ORGANISATION

President

President and CEO of Ifremer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) since September 19, 2018.

General Engineer of Bridges, Waterways, and Forests; member of the French Academy of Technologies and the French Academy of Agriculture.

From September 2016 to September 2018, he was provisional administrator and then president of Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (USPC). As President of USPC, he led the “Université de Paris” excellence initiative, selected in March 2018 as part of the Investissements d’avenir program.

From July 2012 to July 2016, he was Chairman and CEO of the Institut national de la recherche agronomique, having previously held a number of different positions. He chaired the boards of the European Forest Institute (2004-06) and the public interest group Ecosystèmes forestiers (2008-12). He has also chaired the Groupement d’intérêt

Researcher in Green Biotechnology (2010–2013) and, from March 2012 to July 2016, a member of the board of AllEnvi, the National Alliance for Environmental Research.

In 2015 and 2016, he submitted two reports to the French government on research and innovation to 2025 in the agricultural and forestry-wood industries. In February 2016, he also submitted a report to the ministers in charge of National Education, Higher Education and Research, outlining the current state of participatory science in France.

Vice President – Doctor

Specialist in spatial remote sensing of ocean colour.

Outstanding Research Fellow at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK, after having been a Research Fellow at the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa, India, and an Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

From 2000 to 2008, executive director of the international organization POGO(Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans). Strongly involved in helping young researchers and, more generally, in developing countries.

Holder of a doctorate from Pierre and Marie Curie University in the field of marine optics.

She was awarded the Grand Medal of Albert I^er in the Science category for the year 2013, and the Order of Cultural Merit of the Principality of Monaco in 2022.

Secretary – Doctor

Member

Director of Research at the Center for Strategic Studies of the Navy (CESM) at Division for Research, Education, and Outreach of the French Navy.

Professor at Sciences Po in maritime economics.

Editor-in-chief of the journal Études Marines, and author of numerous books, including:

• The (Re)Localization of the World, CNRS-éditions, 2021
• Man and the Sea, CNRS-éditions, 2017
• The Sea: A New Eldorado? (co-dir. avec Claire de Marignan), Documentation française, 2017
• The Empire of the Seas: A Historical Atlas of Maritime France, CNRS-éditions, 2015
• The Earth Is Blue (ed.), Atlas of the Sea in the 21st^century, Les Arènes, 2015
• Atlas of Maritime Empires, CNRS-éditions, 2013

Member

Researcher at the French National Research Institute for Development (IRD) within the MARBEC Joint Research Unit (UMR)

Trained as an agricultural engineer, Eva Maire turned to marine ecology research, earning a Ph.D. at the intersection of ecology and social sciences at the University of Montpellier and James Cook University in Australia.

During her doctoral research, she developed accessibility indices that account for the heterogeneity of the marine environment to quantify human impacts on coral reefs and assessed the importance of these new indices—in conjunction with conservation measures—in explaining variations in fish biomass.

From 2019 to 2024, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in an interdisciplinary research team drawing on both the natural and social sciences at the Lancaster Environment Centre in the United Kingdom. Her research aimed to better understand the impacts of climate change on coral reefs and small-scale fisheries, with a particular focus on food security and the health of coastal communities.

More generally, his research focuses on the interactions between coral reefs and human populations, using both ecological and socio-ecological approaches, and revolves around three main themes: biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of marine resources and climate change. She is also a professional diver.

She received the Oceanographic Institute’s Thesis Award in 2020.

Member – Heritage Curator

Director of the Musée des Confluences, Lyon.

After a first position as curator at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, she was entrusted by the city of Bordeaux with the creation of the Goupil Museum, preserving the collection of this Parisian art publisher active from 1827 to 1920. En 1996, elle assure l’intérim du CAPC, musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, puis est nommée à la direction du musée d’Aquitaine. At the same time, from 1998 to 2000, the Louvre Museum entrusted him with a study mission on the Louvre’s Chalcography collection. In 2005, at Jacques Toubon’s request, she led the project for the Musée national des cultures et de l’histoire de l’immigration in Paris, which opened its doors to the public on October 10, 2007. In January 2010, she became director of the Rhône department’s Gallo-Roman museums (Lyon Fourvière and Saint-Romain en Gal), before being appointed director of the Musée des Confluences in July 2012. The museum that brings science into dialogue to understand human history opens on December 20, 2014.

She is the author of several articles on the Goupil house and on the question of the diffusion of art in the 19th century, as well as a monograph on the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme published by Herscher in 1998.

Member

Founding Director of the Fundación Malpelo y otros Ecosistemas Marinos, whose mission is to promote the protection and conservation of Colombia’s marine and coastal ecosystems while fostering the sustainable management of natural resources.

Former Minister-designate of the Environment, Biodiversity, Water, and Climate Change for Colombia from 2010 to 2012, she represented the country at COP21.

A graduate in Life and Earth Sciences from the École pratique des hautes études and a professional diver, S. Bessudo is recognized for her commitment to ocean and shark conservation. She has led numerous scientific expeditions and research projects. Thanks to her determination, Malpelo Island was declared a wildlife sanctuary by the Colombian government in 1995. In January 2012, she was appointed Director General of Colombia’s Presidential Agency for International Cooperation, and in 2013, she became President of the Colombian Ocean Commission and the Colombian government’s representative to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). She is currently working to establish and promote the network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Eastern Pacific Corridor.

Among the many awards she has received, she was awarded the Albert I^er Prince of Monaco Grand Medal in the Mediation category in 2014.

Member – Doctor

Director of research at the IRD and honorary associate researcher at the University of Cape Town.

She is interested in the role of life history traits, trophic relationships and biodiversity in the resilience of marine ecosystems. It is setting up integrated marine ecosystem models (coord. www.osmose-model.org), quantifying the impacts of fishing and climate change by implementing global change scenarios (coord. FRB Emibios, BiodivERsA Sombee) and biodiversity status indicators (coord. www.indiseas.org, panel www.goosocean.org/biology).

Author coordinator of the IPBES global report on biodiversity and ecosystem services .

Member

Susana Salvador served as Executive Secretary of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Adjacent Atlantic Area (A.C.C.O.B.A.M.S.) from 2020 to 2024.

She holds a university diploma (D.U.) in modern literature as well as a postgraduate degree in law, ethics, and political theory from the University of Lisbon (Portugal). She is also a graduate of the Advanced Maritime Studies program at the Portuguese Catholic University and the National Institute of Administration of Portugal.

Susana Salvador spent part of her career in the Portuguese civil service, working in the fields of international affairs, ocean governance, and, more specifically, fisheries policy and the conservation of marine resources. She has held responsibilities related to the management and conservation of marine resources at various levels—national, regional, European, bilateral, and multilateral—primarily within fisheries management organizations or conventions dedicated to the protection of the seas and oceans.

Susana Salvador also served as Executive Secretary of the Commission established by the Convention for the Protection of the marine environment of the North East (OSPAR Commission) and of the Agreement on cooperation in matters relating to efforts to combat marine pollution in the North Sea caused by oil and other hazardous substances (Bonn Agreement) from 2017 to 2020. (Bonn Agreementfrom 2017 to 2020.

Member

Katja Matthes is Director of the GEOMAR Center < a6>Helmholtz Center for Oceanographic Research in Kiel and Professor of atmospheric physics.

She earned her Ph.D. in meteorology from the Free University of Berlin in 2003 in the Department of Geosciences. During her career, she has conducted research stays in Japan and, as a Marie Curie fellow, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, United States. In 2007, she returned to Germany and held teaching and leadership positions at the Free University of Berlin and at the GFZ (Helmholtz Center Potsdam—German Research Center for Geosciences), where she led a junior research group at the Helmholtz University. In 2012, she joined the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel as a full professor of atmospheric physics.

Since 2020, she has served as director of GEOMAR and as an expert on climate variability and climate change on numerous committees. Katja Matthes is a co-author of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. Her commitment to the goals of the United Nations Decade of the Ocean and her role as a member of the board of directors of the German Alliance for Marine Research are of great importance to the national and international marine research community.

Honorary President: Director of Research at the IRD

Honorary Vice President: Doctor of Biology from the University of the Azores