What is OWSMRF?
The Offshore Wind Strategic Monitoring and Research Forum (OWSMRF) is an industry-led collaborative partnership that aims to better understand the impact of large-scale offshore wind development on marine birds.
The UK Government has committed to large-scale deployment of offshore wind in the UK, with ambitions to increase capacity to 50 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, including up to 5 GW of floating wind. This increase in renewable energy capacity will contribute to UK Government’s target of decarbonising UK energy by 2035, and to achieve Net Zero by 2050. Such climate change mitigation will have the added benefit of addressing a main driver of biodiversity loss.
However, uncertainty around the impact of such large-scale offshore wind expansion on marine bird populations can in some instances lead to increases in precaution within the impact assessments, leading to delays, or risks to consent decisions.
Therefore, in collaboration with six offshore wind developers, JNCC launched the third phase of OWSMRF in February 2025. The overall aim of Phase 3 is to facilitate the delivery of strategic research and monitoring, that leads to the acquisition of new evidence or methods to reduce uncertainty on the potential impact of large-scale offshore wind development on marine birds, where that uncertainty currently presents, or will likely present in the near future, a challenge or constraint in the consenting process, thus potentially limiting the sustainable development of offshore wind in the UK.
The focus of OWSMRF Phase 3 is on non-breeding birds, a key component of seabird populations, yet often inadequately considered in offshore wind impact assessments.
Left: Immature black-legged kittiwake (© Mark Lewis); Right: Flock of seabirds at sea, showing mixture of age classes and breeding status (© Danni Thompson).
Who is involved?
Acting as a technical secretariat and providing delivery of much of the OWSMRF work, JNCC is co-ordinating the effort to identify and prioritise research opportunities to fill critical evidence gaps. JNCC also undertakes a research development and promotion role, which includes a variety of tasks, such as identifying project partners and collaborators, building project teams and facilitating the progression of high-level academic ideas into feasible and high-impact research projects that can be delivered.
The Phase 3 Developer Group (DG) consists of six developers (listed alphabetically): EDF Power Solutions, Equinor, Ørsted, ScottishPower Renewables (SPR), SSE Renewables (Scottish and Southern Electricity) and TotalEnergies. OWSMRF extends its thanks to Vattenfall for their vital contribution to the Pilot Year, in particular recognising their funding which has addressed one of the Research Opportunity identified during the Pilot Year (see Work Product JNCC Report 684 below). RWE and Shell contributed funding to the Continuation Phase, alongside five other developers.
Key Stakeholders include Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (DAERA), Natural England, NatureScot, Natural Resources Wales, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate: Science, Evidence, Data and Digital.
Wider Stakeholders include The Crown Estate, the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change programme (OWEC), Crown Estate Scotland, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Marine Management Organisation (MMO), the Offshore Energy SEA Research Programme (managed by Hartley Anderson Ltd), ORE Catapult Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence, the Offshore Renewable Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP, managed by The Carbon Trust), the Offshore Wind Evidence and Knowledge Hub (OWEKH), the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) and Pathways to Growth, and Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate: Licensing Operations Team and Offshore Wind Directorate: ScotMER.
How does OWSMRF work?
Phase 3 of OWSMRF Phase follows a similar process to what was delivered within the Pilot and Continuation phases, with the novel addition of a stocktake exercise in the early stage, supporting the stakeholder decisions around priority issues to tackle.
During the Pilot Year, Key Stakeholders and technical experts convened at a workshop on black-legged kittiwake populations and movements (photo courtesy of Sue O’Brien).
At the OWSMRF Phase 3 stakeholder meeting on 28 April 2025, critical ornithological issues and specific knowledge gaps were discussed (photo courtesy of Rebecca Hall).
OWSMRF Pilot Year (May 2019 to April 2020)
The Pilot Year focused solely on ornithology. A novel stakeholder-led approach was used to identify which species and knowledge gaps OWSMRF should focus on. Cumulative effects on black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) were identified as the issue posing greatest concern for future consenting. The majority of kittiwake research ideas have been taken forward, for example through the Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme, the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme and offshore wind developer funding.
The Research Opportunities (RO) identified across three key themes during the Pilot Year are summarised above.
OWSMRF Continuation (April 2021 to February 2023)
Following on from the success of the Pilot Year, OWSMRF progressed with its Continuation Phase, commencing in April 2021 and completing in February 2023. Building on the Pilot, as well as benefitting from the interaction and integration with other successful projects such as ORJIP and OWEC, the OWSMRF Continuation identified further high-priority species and knowledge gaps. This was undertaken with the ambition of initiating new research to reduce uncertainty around the impact of UK offshore wind, where that uncertainty is relevant to consent for new developments, particularly in the Irish and Celtic Seas.
European storm-petrel, one of the focal species of the OWSMRF Continuation (photo courtesy of Lewis Thomson).
The focus of the OWSMRF Continuation was Procellariiformes, specifically Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) and European storm-petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus). A stakeholder workshop identified these species as of growing importance and a potential future consent risk to the offshore wind sector as there is currently limited understanding of key aspects of the life history, distribution and interaction of these species with offshore wind.
Key themes and research areas identified in the Continuation Phase KG4 report are shown in the flowchart above.
As a result of the Continuation Phase and the Research Opportunities identified in the Knowledge Gap 4 report (see below), JNCC, with the support of the OWSMRF Developer Group and a project consortium formed of University of Oxford, RSPB and University of Gloucestershire, developed a research bid which was successfully funded by the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme. This research project combines aspects from several KG4 ROs including those focussing on reducing uncertainty around demographic rates (RO 4.9 & 4.11) and expansion of tracking to improve understanding of at-sea behaviour and distribution (RO 4.8). This ambitious three-year project seeks to fill evidence gaps and reduce uncertainty around the potential interactions between Manx shearwaters, European storm-petrels and Leach’s storm-petrels and offshore wind farms with the aim of reducing consent risk for future developments in the Irish and Celtic Seas. For more information see the JNCC webpage, blog post and The Crown Estate’s press release.
OWSMRF Phase 3 (January 2025 to July 2026)
OWSMRF Phase 3 builds on the successes of previous phases, as well as existing relationships and synergies with other UK strategic research initiatives. Phase 3 runs for 18 months, with final outputs being distributed by summer 2026. Forum partners welcome engagement with other organisations interested in their work.
As part of OWSMRF Phase 3 initial tasks, an assessment of marine ornithology evidence needs and delivery of research in the context of offshore wind expansion in the UK has been delivered. The stocktake had three main objectives, or Work Packages (WP):
- WP1a: To provide an updated understanding of the relevant working groups and programmes of work in the UK likely interacting with OWSMRF and clarify OWSMRF’s role within the context of the UK offshore wind consenting landscape;
- WP1b: To review outputs from recent evidence needs collation and prioritisation initiatives, and identify key evidence themes for marine ornithology and offshore wind;
- WP1c: Focusing on the outputs of OWSMRF Pilot and Continuation, to evaluate to what extent critical evidence needs on black-legged kittiwake, Manx shearwater and European storm-petrel have been or are being addressed by research, identify where residual knowledge uncertainty may still be lying and develop recommendations to move the field forward.
A report describing the findings of the stocktake entitled “Offshore wind and marine birds in the UK - A review of the state of play to inform the identification of critical strategic consenting issues” is available on request.
Following advice from offshore wind stakeholders at a workshop in April 2025, OWSMRF Phase 3 is progressing work towards improving understanding of the non-breeding bird component of seabird populations. Non-breeding birds are defined as two categories of individuals: 1) sexually immature sub-adults; and 2) sexually mature adults who do not breed in a given year due to, for example, poor condition or resources. Non-breeding birds play a major role in the resilience of seabird populations, by representing a potentially large pool of future reproductive individuals helping buffer against low productivity or adult survival.
JNCC will be collaborating with experts in the field to provide a detailed assessment of the ecology, distribution and behaviour of non-breeding birds, and develop research ideas that will further advance our understanding of this under-studied part of seabird populations, leading to more realistic and less precautionary impact assessments. Future plans, and finalised outputs, will be communicated in due course.
Work products
Pilot year
The Pilot Year resulted in the publication of reports on each of the key Knowledge Gaps:
- JNCC Report 644: Better estimates of collision mortality to black-legged kittiwakes at offshore windfarms
- JNCC Report 645: Better linking effects of offshore windfarms on black-legged kittiwakes to populations
- JNCC Report 651:Black-legged kittiwake population dynamics and drivers of population change in the context of offshore wind development
On the back of the Pilot, Vattenfall funded work to fulfil one of the identified Research Opportunities into the feasibility of colour-ring deployment on kittiwake:
A summary of the 20 Pilot Year Research Opportunities (ROs) is available in the concept notes:
Of the high-priority ROs identified by OWSMRF, the following Scopes of Work (SoW) were produced, detailing the work required to address the evidence gap:
- SoW RO 1.1: Review of systems for monitoring bird collisions at offshore wind farms
- SoW RO 1.2: Co-ordinated, strategic GPS tracking programme: multiple colonies
- SoW RO 2.3: Feasibility study for large-scale deployment of mark-recapture systems
- SoW RO 2.4: Feasibility review for catching black-legged kittiwakes at-sea
- SoW RO 3.1: Modelling of kittiwake meta-population dynamics
Continuation Phase
The Continuation Phase has resulted in the publication of a report on key knowledge gaps:
A summary of the 18 Research Opportunities (ROs) can be found in the Continuation Phase Concept Notes:
Of the high-priority ROs identified by OWSMRF, the following Scope of Work was produced, detailing the work required to address the evidence gap:
- SoW RO 4.2 & 3a: Review, modelling and trials of annual monitoring for Manx shearwaters and European storm-petrels
JNCC would be pleased to discuss these opportunities with any organisation that would be interested in taking them further.
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