Message from the Communications Office: Achieving More Together with Cross-Society Collaborations

Abstract

One of my favorite aspects of my role as Communications and Program Manager at ASLO is having the opportunity to work with other professional science societies on a range of important topics. I was excited to find that the same collaborative spirit in the aquatic science research community was present among the professional societies' staff, leadership, and volunteers. In fact, ASLO is member of the Consortium of Aquatic Science Societies (CASS; www.aquaticsocieties.org), a group of ten societies that regularly meets to discuss emerging issues in science and our societies. CASS began in 2010 as a collaboration between ASLO and three other societies, working very extensively on policy. Over the years, CASS has had an evolving scope and has grown to ten participating societies, with the most recent addition, the Society of Canadian Aquatic Sciences, joining this year. In addition, ASLO has enjoyed a long and successful collaboration with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and The Oceanography Society (TOS) to put together one of the largest meetings in the ocean science community, the Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM). So much has been going on in the way of these cross-society collaborations that I thought I would share a few updates.

Policy: CASS represents the voices of >20,000 aquatic science professionals worldwide. Therefore, we can make a bigger impact, and encompass more expertise and resources within our memberships, together. One area where we can leverage this collective impact is in advocating for science-based environmental policies. Over the years, CASS has collaborated on a number of policy activities—writing joint position statements, hosting briefings, and more—on aquatic science issues usually focused in the United States. Most recently, the CASS societies have worked on issues related to the Clean Water Act (CWA) in the United States. In 2022 CASS, along with a number of other science societies, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Sackett vs. Environmental Protection Agency to support a science-based definition of “Waters of the United States” that are protected by the CWA. You can see a list of these policy activities on our website: https://www.aslo.org/public-policy/advocacy-activities/.

ASLO also routinely works with the OSM societies to run events on policy for students and Early Career Researchers at the Ocean Sciences Meetings. These include workshops on communicating with policymakers and panels about policy careers. If you are attending OSM 2024 in New Orleans, we hope you will check them out!

Meetings: Joint meetings between societies are a wonderful opportunity to put these long-standing collaborations into action. They are a great way to bring our unique memberships together to advance the field through networking and interdisciplinary sessions. CASS has sponsored the Joint Aquatic Science Meeting (JASM) twice so far—the first in 2014 and the latest one in 2022. The meeting in 2022 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, gathered together over 3400 attendees that collectively gave >2600 presentations in >140 unique sessions—online and in-person. And, as mentioned above, we are looking forward to another successful Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, this February!

DEIJA in Aquatic Science: In recent years, CASS has been very active in collaborating on advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and accessibility (DEIJA) within our societies and the field of aquatic science more broadly through a dedicated working group. The working group successfully obtained funding from the National Science Foundation to hold a workshop at JASM 2022 that brought together society leadership, volunteers, and staff with a professional facilitator to discuss where the societies can work collectively to make strides in advancing DEIJA and share best practices. The workshop was also a kick-off to the CASS group taking part in the ACCESS+ (https://accessplusstem.com/) program. Stay tuned for future updates on the next stages of this work!

Recently, I had the honor of working with representatives of TOS, AGU, the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, and the American Meteorological Society on an article for a special issue of Oceanography Magazine—“Building Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Ocean Sciences.” In the article, we dive into various society functions and what our organizations are doing within those functions to advance DEIJA, and where we have opportunities for growth (see Meyer-Gutbrod et al. 2023). Check out the article and all the great content from across the ocean science community in the open-access special issue here: https://tos.org/oceanography/issue/volume-36-issue-4.

Do you have an idea that you would like to see the aquatic societies work on together? Email the ASLO Communications Office at [email protected]!