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Short abstract:

This contribution explicates the knowledge practices that underpin the production of the various forms of advice (Fisheries Advice, Ecosystem Advice, Special Requests) produced by one of the most influential international marine science organizations – ICES.

Long abstract:

My contribution focuses on what Borie et al. (2021) call “institutional epistemologies” within scientific advisory organizations. Drawing upon their study, I provide insights into the knowledge practices of the “world’s first intergovernmental marine science organization” (Rozwadowski, 2004, p. 42, 2002) – an organization that De Donà & Linke (2023) even call “the IPCC of the oceans”, namely ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea). I elaborate on ICES’s scoping practices (how is legitimate participation in knowledge creation enacted?), its standardization practices (how is commensurability, e.g., of concepts or futuring modes, enacted?), its representational practices (how is knowledge given form?), and its public practices (how are knowledge and data shared?).

My data come from about 30 qualitative interviews with representatives of ICES as well as its neighboring organizations (e.g., Advice Requesters, National Fisheries Institutes, Ministries), that I conducted during the last year, and event ethnography of scientific as well as committee meetings conducted as part of the ICES’s Annual Science Conference 2023 (09/23).

Building on previous STS as well as non-STS work on ICES (Ballesteros et al., 2018; Ballesteros & Dickey-Collas, 2023; Cvitanovic et al., 2024; Cvitanovic, Mackay, et al., 2021; Cvitanovic, Shellock, et al., 2021; e.g., Nielsen, 2008; Wilson, 2009), I theorize that ICES is currently experiencing a fundamental controversy over its knowledge practices: The legacy of the stock assessment approach pulls toward a “view from nowhere” (similar to IPCC), while the ecosystem approach calls for a shift to a “view from everywhere” (similar to IPBES).