SPRFMO
South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation
Jack Mackerel Working Group
JM MSE Workshop agenda
15 June 2026
NoteMeeting at a glance
- Dates: 15–19 June 2026 (4.5 days)
- Venue: Wageningen Campus Omnia, Hoge Steeg 2, 6708 PH Wageningen
- Chair: J. Ianelli (JMWG Chair)
- Daily timings:
- Mon 15 Jun: 09:00 – 18:00
- Tue 16 Jun: 08:30 – 17:00 (early start to recover Day-1 slippage if any)
- Wed 17 Jun: 09:00 – 18:00
- Thu 18 Jun: 09:00 – 18:00
- Fri 19 Jun: 09:00 – 12:00 (half day, close at noon)
- Format: Plenary throughout, with focused subgroup breakouts where flagged.
- Working language: English; technical documents at https://sprfmo.github.io/scw17/.
- Optional orientation: MSE training resources, including the IOTC MSE Shiny app and FAO Training Adventure option.
Purpose and overview
SCW17 is expected to carry the 2026 jack mackerel benchmark outcomes into management-strategy-evaluation work. The agenda should distinguish decisions needed for operating-model conditioning from items that can remain as diagnostics, robustness scenarios, or later SC14 documentation.
Key decisions to be made at SCW17 include:
- Operating-model conditioning set and any benchmark-derived sensitivities to retain.
- Recruitment-process assumptions and stock-recruitment parameter treatment.
- Treatment of single-stock and two-stock hypotheses in advice development.
- Performance metrics, time horizons, and risk-tolerance language.
- Candidate management-procedure families and tuning targets.
- Robustness scenarios and exceptional-circumstances meta-rules.
- Cross-platform validation responsibilities and timetable.
The schedule is built around some ideal principles:
- Front-load high-cognition technical work. OM walk-through and MP setup happen Monday afternoon through Tuesday, while attention is fresh.
- Reserve mid-week for results. Wednesday produces the first integrated MP-evaluation results so Thursday can be spent on trade-offs and shortlisting, not on re-running models.
- Use Thursday as the decision day. The CMP shortlist for SC14 is decided Thursday afternoon, so Friday morning is drafting and assignment, not deliberation.
- Breakouts only when they save plenary time. Each breakout has a named lead, a named output, and a hard return-to-plenary time.
- End each day with a 30-minute wrap that names what’s needed by the next morning’s start time. Avoids dead time at the start of each day.
Schedule
Monday 15 June — Opening and benchmark handoff (09:00 – 18:00)
| Time | Topic | Lead | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 – 09:30 | Opening, welcome, agenda adoption, declaration of materials in shared folder. | Chair, WMR host | Agenda confirmed; folder contents agreed. |
| 09:30 – 10:30 | Benchmark outcomes for MSE conditioning — SCW17-Doc01 walkthrough. What was decided in Lima; what is settled; what is still diagnostic. | Chair | Shared understanding of the input set. |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 10:45 – 12:00 | Reference points — SCW17-Paper-02 walkthrough, including productivity cases and dynamic Bzero. | Chair | Reference-point set confirmed for MSE evaluation. |
| 12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch. | — | — |
| 13:00 – 14:30 | OM conditioning overview — SCW17-Doc02. How the benchmark inputs were carried into the OM grid. | WMR (Iago, Karolina) | OM grid structure understood by all members. |
| 14:30 – 15:30 | OM diagnostics walkthrough — fits, retros, composition, indices. | WMR | Diagnostic acceptance check. |
| 15:30 – 15:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 15:45 – 17:00 | Stock-hypothesis treatment in the OM grid. Confirmation of TG-05 decision; how h1 / h2 / weighting enters projection. | Chair + WMR | Treatment locked. |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Day-1 wrap; what’s needed for 08:30 Tuesday. Confirmation that recruitment scenarios and S–R priors are ready to discuss. | Chair | List of overnight tasks per member. |
Tuesday 16 June — Operating models deep dive (08:30 – 17:00)
Warning
Early start (08:30). Tuesday opens 30 minutes earlier than the other technical days. The first half hour is reserved for recovery of any slippage from Monday and for cross-platform setup. If Monday closed cleanly, members can use the 08:30–09:00 block for code-level review of OM scripts.
| Time | Topic | Lead | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:30 – 09:00 | Member parallel-run setup — FLR vs. RTMB/OpenMSE: confirm identical OM, identical seeds, identical projection horizon. | WMR + Chile + Peru | Cross-platform run table populated. |
| 09:00 – 10:30 | Reference-set OMs — full walkthrough, axis by axis. | WMR | Reference set signed off. |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 10:45 – 12:00 | Robustness-set OMs — SCW17-Doc04 walkthrough. ENSO / offshore-drop / catchability / index-bias scenarios. | WMR | Robustness set signed off. |
| 12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch. | — | — |
| 13:00 – 14:30 | Recruitment scenarios and S–R assumptions — steepness priors, σ_R, regime treatment, far-north handling. | WMR + Chair | Recruitment specifications locked. |
| 14:30 – 15:30 | ENSO / offshore-drop scenario specification — magnitude, duration, recovery dynamics; tie back to the 2026 acoustic and CPUE signals. | WMR + Chile | Scenario parameters locked. |
| 15:30 – 15:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 15:45 – 17:00 | OM sign-off (plenary). All OM-related decisions confirmed and recorded. Documented residual gaps if any. | Chair | OM block closed. No OM changes after this point. |
Wednesday 17 June — Candidate management procedures (09:00 – 18:00)
| Time | Topic | Lead | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 – 10:30 | MP register walkthrough — SCW17-Doc03. Every MP, its data streams, lag, frequency, HCR form, Buffer/K60 settings. | WMR + Chile + Peru | All members confirm understanding of every MP. |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 10:45 – 12:00 | Model-based MPs deep dive — multi-index, surplus-production, structural assumptions, tuning. | WMR (Iago) | Model-based MP set documented. |
| 12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch. | — | — |
| 13:00 – 14:30 | Model-free / OpenMSE MPs — DLMtool/MSEtool methods applicable to JM, data requirements. | Chile + Peru | Model-free MP set documented. |
| 14:30 – 15:30 | MP tuning — Buffer/K60 setting, tuning to comparable long-term yield, calibration runs. | WMR | Tuning parameters locked. |
| 15:30 – 15:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 15:45 – 17:00 | Initial CMP results — reference OM. First integrated trade-off plots. | WMR | Reference-OM results table. |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Day-3 wrap; preparation for trade-off and shortlist work on Thursday. Identify any MP needing overnight re-run. | Chair | Thursday-morning run list. |
Thursday 18 June — Trade-offs, robustness, shortlist decision (09:00 – 18:00)
Important
Decision day. The CMP shortlist for SC14 is agreed Thursday afternoon. If a decision cannot be reached in the time allotted, the chair will move to a documented fallback (carry the top-three reference-OM CMPs and flag the remaining choice as SC14 paper work) rather than extend the day.
| Time | Topic | Lead | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 – 10:30 | Performance-metric review — confirm metrics, horizons, risk tolerance against actual results. No new metrics. | Chair | Metrics confirmed for shortlist comparison. |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 10:45 – 12:00 | Trade-off plots — Slick / worm-plot / Kobe-style review across CMPs on the reference OM. | WMR | Trade-off presentation agreed. |
| 12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch. | — | — |
| 13:00 – 14:30 | Robustness results — ENSO, offshore-drop, and remaining scenarios. Pass/fail against documented criteria. | WMR | Robustness pass/fail table. |
| 14:30 – 15:30 | Cross-platform validation results — FLR vs. RTMB/OpenMSE on the reference OM and at least one robustness scenario. | WMR + Chile + Peru | Validation summary; agreement status. |
| 15:30 – 15:45 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 15:45 – 17:00 | Shortlist deliberation — which CMPs advance to SC14 and on what grounds. Recorded vote/consensus on each. | Chair (plenary) | CMP shortlist for SC14 — DECIDED. |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Day-4 wrap; drafting assignments for Friday morning; confirmation of who writes which section of the SC14 paper. | Chair | Friday-morning task table. |
Friday 19 June — Recommendations and close (09:00 – 12:00)
| Time | Topic | Lead | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 – 10:00 | Final shortlist confirmation and rationale text. Written justification for each CMP advancing and each dropped. | Chair + WMR | Rationale paragraphs drafted. |
| 10:00 – 10:45 | Exceptional-circumstances meta-rules — trigger conditions, evidence types, response actions. Adoption. | Chair + Chile + Peru | Meta-rules note adopted. |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee. | — | — |
| 11:00 – 11:45 | SC14 paper structure and drafting assignments — SCW17-SC14-01 (results), SC14-02 (cross-platform), SC14-03 (process review). Owners and timeline. | Chair | Drafting table with owner + deadline per section. |
| 11:45 – 12:00 | Close. Acknowledgements, thanks to WMR host, agreed circulation of draft minutes within 7 days. | Chair | Workshop closed at 12:00. |
At-a-glance overview
| Day | Hours | Theme | Key output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 15 Jun | 09:00 – 18:00 | Opening, benchmark handoff, OM conditioning overview, stock-hypothesis treatment | Shared understanding of inputs; stock-hypothesis treatment locked. |
| Tue 16 Jun | 08:30 – 17:00 | OM deep dive, recruitment scenarios, ENSO specification, OM sign-off | OM block closed. |
| Wed 17 Jun | 09:00 – 18:00 | MP register, tuning, first integrated results on reference OM | Reference-OM CMP results in hand. |
| Thu 18 Jun | 09:00 – 18:00 | Performance metrics, trade-offs, robustness, cross-platform validation, shortlist decision | CMP shortlist for SC14 agreed. |
| Fri 19 Jun | 09:00 – 12:00 | Shortlist rationale, exceptional-circumstances meta-rules, SC14 drafting assignments | Drafting plan and assignments. |
Standing items each day
- 08:55 / 08:25 Tue: Quiet check-in time; chair confirms quorum and any overnight communications.
- Coffee breaks are 15 minutes and start on the clock; presenters do not run into the break.
- Lunch is 12:00–13:00 (Mon, Wed, Thu) and 12:00–13:00 (Tue, with the 08:30 start that’s still a 3.5-hour morning block — chair will signal a 5-min stretch at 10:00 on top of the formal coffee break if needed).
- End-of-day 30-min wrap is non-negotiable, even on the technically heaviest days. The chair will not allow a session to swallow the wrap.
- Side-room is reserved each afternoon for small breakouts. Any breakout must register a lead, a return-time, and a one-line output before leaving plenary.
Risk register and fallbacks
| Risk | Fallback |
|---|---|
| OM conditioning not closed by Tuesday 17:00. | Move OM sign-off to Wednesday 08:30; compress MP register walkthrough to 60 minutes. |
| MP register changes during the workshop. | Not permitted under TG-05 freeze. Late-arriving MPs run as comparison only, do not enter shortlist. |
| Cross-platform validation incomplete. | Treat as SC14-02 paper deliverable rather than blocking shortlist decision. |
| Shortlist deliberation deadlocked at 17:00 Thursday. | Chair invokes the documented fallback (top-three reference-OM CMPs by composite trade-off score). |
| Friday slippage. | Hard close at 12:00. Outstanding drafting items become Task Team action with a 7-day deadline. |
| Remote participation drops out. | Workshop continues in-person; remote items are flagged for catch-up on the post-workshop Task Team call. |
Post-workshop close-out (for the chair)
- Within 48 hours: circulate draft list of agreed decisions to all participants.
- Within 7 days: circulate draft minutes; collect corrections within a further 7 days.
- Within 14 days: confirm the SC14 paper drafting timeline and check first drafts are on track.
- TT-06 (Thu 9 July): post-Wageningen review; CMP shortlist review for SC14 drafting.