Program Overview

The Island Health and Sustainability Program, established in December 2023, aims to undertake the following priorities:

1. Explore the potential for a place-based ‘data trust’ platform for sharing and publishing island sustainability research findings in French Polynesia. The platform would implement best-practice in open science and Indigenous data sovereignty so that scientific data and knowledge can be used as effective decision-support for local communities.

2. Organize annual Island Health & Sustainability Conferences at the Gump Station on Moorea, which will convene local and international partners to:

   1. Present, coordinate, and plan island sustainability research in French Polynesia.

   2. Develop educational and outreach activities related to island sustainability.

   3. Improve the curation of place-based scientific data to inform public policy.

   4. Design impactful communication campaigns locally and/or globally.

3. Identify future projects (“Projects”). Examples of potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

   1. Innovative mosquito control

   2. Ocean-based pathways to island net zero

   3. Island and coral reef biodiversity restoration and conservation

   4. Addressing knowledge gaps in French Polynesia’s climate plan

Year 2: Impact Framework

In its second year, the Program aims to build momentum around mission-based communities of inquiry, drawing on the “flywheel framework”, developed by Jim Collins https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/the-flywheel.html. The framework was built after studying hundreds of organizations to understand why they succeed or fail. It guides organizations in identifying four to six essential components, whereby if one is achieved, the next step is almost inevitable. Through repetition, good organizations get better. The flywheel framework has recently been applied to Open Science community activities Robinson & Lowndes (2022) The Openscapes Flywheel https://doi.org/10.31223/X5CQ02, which share similarities to building a movement that advances Island Health and Sustainability. The flywheel complements the mission-driven approach (developed by Marianne Mazzucato European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and Mazzucato, M., Mission-oriented research & innovation in the European Union—A problem-solving approach to fuel innovation-led growth, Publications Office, 2018, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/360325) used in the first Island Health & Sustainability Conference. Each of the missions developed at that inaugural conference requires iteration and effort to build momentum through a disciplined approach. After each iteration of the flywheel, the momentum builds, and the positive impacts on French Polynesia, and beyond, increase.

Figure: Draft Flywheel Framework for Island Sustainability Research Program Draft Flywheels: Innovation Hub Flywheel Draft

By building and growing this momentum, French Polynesia is poised to lead the way in sustainable island governance, offering a blueprint for other island nations seeking to balance economic resilience with environmental stewardship. In preparation for the next conference, we will use the flywheel framework to structure and evaluate the progress of our mission-driven goals. With this foundation, the conference will be invaluable face-to-face time for showcasing results, refining strategies based on pilot project outcomes, and exploring new opportunities for scaling sustainable solutions across the islands.

Year 2: Place-based data trust platform

The Program is developing and deploying socio-technical infrastructure (iPlaces) essential to the coordination and dissemination of mission results. iPlaces provides a place-based publishing platform to document the missions’ agendas and their related activities. This provides credit to the contributors and allows for the previously missing connections back to the places where the work is done. The platform leverages open source software developed from previous work supported by a range of public and philanthropic sources, as well as contributions to the stack from ongoing projects such as Moorea Biocode (Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation) and the Mozeroa Project (Social Capital Foundation). A goal in Year 2 is for the iPlaces project to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (to be demonstrated in November 2025) enabling it to transition into a product supported by its users, while continuing to harness public and philanthropic investments for research and development building the open source stack.

The Conference provides a place to demonstrate the platform, advance its business plan, and to gather user feedback. The intent is for iPlaces to be used in the projects addressing each mission to monitor project progress and track outputs like papers, datasets, and educational materials.

Year 2: Island Health & Sustainability Conference

In 2025, we will host the second Conference during the same week in November (17–21), helping to establish this as an annual event. It will bring together the mission-driven activities identified in year 1 as well as the social-technological platform (iPlaces). Building on the adoption of the Conference by French Polynesia’s Research, Higher Education, and Innovation Consortium (RESIPOL), we will establish a formal “Program Committee" with representation from each of RESIPOL’s founding members (the 6 research institutions present in FP - University of French Polynesia, Institut Louis Malardé, IFREMER, IRD, CNRS, and UC Berkeley). The 2025 conference will be a pivotal moment in the next rotation of the flywheel to showcase the iPlaces platform progress, assess the status of each mission and progress of mission-related projects, develop new projects addressing one or more missions, refine strategies, and deepen collaborations. The second conference will be key to ensuring that the ambitious mission ideas generated in the first year translate into measurable outcomes in subsequent years.

Another feature of the second conference will be an explicit development of the living laboratories / model systems that Tetiaroa, Moorea, Tahiti, and French Polynesia (vast ocean exclusive economic zone) represent. The program will address economic drivers and opportunities in this context, including the role of sustainable tourism and how carbon and biodiversity might be included in financial instruments to support flourishing communities and ecosystems.

Draft 2025 Program

The draft program here is indicative and will be fully developed with the Program Committee. Participant invitations will be decided with the input of the Program Committee.

With an arrival day on Tuesday 18 November, the three-day conference would run from Wednesday through Friday (19–21 November, 2025). As in 2024, we anticipate that the conference might be preceded by a leaders meeting on Tetiaroa (15–18 November) subject to availability.

As in 2024, we anticipate up to 50 participants during the meeting, with the majority (two thirds) locally-based in French Polynesia. We also expect at least one satellite project meeting to co-occur with the Conference (Moorea Biocode and Ethnocode Projects, funded by Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation).

DAY 1—From Missions to Market: Seaweed, Carbon, and the Bioeconomy

Morning: Welcome and Contextualization

• Opening Remarks: Program Committee + Local Hosts

• Setting the Stage: Translating Island Health & Sustainability Needs into Action

• Keynote Panel

Late Morning: Macroalgae and the Blue Bioeconomy

• Session 1: Seaweed Farming Potentials - Exploring the role of seaweed in local livelihoods, ecological restoration, carbon drawdown, and food systems.

Afternoon: Carbon and Biodiversity

• Session 2: Land-Sea Restoration—Carbon and Biodiversity as Digital Assets in Financing Instruments to support resilience; Monitoring, Verifying, and Reporting Impact

Evening: Community Gathering

• Community exhibition, informal networking

DAY 2—Incubating Place-Based Innovation in a Digital Revolution

Morning: Digital Twins, Community Data Trusts, and Ethical AI in Island Sustainability

• Session 3: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going - Mission Reporting

  iPlaces Demonstration: Sociotechnical Infrastructure for Ethical, Place-based Innovation.

Late Morning: From Research to Innovation Flywheel

• Session 4: Interactive session to examine the flywheel proposed for the Island Sustainability Research Program - Spurring deliberative democratic mechanisms to maximize the agency of local communities

Early Afternoon: Co-Design and Proposals for Projects

• Breakout: Proposal Development for Carbon + Seaweed Demonstration Pilots

  Breakout: Expanding iPlaces Platform Use Across Missions

• Breakout: Culture, Education and Training

• Report-backs + Synthesis: Coordinating Innovation

Closing Session:

• Toward Living Laboratories for Island Health and Sustainability

• Next Steps: Working Groups, Funding Pathways, Publishing and Sharing

DAY 3—Post-Conference Concurrent Project Team Meetings

• Biocode Project Meeting (participants, Moore Foundation-funded)

  Aligning Methods, Matching Funds, and Connecting Missions

• MOZEROA Team Meeting (Internal, Research Coordination)

Timeline & Reporting

Project leads will be available for quarterly updates (online calls) as desired.

Year 1

Q3. (July-Sept 2025) Planning will identify and invite conference participants; Design the Conference Program;

Q4. (Oct-Dec 2025) Finalize the planning and execute the annual “Island Health & Sustainability Conference” (November, Moorea)

Q1. (Jan-Mar 2026) Draft the Conference Report and support new missions and projects

Q2. (Apr-June 2025) Ongoing project support; Begin planning for IHS Conference

Outputs Planned for 2025:

• For the 2025 conference:

  • Presentations will be published to iPlaces, and download and view metrics will be provided. This will also connect the conference and downstream research outputs.

  • Survey of meeting participants

• At least two missions moving toward project work (Mosquitoes and Biofuel)

• ISR will target at least one media output, preferably in collaboration with Imagine5

• Defined flywheel components

Budget:

Funds will be administered through UC Berkeley Gump Station (Island Sustainability Research Fund).