About Us

About OCeAN

The Ostrom Center for the Advanced Study in Natural Resource Governance (OCeAN) was established to bring forward the natural resource management issues of South and Southeast Asia for global audiences and policy makers. Named after Nobel laureate Elinor Claire Ostrom, the Center is based in School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT).

Vision
The OCeAN visions a world where commons are managed sustainably.

Mission
The mission of the OCeAN is to strengthen natural resource governance and collective action

Goals
The OCeAN aims to serve as a knowledge hub on socio-ecological system research, serve as a bridge between policy and practice, and build capacity among diverse stakeholders and mid-career professionals

The OCeAN strives to find answers to the following questions
  • How dual goal of intact natural resources and judicious economic growth achieved?
  • What has been the impacts of decentralization of natural resource management rights in resource conditions, resource users and infrastructures?
  • How can sustainability of CPR systems be achieved under diverse disturbances like climate change and land use change, and how noble initiatives like PES and REDD+ be integrated?
  • How can multiple methods of information gathering and analysis on CPRs be integrated in the national natural resource policy guidelines?
  • What could be the effective polycentric policy initiative for governance of CPRs that are environmentally sustainable and socially balanced?
The OCeAN aims to research these answers through a range of activities, such as
  • Organizing a book retreat to plan on documenting more field-based, location-specific natural resource issues from rural Asia;
  • Hosting senior scholars to start drafting advanced theoretical volumes on the issues related to governance and management of natural resources;
  • Organizing and supporting 1-2 weeks training at AIT for mid professional trainings and drafting high-impact factor environmental and natural resources related journals
  • Organizing Policy dialogue on “Improving Governance and management of Natural Resources through collaboration among the high level decision-makers; and
  • Organizing grant writing workshops for submitting competitive proposals to the major funding organizations.
Governance of OCeAN

The OCeAN is an autonomous intellectual Center governed by an Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is comprised of:

  • Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai, Former President, AIT – Chair
  • Vice President for Academic Affairs, AIT – Member
  • David Hulse, Ford Representative, Jakarta, Indonesia – Member
  • Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute – Member
  • Makoto Inoue, GFES, The University of Tokyo – Member
  • Tom Evans, The Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University — Member,
  • Marco Janssen, Center for the Study of Behavior, Institutions and Environment, Arizona State University — Member
  • Ganesh Shivakoti, Founding Director, OCeAN
  • Rajendra P. Shrestha, School of Environment, Resources and Development, AIT – Secretary