The Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI) has joined Ocean Visions as a Research Consortium Member to contribute ocean science expertise and ocean assets towards solving some of the largest challenges in oceans and climate. The OFI, a transnational Canadian organization housed at Dalhousie University and Memorial University, Canada, leads at the frontier of ocean research to inform ocean policy and industry to develop a sustainable blue economy. The OFI will join Ocean Visions, together with leading academic institutions such as Georgia Tech, MIT, and WHOI, and impact partners such as Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) and AGU, to design and advance solutions to the growing crisis in our ocean and climate.
Ocean Visions connects research institutions, governments, investors, and industry to collaborate on the development, testing, and deployment of scalable and equitable solutions at the ocean-climate nexus with a specific focus on three grand challenges - reversing the climate crisis in the ocean, building resilient coastal systems and communities, and building a climate-resilient aquatic food system.
“Ocean Visions brings a clear focus to the science supporting ocean carbon dioxide removal. This is critically important as we seek to build robust and credible carbon mitigation strategies helping the world reach our global net-zero goals. The Ocean Frontier Institute’s focus on excellent observation of the ocean’s carbon baseline supports this work and brings to it broad Canadian expertise in carbon absorption, and a rich international discourse,” said Dr. Anya Waite, CEO of OFI.
Ocean Visions’ goals are well aligned with OFI’s leadership in global carbon observation initiatives and the OFI Large Research Projects in atmosphere-ocean interactions, auditing the Northwest Atlantic carbon sink, improving sustainability of aquaculture, and predicting the future of ocean and coastal infrastructure.
In the near term, OFI scientists will have the opportunity to collaborate and contribute to the Ocean Visions Launchpad program supporting science and industry teams that are developing technology and commercial solutions for ocean-based carbon dioxide removal and competing in the $100M XPRIZE for Carbon Removal, supported by the Musk Foundation.
“The solutions proposed by the Ocean Visions Launchpad teams are massively innovative and provide a peek into the future of global climate solutions. These teams will be enabled through the ocean science, modelling, instrumentation, and operational capabilities of OFI researchers and other members of the Ocean Visions community,” said Eric Siegel, OFI Executive in Residence.
