29 April 2025
Originally published on UNESCO-IOC website
This story is a part of the GenOcean campaign — an official Ocean Decade campaign showcasing Decade Actions, collaborating organizations and ocean leaders that focus on youth and citizen science opportunities to help anyone, anywhere be the change the ocean needs.
At the dawn of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030, the Ocean Decade, a powerful idea emerged from an overlooked gap. During the First Global Planning Meeting in May 2019, hosted by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission – the Decade’s coordinating agency – in Copenhagen, Denmark, a group of early-career ocean professionals (ECOPs) recognized the lack of representation of their peers in shaping the future of ocean science. Refusing to be sidelined or tokenized, they united to ensure that the next generation of ocean leaders had a voice at the table. Their call for inclusion, equity and global collaboration sparked the creation of the ECOP Programme – an initiative built on the belief that diverse, early-career perspectives are essential to drive transformative change throughout the Ocean Decade and beyond.
While ECOPs were already tackling many of the Decade Challenges individually, it wasn’t until the establishment of the ECOP Programme that they had the structure and intention to set out on that mission as a community. As part of the programme, ECOPs are involved in thematic task teams, hubs and projects in diverse fields contributing to the Ocean Decade all around the world. Since its establishment in 2021, the community has grown exponentially. The original group of 42 ECOPs now boasts over 6,800 members in 166 countries across the globe!
“It’s exciting to see how much we have accomplished since 2021,” says Evgeniia Kostianaia, Global Coordinator of the ECOP Programme. “In 2020 we were working as a small informal group of ECOPs and now we are a large international community. We’re connecting people, fostering cooperation and sharing and providing opportunities for networking, capacity development, funding and career-building. We saw the need to create one platform for early-career researchers where they could get vital information to be able to succeed in their ocean careers, and we filled it. Looking back, we have come a long way to achieve this, and I am excited about the future of the programme.”