Workplace Safety for Ocean Sciences: A workshop toward coordination of policies and best practices to address sexual harassment in ocean science field research; Washington DC 2020

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Field research is a central component to the advancement of ocean science research, and most members of the future academic ocean science workforce are trained in field settings. Therefore, field safety is an important topic for the ocean science community. A recent study (Clancy et al. 2014) found that women students and postdocs were often targets of sexual harassment in field locations, and the offenders were predominantly their superiors within the research team. A consensus study report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM 2018) identified sexual harassment as a major factor in creating hostile work environments that reduced the participation of women in the academic workforce. To address the issues of harassment and workplace safety effectively, the ocean science community needs a coordinated effort to identify best practices and to ensure that these policies and practices are implemented appropriately in all settings, but particularly in remote settings such as marine labs and aboard ships. The proposed workshop will be an important step in identifying best practices, developing a community consensus on how to implement these practices, and disseminating information about the effort to the ocean sciences community. The Consortium on Ocean Leadership (COL) will organize and convene a two-day workshop for about thirty partcipants to focus specifically on the ocean science field research environments and ocean science community. It is informed by prior research on this topic and will take the next step toward addressing the problem of sexual harassment of women within the ocean sciences community by building consensus toward a set of policies and best practices and developing a roadmap for consistent implementation of them across the ocean sciences. The workshop will: communicate best practice recommendations of prior research to the ocean science community; discuss which recommendations are most relevant and feasible for oceanographic vessels, marine laboratories, and other coastal and oceanographic field settings; and draft a roadmap for more consistent and coordinated implementation of those recommendations and policies. COL will convene representatives from the oceanographic community who set and enforce policies at coastal field stations, marine labs, and research vessels, including the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML) and UNOLS, as well as representatives who are impacted by these policies. The effort will advance consistent policy and practice changes to improve prevention of sexual harassment and to improve workplace safety. This effort will be an important contribution to the continued success of oceanographic research in the U.S. and will support the goals of the Division of Ocean sciences to develop a diverse workforce and to ensure safe working environments for all researchers, students and staff who participate in NSF-funded research projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.