Our mission :
To have a lasting impact on the health of our marine environments by accelerating the leadership, influence and reach of exceptional early-mid career professionals working on solutions for the oceans and society.
Edinburgh Ocean Leaders and COVID-19
The ethos of the programme is to support leaders in situ, wherever they live and work around the world. COVID-19 has made this philosophy even more relevant. Therefore, although we have had to postpone some of the planned field mission and face-to-face interventions, we have enhanced our bespoke online leadership coaching, mentoring and meetings to ensure maximum impact. This includes our Ocean Leaders contributing to major online dialogues such as the Monaco Blue Initiative.
The clear message is that supporting leaders to have the confidence and skills to navigate exceptional change in diverse contexts has never been more timely or important.
Programme Overview
Edinburgh Ocean Leaders (EOL) is hosted by the University of Edinburgh, and is financially supported by the University, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and other organisations and individuals.
EOL is designed to accelerate the leadership, creativity and influence of exceptional ocean professionals working together to make a significant positive impact on the health of the World’s oceans. Our underlying ‘theory of change’ is that distributed, creative and enabled leadership is a prerequisite to achieving this urgent and transformational positive change.
This rationale informs the goals and design of the programme, in particular, support for the Ocean Leaders to enhance their: transformative leadership capabilities; complex problem solving abilities; and international reach and influence through collaborative action.
The overall goal of EOL is to create and sustain a life-long network of ocean change-makers. Towards this, the programme supports leadership training, mentoring, professional development and online networking opportunities. This typically includes: a series of remote and face-to-face coaching dialogues; annual induction event and meeting; a joint field mission; and engagement with international ocean initiatives to help shape tangible pathways into action.
The 2021 Cohort
Meet the latest cohort of young professionals to join the Edinburgh Ocean Leaders Programme.
News

The Decade for the Oceans
January 1st 2021 marked the start of The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (the Decade) and we are delighted that Edinburgh Ocean Leaders (EOL) is a collaborating

Thriving Blue Spaces for All. An update from Ocean Leader and Surfers Against Sewage CEO, Hugo Tagholm.
Edinburgh Ocean Leader Hugo Tagholm is the Chief Executive of the UK marine conservation and campaigning charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS). In the 30 years since being established, SAS has

Leaders’ Stories: get to know the 2020 Edinburgh Ocean Leaders
From its conception, the ethos of Edinburgh Ocean Leaders (EOL) has been to support leaders in situ, wherever they may live or work around the globe. For our first Ocean