During the First Global Planning Meeting of the UN Decade of Ocean Science, held at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen in May 2019, efforts were made by the museum and a group of marine archaeologists and cultural heritage managers to lobby for the integration of marine archaeology and cultural heritage into the activities and goals of the Decade. 

The success of this coordinated effort was already apparent at the UNESCO International Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage/UNITWIN Underwater Archaeology Network meeting in Brest, France, in June 2019, and it became apparent that an information exchange platform was needed to raise awareness in the cultural heritage community about the Decade and coordinate related activities. 

The Ocean Decade Heritage Network is a result of this call, referred to in the Summary Report of the Decade’s First Global Planning Meeting and announced in the article published in August 2019 in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology.