About

UK Ocean Digital Twinning is a project investigating digital twinning as a tool for increasing inclusivity in marine science.

This project is led by a subset of the Challenger Society EIDA working group and funded by NERC’s making environmental science equal, diverse, and inclusive programme.

Image: Isa Rosso

Project overview

Our project intends to investigate perceptions about the requirements for field-based work in marine science and increase awareness of digital twinning as a way of improving access to this discipline for individuals from historically excluded groups. Fieldwork is often perceived to be a requirement throughout marine science, and offshore fieldwork is typically a way of gaining experience to be competitive in this discipline.

However, because of the close confines of a ship or research station and the time spent away from home, this experience can be limiting to those from diverse backgrounds, particularly related to ethnicity, disability, gender identity and socio-economic characteristics, and those with caring responsibilities. Through investigating the potential of digital twinning to facilitate remote participation, we hope to increase equality of opportunities to those who would otherwise be excluded from offshore fieldwork.

What is digital twinning of the oceans?

Digital twinning aims to replicate a physical object or process, usually in real time. In the context of our project, we are driven by a desire to make traditional offshore fieldwork more inclusive by allowing those who can’t go to sea to work with marine science data remotely. This could be in the form of remote sensors (e.g. on Argo floats), live streaming of underway shipboard data, or through the integration of real time modelling to aid decision making.

Aims of the project:

• Activity 1: Evidence gathering to understand to what extent potential marine scientists perceive fieldwork as a requirement for career progression.

As part of our perceptions investigation we will conduct semi-structured interviews with undergraduate and PhD students to understand the barriers they feel may prevent them from pursuing a career in marine science. This will be supplemented with a systematic review of related job vacancies to compare perceived career requirements to those advertised. Additionally we will review the extent to which requirements are communicated implicitly in promotional materials through an image analysis study of marine science websites and resources.

• Activity 2: Community engagement and memorandum of understanding.

We will engage with the marine science community through a series of seminar and round table events. The purpose of these events are to a) disseminate the findings of activity 1, b) begin a conversation about the role we can all play in creating a more inclusive discipline, for example by helping to facilitate digital twinning, and c) to share examples of successful digital twinning initiatives.

Through discussion of our findings with established marine scientists at round table events, we hope to develop a memorandum of understanding on EDIA best practice between UK marine science institutions. This will be written such that it provides a basis for institutions to continuing researching and investing in digital technologies to facilitate inclusivity beyond the lifetime of this project.

• Activity 3: Online course development

The results of both activities will feed into an interactive, self-guided online short course directed at established scientists, structured around three learning units: 1) Examples of digital twinning and available data sources, 2) What the perceptions of entry into the discipline are and 3) Examples of practice aligning with the MoU that are more inclusive than traditional remote fieldwork.