Royal College of Art signs Memorandum of Understanding with the National Oceanography Centre

Image courtesy of the National Oceanography Centre

Date

21 November 2024

Author

School, Centre or Area

School of Design

Read time

1 minute

The Royal College of Art has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Oceanography Centre, bringing together the world’s best human and planet-centred design-led innovation with the world’s best deep ocean science, for the benefit of the ocean, planet and people.

National Oceanography Centre collaboration with the Royal College of Art

The UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is one of the world’s top ocean research institutions. NOC works around the globe from the coast to the deep ocean, delivering world-class agenda-setting scientific research and technology development. It underpins international and UK public policy, business, and societal outcomes by solving challenging multidisciplinary, large scale, long-term marine science problems.

The MoU will enable the RCA to work closely with NOC to explore ocean solutions by bringing design innovation together with scientific rigour. Areas on which the organisations will focus through this cooperation include research around resilient coastal communities, ocean observing systems, and the roles of big data and robotics autonomous systems in the development of ocean solutions.

The RCA’s cooperation with NOC will build upon current ocean-based research at the RCA, including designs for New Economic Models for the Ocean (NEMO) in collaboration with coastal communities, and the RCA’s role as a United Nations Ocean Decade Implementing Partner.

“We are very pleased to be announcing this agreement and formalising our relationship with the RCA. At NOC we fully recognise the importance of science, art and design coming together to tell the stories about how we can understand the ocean and the actions we can take to support ocean ecosystems. I’m looking forward to sharing how we will be representing and developing some of our research in partnership with the talented team at the RCA.”
Dr John Siddorn CEO National Oceanography Centre
“This collaboration between the Royal College of Art and the National Oceanography Centre pioneers new and exciting combinations of ocean science and design innovation research to bridge interdisciplinary gaps and tackle some of the major ocean challenges that lie ahead of us. I am delighted to see the RCA working with oceanographers from a world-leading institute to bring back important new climate critical insights”
Ashley Hall Professor of Design Innovation, School of Design