OSPAR is the mechanism through which fifteen governments and the European Union cooperate to protect the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic. Its structures have developed over three decades. OSPAR's Governance Group commissioned ERC to carry out an independent review of how its governance arrangements work, and to identify practical options for improving them.

Our approach

We used a mixed-methods approach to build a robust evidence base:

• an online survey of OSPAR participants (86 responses across four stakeholder groups);
• structured discussions with OSPAR's five thematic committees;
• 15 key informant interviews; and
• a validation workshop with the OSPAR Secretariat.

Our findings report looked at OSPAR's governance bodies and at how they operate, including decision-making, prioritisation, resources, transparency and cross-committee coordination.

From these findings we produced an options report. It sets out 39 options across 13 governance issues, each appraised for benefit, ease of implementation, risks and consequences. We mapped the interdependencies between options and grouped them into six clusters, giving OSPAR a clearer view of which reforms support one another and where trade-offs lie.

In October 2026 we designed and facilitated a two-day workshop with Contracting Parties, committee chairs and observers to test the options and clusters and to help prioritise routes to change.

Outputs

• Findings report and survey analysis annex
• Governance options report with interdependency analysis
• Workshop design, facilitation materials and workshop report as an annex to the Options report