Ocean Practices Maturity Model Updated After 135 Author Interviews

A five-level scoring system designed to tell ocean scientists whether their methods are merely documented, genuinely adopted, or truly sustained has been overhauled. In a paper published in Frontiers in Marine Science on 29 October 2026, a team led by Jay S. Pearlman of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers presents OPMM2, an updated Ocean Practices Maturity Model built through personal interviews with the authors of 135 well-recognized ocean practices. The revision replaces the original model published two years earlier and is already being adopted as the maturity framework by the European Commission’s Ocean Best Practices and Standards System.

Ocean practices span a wide spectrum of methodologies supporting research, operations and applications, from physical oceanography and biogeochemistry to biology and ecosystems, platforms, sensors, data management and fisheries. The authors argue that global challenges such as climate change, ecosystem sustainability and marine food resources depend on consistent, interoperable information, and that such information depends on practices that are widely accepted and maintained over time. The maturity model does not judge the science or technical merit of a practice. Instead, it assesses the quality and sustainability of the practice documentation and its governance process, encouraging accessibility and adoption.

The updated model keeps five levels but renames and sharpens them. Level 1 is Formation, where a practice is ad hoc with some documentation. Level 2, Repeatable, requires the practice to be defined, informally documented and repeatable by its creator. Level 3, Documented, demands formal documentation with metadata conforming to existing guidelines, open availability in a sustained repository with a globally unique persistent identifier such as a DOI or ISBN, and enough detail for replication by a practitioner with prior experience using similar practices. Level 4, Adopted, requires active use by three or more organizations, verification procedures, comprehensible outcomes for stakeholders, contact information for user feedback and consistent document structure. Level 5, Sustained, adds documented expert panel or working group review, regional adoption, a defined quality assessment approach, specific methods for implementing user feedback and openly available training materials.

Each level carries scored attributes that sum to 1.00, with weights reflecting their relative importance. Attributes fulfilled from one level higher can contribute credit toward the level being evaluated, but every attribute at every level must be satisfied to reach Level 5. The authors illustrate the arithmetic with a practice that has completed Levels 1 through 3 plus three Level 4 attributes, scoring 3.65, which still counts as Level 3; with additional Level 5 credits it can be called Level 4, Adopted. This scoring concept was unchanged from the earlier model because no concerns were raised during the interviews.

The revision process itself was unusual. Rather than assessing practices from a distance, the team interviewed practice authors over Zoom, asking them to rate their own work attribute by attribute with one of three responses: complies, does not comply, or author does not know. The interviews doubled as a co-design exercise, with feedback on the wording of each attribute driving revisions. Interviewees also highlighted the need for carefully defined key terms, given the many languages of global practice authors, prompting an expanded glossary now provided as an appendix and a vocabulary hosted in the NERC Vocabulary Server managed by the British Oceanographic Data Centre.

Several concrete changes emerged. Attribute 3.2 was broadened because interviewees questioned whether permanent identification required specifically a DOI; other persistent identifiers serve the same goal of long-term traceability. Attribute 4.1 was simplified from recognition by multiple institutions to active use by three or more organizations, making the criterion more objective and easier to verify. Attribute 4.3 was reformulated after authors pointed out that requiring replication by users with no prior knowledge was unrealistic for some techniques, such as those involving environmental DNA; the new wording asks whether the key outcomes of a practice can be understood and used by stakeholders without detailed knowledge of it. The machine-readability attribute was deleted because very few interviewed practices, particularly older ones, met it, and retaining it would have barred even highly cited and adopted practices from ever reaching Sustained status.

The interview results offer a snapshot of where ocean practices stand. Of the 135 practices assessed, 13 reached Level 3, Documented, 83 reached Level 4, Adopted, and 39 reached Level 5, Sustained. The small number at Level 3 was expected, since an expert panel had selected established, widely used methods. Among Level 3 practices, none had undergone expert panel review, and few had ways to receive or act on user feedback. For Level 4 practices, expert review showed the lowest compliance, because expert working groups exist mainly within large national and international organizations and may be out of reach for authors from smaller institutions. Acting on user feedback and providing training materials were each met by only about half of the Level 4 practices; 31 of the 83 authors said they had not considered providing training materials but now planned to do so. Nearly all of the 39 sustained practices came from major national or international organizations.

The authors found no correlation between a practice’s publication date, which ranged from 2004 to 2024, and its maturity. Some recent practices were mature from the start because multi-organization teams developed and quickly adopted them, while some older practices are no longer maintained. They also distinguish between practices published as journal articles, which are usually updated only through new publications, and reports issued by major ocean organizations, which may require periodic review and can be updated as needed. Several authors of journal-based practices said they were now developing training materials in response to user feedback.

Tangible uptake is already visible. The European Commission has adopted OPMM2 as the basis for assessing maturity in its Ocean Best Practices and Standards System, with acceptance requiring maturity Level 4 or higher, and maturity scores recorded in the repository now serve as a selection criterion and search filter. The concept has been paired with the Operational Readiness Level framework for ocean forecasting, and the UNESCO-IOC has adopted the framework, with inclusion in European projects such as ObsSea4Clim, BioGeoSea, BioEcoOcean, EMSO Evolve and a citizen science project. Beyond uptake, the assessment process itself has prompted authors to revise their practice documents to include opportunities for further advancement in areas such as user feedback and training.

The paper is candid about barriers. Organizations in well-resourced and under-resourced settings are asked to satisfy the same attributes, yet sustained funding, a stable trained workforce and access to expert panels are not evenly available. Internal obstacles include workforce turnover, competing priorities that leave documentation and training underfunded, and academic advancement systems that do not credit practice documentation. For emerging economies, unequal research infrastructure, talent flight and limited internet access add further constraints, issues the Global Ocean Science Report documents as persistent disparities. The authors note some mitigations already in place, including free DOI registration and acceptance of non-English practices by IOC-OBPS, and they propose an Ocean-Observing Maturity Framework that groups guiding principles such as FAIR, practice-level models like OPMM2, and system-level models into one landscape. Future priorities include translating the model and glossary, formalizing alignment with FAIR principles, considering partial-credit scoring, tracking provenance of maturity ratings with regular review cycles, and building training into university curricula and the Ocean Decade’s Early Career Ocean Professionals programme.

Subject of Research: An updated maturity model for assessing and sustaining ocean research and observing practices

Article Title: Toward ocean practices sustainability – an evolution of the Ocean Practices Maturity Model

Article References: Pearlman, J. S., Mantovani, C., Simpson, P., Alvarez Fanjul, E., Magagna, B., Moutinho, J. L., Sloughter, T., Currie, D., d’Hotman, J., Moncoiffé, G., Postlethwaite, C., & Rodrigue, M. (2026). Toward ocean practices sustainability – an evolution of the Ocean Practices Maturity Model. Frontiers in Marine Science, 13, Article 1941879. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1941879

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1941879

Keywords: ocean practices, maturity model, best practices, ocean observing, data management, FAIR principles, methodology repositories, ocean forecasting, capacity development, marine science, expert review, sustainability