Marine Governance Performance Assessment in PERMAGOV Case Studies

PERMAGOV approach to assessing marine governance performance adopts an agency-oriented perspective, which focuses on how actors work together, use resources, and are enabled by policies in moving towards realization of EGD objectives.

Our suite of Policy Briefs demonstrates that governance performance across European Seas is influenced by a broad spectrum of actors operating within and across multiple governance scales, including actors from outside the EU. While this array of governance actors presents opportunities for bringing diverse knowledge and expertise into governance arrangements, our Policy Briefs also indicate that marine governance performance is constrained by fragmented and siloed approaches to implementing EGD objectives.

For example, Policy Briefs 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8 highlighted governance challenges arising from limited connectivity and coordination between governance actors. This is sometimes exacerbated by mismatches between the scale of the issue area and the scale of the governance system, as indicated in Policy Briefs 1 and 5. What is more, weak collaboration between governance actors and inadequate stakeholder engagement processes were highlighted in Policy Briefs 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8.

Thus, EU marine governance performance can be understood as closely tied to institutional attributes that connect actors within and across tiers of governance and shape how knowledge exchange and social learning occurs, as well as the collaborative dynamics within the governance arrangement that build trust amongst governance actors and enhance capacity for joint action.

• Case 1: Addressing governance challenges for the EU ETS in shipping

• Case 2: Recommendations on port actor connectivity

• Case 3 & 8: Matching environmental issues to sustainable governance bodies in the Baltic Sea

• Case 4: Beyond 'paper' MPAs in Italy

• Case 5: Regional governance for a sustainable floating offshore wind (FLOW) industry in the UK's Celtic Sea

• Case 5: Accelerating the delivery of offshore wind energy in Ireland's maritime area

• Case 6: A strategy for Europe's resilient and socially just energy transition to 2050 - Energy Islands as part of the solution

• Case 7: Providing for co-existence between ocean wind energy and nature in Norway