Report of the Working Group on Data Needs for Assessments and Advice (PGDATA)

The Planning Group on Data Needs for Assessments and Advice (PGDATA), meet-ing was hosted in San Sebastian Spain from the 29 of February–4 of March 2016 and had 14 participants from 10 countries and was chaired by Mike Armstrong, UK, and Marie Storr-Paulsen, DenmarkThe main output of the meeting was to start a process establishing a cost–benefit frame-work operating alongside a quality assurance framework (with which it is closely linked). A cost–benefit framework should be implemented as a component of all data collection programmes to ensure that data collection programmes are closely aligned with end-user needs, deliver data of sufficient quality to meet these needs, and make most efficient use of available human resources and funding. A framework is needed to ensure that the decision processes are fully transparent and objective, and follow clearly established procedures and guidelines and not taken as ad – hoc decisions for example in response to budget cuts. This is especially important in a time where insti-tutes are facing budget cutbacks, new end-users demands and therefore prioritization between different data collection programs may be needed. It is therefore important to consider how to identify the contribution of different datasets to the uncertainty in as-sessments, and hence identify areas of data collection that could best be targeted for improvements in cost-efficiency. For example, there may be many different datasets used in an assessment. An important question is if the quality of the assessments and advice could be improved and carried out more cost efficiently by (for example) im-proving the quality of catch-at-age data, or the quality of survey data, or addition of new surveys. It should also be evaluated if the same quality could be maintained at lower cost by optimizing the design. The costs of scientific monitoring and the fishery regulatory system also have to be considered in relation to the value of the fishery and the short and long-term risks to the stocks. There will be pressures to make these ac-tivities as cost efficient as possible. PGDATA in 2015 established a Workshop on Cost Benefit of Data Collection in Support of Stock Assessment and Fishery Management (WKCOSTBEN) to be held in July 2016. PGDATA 2016 spent time planning this work-shop and developing supporting information to help define and implement a cost–benefit framework and proposing case studies to demonstrate the process. PGDATA also carried out planning for the related 2016 ICES Annual Science Conference theme session O entitled “When is enough, enough: Methods for optimizing, evaluating, and prioritizing of marine data collection “