Marine science and blue growth: Assessing the marine academic production of 123 cities and territories worldwide

- The marine knowledge has gained more and more concern in state and community institutions.
- This knowledge and research can contribute greatly to the blue growth dynamics.
- The marine scientific production of 123 territories worldwide is evaluated and compared.
- The major centres are Tokyo (Japan), Paris (France), San Diego (USA), Moscow (Russia) and Woods Hole (USA).
- New world major centres in marine science emerge, especially in China and Brazil.

The role of academic research in the economic growth process has been widely considered over the last two decades in the theoretical and empirical literature, particularly around the concept of knowledge-based economy. Meanwhile, the very recent notion of “blue growth” and the significant development potential related to marine environments have gained more and more concern for policy makers on different scales. It is therefore interesting to assess the academic research related to marine issues, owing to its potential contribution to this dynamics growth through knowledge transfers and academic spillovers. This paper provides a global evaluation of the marine academic production, using a spatialized, open and transdisciplinary approach. In particular, this approach is to mobilize indicators to assess scientific production, transpose it to the territorial scale and make a global comparison of “research territories” in the case of marine science, with a specific focus on European cities. The results show that the five main centres are Tokyo (Japan), Paris (France), San Diego (USA), Moscow (Russia) and Woods Hole (USA). A dense European territorial coverage in marine science centres also appears, and new world major centres such as Chinese and Brazilian ones emerge.