findascienceberth is a project led by Dr Anna McGregor alongside Dr Kate Hendry, Ben Fisher, Dr Sophie Fielding, Dr Alice Marzocchi, Dr Eleanor Darlington, Dr Siddhi Joshi, Dr Katrien Van Landeghem, Katie Sieradzan, and Madeline Anderson.
This site was formed as an output from the 2021 NERC EDI Digital Sprint hackathon. The purpose of findascienceberth is to expand the communication network by which free berths of scientific cruises are advertised and to support traditionally excluded individuals to take up these opportunities.
Project workflow
“The Marine Facilities Planning system (MFP) is a NIOZ/NERC software development collaboration designed to integrate the different aspects of equipment management and ship programming, to streamline and integrate the process of delivering science cruises.” MASS Software Engineering
PSO- Principal Scientific Officer
Modules for delivery
Module 1- Building the findascienceberth tool.
The findascienceberth tool will be built as an extension of the Marine Facilities Planning (MFP) portal. This is a widely used system and holds the most up to date information on cruise planning and berth availability. Development of findascienceberth will be conducted by MFP software engineers at MASS, The Netherlands to ensure compatibility. Integration with MFP will be facilitated by team member Dr Eleanor Darlington (NMF).
Module 2- Creating a network
Key to the success of findascienceberth is in creating a culture of collaboration within the marine science community. This will be done through an EDI lens, demonstrating how equality of opportunity can strengthen our community. This project is especially well placed to deliver this due to the participation of team members from across the main UK marine science institutions. Further research in to historical free berth availability will demonstrate a financial, environmental and logical case for utilising this space. The expected increase in capacity as larger ships come online demonstrates why now is the ideal time to develop this tool. In creating this network we will allow students and researchers to sign up for berth alerts and encourage scientific teams to welcome findascienceberth participants on board.
Module 3- Pairing applicants with berths.
A scientists reason for wanting to join a cruise may vary by career stage, experience and research funding as well as personal factors such as the amount of time they can stay away from family. findascienceberth applicants will be able to apply for a berth either to join the main scientific project on the cruise, should they simply wish to gain field experience, or to conduct their own scientific research alongside the main scientific project. Anyone affiliated with a UK research institution (.ac.uk email address) will be able to apply to findascienceberth regardless of career stage. Undergraduate, Masters and PhD students will require a sponsor (e.g. a supervisor) for their application and will need to be allocated a responsible person on the cruise from the main scientific party. Scientific teams will select free berth participants from anonymised applications, in line with EDI criteria determined by findascienceberth, and against capabilities of the ship where individuals propose their own activity.
Module 4: EDI monitoring
Success of the project will be determined by a) quantitative comparison of applicant EDI data against select participant EDI data, b) creation of case studies to review of the impact of the experience on the participant 12 months after the cruise. EDI monitoring criteria will be established during the pilot phase of this project in collaboration with social research scientists. EDI data will be secured and anonymised where possible in line with the data management plan. EDI data of applicants and participants will be reported annually and case studies hosted online as examples to showcase these opportunities to individuals from diverse backgrounds and encourage future applications.
FindAScienceBerth 