization by securing the confidence of its membership.

That changed once educated professionals became a mass constituency in their own right. As the college-educated population ballooned and concentrated itself within urban centers, it became easier for interest groups to swing elections and pressure lawmakers without securing working-class support. At the same time, the proliferation of “knowledge workers” set off an arms race between interest and advocacy groups looking to influence national legislation and election outcomes. Job opportunities for civic-minded professionals in think tanks, nonprofits, and foundations proliferated. And thanks to growing pools of philanthropic money and the advent of direct-mail fundraising, these organizations could sustain themselves without recruiting an active mass membership.

Thus, the professional’s path to political influence dramatically changed. Instead of working one’s way up through close-knit local groups — and bending them toward one’s political goals through persuasion — professionals could join (or donate to) nationally oriented advocacy groups already aligned with their preferences, which could then advance their policy aims by providing legislators with expert guidance and influencing public opinion through media debates.

As the political scientist Theda Skocpol demonstrates in her book Diminished Democracy , college graduates began defecting from mass-membership civic organizations in the 1970s, in an exodus that helped precipitate their broader decline.

Combined with the descent of organized labor, the collapse of mass participation in civic groups and political parties untethered the broad left from working-class constituencies. As foundation-funded NGOs displaced trade unions in the progressive firmament, left-wing parties became less directly accountable to their less-educated supporters. This made such parties more liable to embrace the preferences and priorities of educated professionals over those of the median working-class voter.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a thriving civic culture, voters became increasingly reliant on the mass media for their political information.

Today’s media landscape is fertile terrain for right-wing populism.

The dominant media technology of the mid-20th century — broadcast television — favored oligopoly. Given the exorbitant costs of mounting a national television network in that era, the medium was dominated by a small number of networks, each with an incentive to appeal to a broad audience. This discouraged news networks from cultivating cultural controversy while empowering them to establish a broadly shared information environment.

Cable and the internet have molded a radically different media landscape. Today, news outlets compete in a hypersaturated attentional market that encourages both audience specialization and sensationalism. In a world where consumers have abundant infotainment options, voters who read at a graduate-school level and those who read at an eighth-grade level are unlikely to favor the same content. And the same is true of voters with liberal and conservative sensibilities — especially since the collapse of a common media ecosystem leads ideologues to occupy disparate factual universes. The extraordinary nature of today’s media ecology is well illustrated by this chart from Martin Gurri’s book, The Revolt of the Public :

This information explosion abets education polarization for straightforward reasons: Since the college educated and non-college educated have distinct tastes in media, in a highly competitive attentional market, they will patronize different outlets and accept divergent facts.

Further, in the specific economic and social context we’ve been examining, the modern media environment is fertile terrain for reactionary entrepreneurs who wish to cultivate grievance against the professional elite. After all, as we’ve seen, that elite (1) subscribes to some values that most working-class people reject, (2) commandeers a wildly disproportionate share of national income and economic status, and (3) dominates the leadership of major political parties and civic groups to an unprecedented degree.

The political efficacy of such right-wing “populist” programming has been repeatedly demonstrated. Studies have found that exposure to Fox News increases Republican vote share and that the expansion of broadband internet into rural areas leads to higher levels of partisan hostility and lower levels of ticket splitting (i.e., more ideologically consistent voting) as culturally conservative voters gain access to more ideologically oriented national news reporting, commentary, and forums.

What is to be done?

The idea that education polarization arises from deep structural tendencies in western society may inspire a sense of powerlessness. And the notion that it emerges in part from a cultural divide between professionals and working people may invite ideological discomfort, at least among well-educated liberals.

But the fact that some center-left parties have managed to retain more working-class support than others suggests that the Democrats have the capacity to broaden (or narrow) their coalition. Separately, the fact that college-educated liberals have distinct social values does not require us to forfeit them.

The commentators most keen to acknowledge the class dimensions of the culture wars typically aim to discredit the left by doing so. Right-wing polemicists often suggest that progressives’ supposedly compassionate social preferences are mere alibis for advancing the professional class’s material interests. But such arguments are almost invariably weak. Progressive social views may be consonant with professional-class interests, but they typically represent attempts to universalize widely held ideals of freedom and equality. The college educated’s cosmopolitan inclinations are also adaptive for a world that is unprecedentedly interconnected and interdependent and in which population asymmetries between the rich and developing worlds create opportunities for mutual gain through migration , if only xenophobia can be overcome. And of course, in an era of climate change, the professional class’s strong concern for the environment is more than justified.

Nevertheless, professional-class progressives must recognize that our social values are not entirely unrelated to our class position. They are not an automatic by-product of affluence and erudition, nor the exclusive property of the privileged. But humans living in rich, industrialized nations are considerably more likely to harbor these values than those in poor, agrarian ones. And Americans who had the privilege of spending their late adolescence at institutions of higher learning are more likely to embrace social liberalism than those who did not.

The practical implications of this insight are debatable. It is plausible that Democrats may be able to gain working-class vote share by moderating on some social issues. But the precise electoral payoff of any single concession to popular opinion is deeply uncertain. Voters’ conceptions of each party’s ideological positioning are often informed less by policy details than by partisan stereotypes. And the substantive costs of moderation — both for the welfare of vulnerable constituencies and the long-term health of the progressive project — can be profound. At various points in the past half-century, it might have been tactically wise for Democrats to distance themselves from the demands of organized labor. But strategically, sacrificing the health of a key partisan institution to the exigencies of a single election cycle is deeply unwise. Meanwhile, in the U.S. context, the “mainstream” right has staked out some cultural positions that are profoundly unpopular with all social classes . In 2022, it is very much in the Democratic Party’s interest to increase the political salience of abortion rights.

In any case, exactly how Democrats should balance the necessity of keeping the GOP out of power with the imperative to advocate for progressive issue positions is something on which earnest liberals can disagree.

The case for progressives to be more cognizant of the diploma divide when formulating our messaging and policy priorities, however, seems clearer.

Education polarization can be self-reinforcing. As left-wing civic life has drifted away from mass-membership institutions and toward the ideologically self-selecting circles of academia, nonprofits, and the media, the left’s sensitivity to the imperatives of majoritarian politics has dulled. In some respects, the incentives for gaining status and esteem within left-wing subcultures are diametrically opposed to the requirements of coalition building. In the realm of social media, it can be advantageous to make one’s policy ideas sound more radical and/or threatening to popular values than they actually are. Thus, proposals for drastically reforming flawed yet popular institutions are marketed as plans for their “abolition,” while some advocates for reproductive rights insist that they are not merely “pro-choice” but “ pro-abortion ” (as though their objective were not to maximize bodily autonomy but rather the incidence of abortion itself, a cause that would seemingly require limiting access to contraception).

Meanwhile, the rhetoric necessary for cogently theorizing social problems within academia — and that fit for effectively selling policy reforms to a mass audience — is quite different. Political-science research indicates that theoretical abstractions tend to leave most voters cold. Even an abstraction as accessible as “inequality” resonates less with ordinary people than simply saying that the rich have too much money . Yet Democratic politicians have nevertheless taken to peppering their speeches with abstract academic terms such as structural racism .

Relatedly, in the world of nonprofits, policy wonks are often encouraged to foreground the racial implications of race-neutral redistributive policies that disproportionately benefit nonwhite constituencies. Although it is important for policy design to account for any latent racial biases in universal programs, there is reason to believe that, in a democracy with a 70 percent white electorate and widespread racial resentment, it is unwise for Democratic politicians to suggest that broadly beneficial programs primarily aid minority groups.

On the level of priority setting, it seems important for college-educated liberals to be conscious of the fact that “post-material” concerns resonate more with us than with the general public. This is especially relevant for climate strategy. Poll results and election outcomes both indicate that working-class voters are far more sensitive to the threat of rising energy prices than to that of climate change. Given that reality, the most politically viable approach to reducing emissions is likely to expedite the development and deployment of clean-energy technologies rather than deterring energy consumption through higher prices. In practice, this means prioritizing the build-out of green infrastructure over the obstruction of fossil-fuel extraction.

Of course, narrowing the social distance between college-educated liberals and working people would be even better than merely finessing it. The burgeoning unionization of white-collar professions and the growing prominence of downwardly mobile college graduates in working-class labor struggles are both encouraging developments on this front. Whatever Democrats can do to facilitate labor organizing and increase access to higher education will simultaneously advance social justice and improve the party’s long-term electoral prospects.

Finally, the correlation between material security and social liberalism underscores the urgency of progressive economic reform. Shared prosperity can be restored only by increasing the social wage of ordinary workers through some combination of unionization, sectoral bargaining, wage subsidies, and social-welfare expansion. To some extent, this represents a chicken-and-egg problem: Radical economic reforms may be a necessary precondition for the emergence of a broad progressive majority, yet a broad progressive majority is itself a precondition for radical reform.

Nevertheless, in wealthy, deep-blue states such as New York and California, Democrats have the majorities necessary for establishing a progressive economic model. At the moment, artificial constraints on the housing supply , clean-energy production, and other forms of development are sapping blue states’ economic potential . If such constraints could be overcome, the resulting economic gains would simultaneously increase working people’s living standards and render state-level social-welfare programs easier to finance. Perhaps the starting point for such a political revolution is for more-affluent social liberals to recognize that their affinity for exclusionary housing policies and aversion to taxation undermines their cultural values.

Our understanding of education polarization remains provisional. And all proposals for addressing it remain open to debate. The laws of political science are more conjectural than those of physics, and even perfect insight into political reality cannot settle disputes rooted in ideology.

But effective political engagement requires unblinkered vision. The Democratic Party’s declining support among working-class voters is a serious problem. If Democrats consider only ideologically convenient explanations for that problem, our intellectual comfort may come at the price of political power.

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