Dr. Tiffany Smythe, Visiting Professor in Marine Affairs and MAF PhD (2011), recently published an article on the New England regional ocean planning network in Ocean and Coastal Management Journal. The article reports the results of a social network analysis performed on this group of practitioners and stakeholders, and is timely given that the Northeast Regional Ocean Plan (http://neoceanplanning.org/plan/) developed by this group was released earlier this fall. This analysis was performed to investigate whether this network demonstrates the inter-organizational collaboration and integration that is integral to the marine spatial planning (MSP) approach and thus to meaningfully improve regional ocean governance. Results suggest that this network is large, decentralized, diverse, and of low-density, thus well-equipped to solve complex boundary-spanning problems like the management of ocean space. Influential network members were found to include representatives of intergovernmental regional ocean partnerships, state government agencies, non-governmental organizations, federal government agencies and universities. Conversely, local governments, ocean users, and industry representatives were either entirely absent from or of exerted little influence within the network. Study results indicate that horizontal and vertical collaboration are being facilitated by this network but that collaboration could be improved through greater participation by these groups.

To read the full article, please visit https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1T-Rd3RKK-YTpN or contact the author directly at tsmythe@crc.uri.edu.