Report of the SIHD survey of the current state of "human dimension" in some ICES groups

ICES is developing integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) which are quantitative eval-uations and synthesis of information on physical, chemical, ecological, and human pro-cesses. The aim is to provide the scientific understanding to deliver advice on societal trade-offs between different policy options. For ICES as an organisation – this develop-ment can be described as a voyage with many challenges.As one step on the voyage, the Strategic Initiative on the Human Dimension in Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (SIHD) was initiated in 2015, with the aims to support the inclu-sion of human and social sciences in ICES IEA work. This is an extensive amount of knowledge to grasp, whereof some knowledge is probably more useful than other knowledge from ICES point of view. In the following this knowledge base is referred to as “human dimension”, which is a term vague enough to enclose what is needed although the term can definitely be questioned.To facilitate a useful support – it was important to take stock of the current situation as well as the need for support. During the Workshop on Activity Planning of SIHD (WKAPSIHD) in February 2016 it was proposed and decided that SIHD would survey the opinions and needs expressed by the chairs of the IEA groups. In addition, all other groups would be approached with the aim to determine which human and social sciences are rel-evant for several purposes in the ICES organisation.