Governance Structure

The Programme governance structure is central to achieving our aims and objectives. A series of regional and technical scientific research working groups (RSR-WGs and TSR-WGs) have been established under the programme to facilitate basin scale coordination of deep-sea biological research and capacity building efforts, and help standardise methods and measurements respectively.

The whole programme is coordinated by a steering committee consisting of members of the RSR-WGs and TSR-WGs, as well as senior deep-sea researchers with experience of running global scale programmes. The role of the steering committee is to ensure coordination between RSR-WGs and TSR-WGs, between related UN Ocean Decade programmes, and to communicate programme progress to the IOC. Ultimately, this committee’s role is to ensure Challenger 150 achieves its ambition.