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Metadata: 2025-2026, JNCC, Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme, OWEER Gap Analysis and Reprioritisation (OWGRE)
Abstract:
The Crown Estate commissioned JNCC to review the Offshore Wind Environmental Evidence Register (OWEER) in 2025. This was the first time since the OWEER was established in 2021, that a deep dive review was carried out. The purpose of the review wasto understand whether and which evidence gaps listed in the register had been closed by OWEC and a targeted selection of other research programmes that included ScotMER, ORJIP, OESEA and OWEAP). The review also conducted a reprioritisation of the remaining open evidence gaps. This work was commissioned primarily to inform future funding priorities from the remaining OWEC research budget and so the OWGRE work went a step further to ask the JNCC to advise which of the remaining evidence gaps were an immediate, short and medium term need, based on a publicly available pipeline of offshore wind project target commissioning dates. The OWGRE work is complete and there are two reports available on the MDE: • Assessment of evidence gap closure in the Offshore Wind Environmental Evidence Register (OWEER) • Recommended Priority Funding Areas For The Offshore Wind Evidence And Change Programme (OWEC) The Recommended Priority Funding Areas report identifies a list of evidence gaps that JNCC have advised need to be closed in the immediate, short or medium term. The OWGRE work also identified opportunities to enhance and build on the OWEER content to enable a more efficient approach to assessing evidence gap closure for the future. These enhancements are being taken forward in follow up to OWGRE. Work has already been delivered to improve the user experience by digitalising the OWEER and TCE are now scoping work with JNCC to enhance the evidence gap definition and the prioritisation approach. The OWEER is now here: https://owekh.com/evidence-register/about Feedback is welcomed via the tool. OWEC will carry out some additional work to further refine the evidence priorities identified by the OWGRE reports to inform targeting of its remaining funds. This further refinement process is expected to conclude by beginning of Q3 2026.
Data holder:
The Crown Estate
| Other details | ||
| Internal code | Internally assigned metadata identifier | 18313 |
| Title | The title is used to provide a brief and precise description of the dataset such as 'Date', 'Originating organisation/programme', 'Location' and 'Type of survey'. All acronyms and abbreviations should be reproduced in full. | 2025-2026, JNCC, Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme, OWEER Gap Analysis and Reprioritisation (OWGRE) |
| File Identifier | The File Identifier is a code, preferably a GUID, that is globally unique and remains with the same metadata record even if the record is edited or transferred between portals or tools. | 12654a08-538e-412f-be8c-abfa910e0d33 |
| Resource Identifier | This is the code assigned by the data owner. | TCE-4541 |
| Resource type | The resource type will likely be a dataset but could also be a series (collection of datasets with a common specification) or a service. | series |
| Start date | This describes the date the resource starts. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2025-06-17 |
| End date | This describes the date the resource ends. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2026-02-28 |
| Frequency of updates | This describes the frequency with which the resource is modified or updated i.e. a monitoring programme that samples once per year has a frequency that is described as 'annually'. | notPlanned |
| Abstract | The abstract provides a clear and brief statement of the content of the resource. | The Crown Estate commissioned JNCC to review the Offshore Wind Environmental Evidence Register (OWEER) in 2025. This was the first time since the OWEER was established in 2021, that a deep dive review was carried out. The purpose of the review wasto understand whether and which evidence gaps listed in the register had been closed by OWEC and a targeted selection of other research programmes that included ScotMER, ORJIP, OESEA and OWEAP). The review also conducted a reprioritisation of the remaining open evidence gaps. This work was commissioned primarily to inform future funding priorities from the remaining OWEC research budget and so the OWGRE work went a step further to ask the JNCC to advise which of the remaining evidence gaps were an immediate, short and medium term need, based on a publicly available pipeline of offshore wind project target commissioning dates. The OWGRE work is complete and there are two reports available on the MDE: • Assessment of evidence gap closure in the Offshore Wind Environmental Evidence Register (OWEER) • Recommended Priority Funding Areas For The Offshore Wind Evidence And Change Programme (OWEC) The Recommended Priority Funding Areas report identifies a list of evidence gaps that JNCC have advised need to be closed in the immediate, short or medium term. The OWGRE work also identified opportunities to enhance and build on the OWEER content to enable a more efficient approach to assessing evidence gap closure for the future. These enhancements are being taken forward in follow up to OWGRE. Work has already been delivered to improve the user experience by digitalising the OWEER and TCE are now scoping work with JNCC to enhance the evidence gap definition and the prioritisation approach. The OWEER is now here: https://owekh.com/evidence-register/about Feedback is welcomed via the tool. OWEC will carry out some additional work to further refine the evidence priorities identified by the OWGRE reports to inform targeting of its remaining funds. This further refinement process is expected to conclude by beginning of Q3 2026. |
| Lineage | Lineage includes the background information, history of the sources of data, data quality statements and methods. | Within the OWEER, evidence gaps are prioritised according to a points-based scoring system, which was developed and agreed between Defra, JNCC, and the OWEER Project Advisory Group (PAG). Annual updates to the OWEER, including any changes to prioritisation scores, are reviewed by the OWEER PAG, which includes sector experts from government and SNCBs. Evidence gaps are scored using four criteria (Table 1). The criteria are based on the potential of an evidence gap to reduce consenting risk once addressed, as well as on the species and theme which the gap covers. Scores for each criterion are combined by multiplying the high weighting scores (Criteria 1 and 2) and adding the low weighting scores (Criteria 3 and 4) to derive an overall priority score (Equation 1): Overall score = (Criteria 1 × Criteria 2) + (Criteria 3 + Criteria 4) (Equation 1) The resulting range of possible overall scores is therefore 3-15. The highest score a gap can be assigned is 15 and is thus considered to be of the highest priority. Before the reprioritisation of evidence gaps was carried out for OWGRE, Criteria 2 and Criteria 3 were updated by the OWEER PAG to better reflect the consenting risk timeline, while Criteria 1 and Criteria 4 remained unchanged from previous versions of the OWEER (see Table 1 for details). Consent means all necessary permissions from UK licensing authorities, as appropriate, that are required for the construction and operation of an OW project. Consenting risk refers to the uncertainty and potential delays or restrictions associated with securing and maintaining regulatory approvals for OW projects. This risk is highest during the pre-consent phase, when developers invest in surveys, environmental assessments, and stakeholder engagement without certainty that consent will be granted. At this stage, issues related to benthic, fish, marine mammals, and ornithology receptors can significantly influence outcomes, as these receptors often drive mitigation requirements and cumulative impact assessments. Once consent is granted, risk decreases but persists through construction, as developers must discharge conditions and may seek variations for design changes. Post-construction, risk is low but ongoing as developers must comply with monitoring obligations and environmental conditions, and any breach can lead to enforcement action. Towards the end of life for OW projects, repowering or life-extension proposals reintroduce consenting risk, as new assessments may be required, while decommissioning obligations also carry residual risk. All evidence gaps per receptor were reprioritised, including those that were not assessed for closure as part of OWGRE, following the standard methodology used for OWEER updates, but based on the slightly amended criteria. |
| Related keywords | ||
| Keyword | General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Biodiversity indices |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Research | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Research and Development Activity | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Administrative units | |
| Geographical coverage | ||
| North | The northern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 64 |
| East | The eastern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 4 |
| South | The southern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 47 |
| West | The western-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | -16 |
| Responsible organisations | ||
| Role | The point of contact is person or organisation with responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the metadata for the resource. | pointOfContact |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Position name | Marine Data and Evidence Advisor | |
| mde@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The custodian is the person or organisation that accepts responsibility for the resource and ensures appropriate care and maintenance. If a dataset has been lodged with a Data Archive Centre for maintenance then this organisation is be entered here. | custodian |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The originator is the person or organisation who created, collected or produced the resource. | originator |
| Organisation name | Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough Office | |
| communications@jncc.gov.uk | ||
| Role | The distributor is the person or organisation that distributes the resource. | distributor |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The owner is the person or organisation that owns the resource. | owner |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| mde@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Resource locators | ||
| Locator URL | Web address (URL) that links to the resource | https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk/details/TCE-4541/summary |
| Web address (URL) that links to the resource | https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk | |
| Dataset constraints | ||
| 20.1 Limitations on Public Access - Access constraints | This states `otherRestrictions` from ISO vocabulary RestrictionCode and is an INSPIRE/GEMINI requirement. | otherRestrictions |
| 20.2 Limitations on Public Access - Other constraints | There will be no limitations when published on the Marine Data Exchange | |
| 21.1 Conditions for Access and Use - Use constraints | This states `otherRestrictions` from ISO vocabulary RestrictionCode and is an INSPIRE/GEMINI requirement. | otherRestrictions |
| 21.2 Conditions for Access and Use - Other constraints | This states any constraints on use of the data. Multiple conditions can be recorded for different parts of the data resource. If no conditions apply, then `No condtions apply` is recorded. This uses free text. | Data Must be used in accordance to the Marine Data Exchange's Terms of Use: https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk/content/info/terms-of-use |
| Version info | ||
| Date of publication | The publication date of the resource or if previously unpublished the date that the resource was made publicly available via the MEDIN network. | 2026-08-28 |
| Date of creation | The date that the resource was created. | 2025-06-17 |
| Harvest date | The date which this record has been (re)harvested from the provider. | 2026-09-27 |
| Metadata date | The date when the content of this metadata record was last updated. | 2026-09-01 |
| Metadata standard name | The name of the metadata standard used to create this metadata | MEDIN |
| Metadata standard version | The version of the MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard used to create the metadata record | 3.1.2 |