Workshop helps set new priorities for small-scale fisheries research, as part of the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative
©Photo: Safari Fang
Stanford University (Stanford, USA) conveyed the workshop "Beyond Illuminating Hidden Harvests: Towards a New Research Agenda in Small-Scale Fisheries" from 14 to16 April 2026. The aim of the workshop was to explore new priority research topics for small-scale fisheries (SSF), as part of the Illuminating Hidden Harvests (IHH) initiative - a collaboration started by FAO, Duke University and WorldFish, and joined in 2025 by Stanford and Michigan State University.
The workshop brought together 37 participants, including academics, small-scale fisheries practitioners and students from IHH partners as well as from other leading academic institutions, who engaged in lively and dynamic working group sessions and facilitated discussions throughout the three days.
The workshop identified and explored a set of priority research questions at the intersection between small-scale fisheries and biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, food systems transformation, fisheries livelihoods, adaptive capacity, nutrition, and spatial ecology. These include:
- What defines adaptive capacity to climate change in small-scale fisheries? And what is the impact of climate change on micronutrients adequacy and quality from small-scale fisheries?
- How does the demand from aquatic foods in the Global North affect small-scale fisheries products availability and access in the Global South?
- How do wealth and welfare functions differ across small-scale fisheries archetypes?
- What is the distribution of global small-scale fisheries catch among different habitats, and what are the implications for conservation and spatial planning?
Answering these questions will provide important insights to support the development of tailored policies for more sustainable, equitable and climate resilient small-scale fisheries. The workshop also emphasized opportunities to further leverage the multidimensional IHH database, including in combination with other relevant available datasets, to pursue the newly identified research questions.
The IHH initiative was established in response to the call for stronger data and research on small-scale fisheries in the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). It aimed to strengthen the science-policy interface by helping close critical data and information gaps through an innovative multidisciplinary approach to data collation and analysis. In 2023, this work led to the publication of a major report estimating the key global contributions of small-scale fisheries to sustainable development. The report found that small-scale fisheries account for 90 percent of global employment in capture fisheries and produce at least 40 percent of global fisheries catches. The IHH initiative also catalyzed a related Nature collection of peer-reviewed papers.
During the workshop, the IHH partners renewed their commitment to advancing the IHH initiative by strengthening small-scale fisheries data, research and related capacity development at country and regional levels. This aims to ensure that small-scale fisheries remain visible and are actively considered in key development strategies within and beyond the fisheries sector, such as global climate adaptation, food systems, and economic development strategies.
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