Maritime Spatial Planning: Current Practice and Transformative Potentials

Description

Ten years on from the adoption of the EU Directive on Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP), significant progress has been made in the embedding of MSP in national legal, governance and institutional systems and the development of national and regional maritime spatial plans. Yet, serious questions remain concerning the capacity of MSP to act as a mechanism for transformative governance. Can MSP act as a catalyst for cross-sectoral transformation or is the scope of MSP limited to the coordination of the use of sea space within a business-as-usual scenario? What does ecosystem-based MSP mean in practice? How can tensions between blue economy and marine conservation objectives be mitigated and resolved through MSP? How are people engaged in MSP processes? Does MSP reinforce the status quo, or can it promote transformation? This thematic session, organised under the auspices of the Maritime Spatial Planning Research Network (MSPRN), seeks to address these and related questions from critical, empirically and theoretically informed perspectives. We seek to build on and advance conversations initiated at previous MARE conferences (in particular the 2019 session on a critical turn in MSP) and the MSPRN webinar series on MSP Futures. We are interested in furthering discussion on alternative ways of doing MSP and harnessing the transformative potential of strategic spatial planning at sea.

Period	24 Jun 2025
Event title	2025 People & the Sea Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	Amsterdam, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International