Sectoral Marine Plan: roadmap of actions

2. Approach

2.1 Theory of Change

We used a Theory of Change (ToC) approach to support the development of an ornithology roadmap to identify the actions needed to address the uncertainties set out in the SMP. ToC is a decision support tool which uses a top-down approach to illustrate the causal links and identify the sequences of events necessary for an activity to have the desired outcome (e.g. Rice et al., 2020). The first step in this process is to identify and agree the high-level goal that one is trying to achieve. The next step is to identify the outcomes necessary to deliver this goal (e.g., reduced uncertainty about cumulative impacts) and consequently the outputs required to deliver these outcomes. The final step is to identify the actions required to deliver these outputs (in this instance, the research projects required to fill evidence gaps). Goals, outcomes, outputs and actions are highlighted throughout the text.

2.2 Workshop

The workshop took place over three days in March 2021. Participants were drawn from a broad range of stakeholders with interest in the offshore wind industry in Scotland including, consultants, governmental advisers and regulators, funding bodies, non-governmental organisations, academics, and other researchers (Table 1).

Workshop Attendees

Adam Butler: BIOSS

Esther Jones: BIOSS

Aonghais Cook: BTO

Daniel Johnston: BTO

Liz Humphreys: BTO

Liam Leahy: Carbon Trust/ORJIP

Lindsay Scott-Hayward: CREEM

Kate Bellew: Crown Estate Scotland

Andy Webb: HiDef Aerial Surveying Ltd.

Julie Black: JNCC

Bob Furness: MacArthur Green

Gillian Vallejo: Natural Power

Graham Cook: Natural Power

Graham Garner: Natural Power

Aly McCluskie: RSPB

Lucy Wright: RSPB

Drew Milne: Scottish Government

Gayle Holland: Scottish Government

Janelle Braithwaite: Scottish Government

Julie Miller: Scottish Government

George Lees: NatureScot

Glen Tyler: NatureScot

Francis Daunt: UKCEH

Kate Searle: UKCEH