Science Without Borders® is a registered trademark of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation.

To discover and explore a pristine coral reef, alive with color and diversity, is to witness nature’s most vital forces at work. Here is the sustainer and nursery of our life; giving oceans: a privilege to explore, a necessity to preserve. Present and future generations across the globe will continue to depend on these beautiful and threatened life-support systems. Today, the livelihoods and subsistence of nearly 500 million people depend on coral reef ecosystems. Coral reefs are intricately connected with our own health and the health of our planet in ways we do not yet fully comprehend.

The urgency to better understand and preserve coral reefs has reached an acute stage. Our generation is witnessing the worst coral reef crisis on record with coral reef ecosystems around the world, undergoing rapid and dramatic deterioration of health and vitality as a direct result of human and climate change stressors.

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, dedicated to the preservation and restoration of living oceans, is launching a bold, five year global coral reef research and education initiative to address these critical reef research and marine science conservation issues. This Global Reef Expedition offers a rare opportunity to research and document the very foundations of life itself and direct the research towards immediate coral reef conservation and restoration activities.

Using the state-of-the-art research vessel, the Motor Yacht Golden Shadow, to serve as a host platform for world-renowned marine scientists, the Global Reef Expedition will systematically document and research the world’s most remote and pristine coral reef ecosystems. His Royal Highness Prince Khaled bin Sultan’s generous donation of the research platform and infrastructure for the Expedition, valued at about $25 million dollars, enables unique scientific access to remote coral reef ecosystems that are relatively unaffected by human-induced stressors. As a result, this applied science expedition will be able to deliver the scientific knowledge necessary for decision makers to develop effective reef management policy and to implement successful conservation strategies.

Yet, effective scientific research and conservation tools are, in and of themselves, insufficient. The scale of the Global Reef Expedition is unprecedented and calls for an equally bold educational goal. The Global Reef Expedition’s Education Program will leverage the potential of new learning technologies to effectively deliver the urgent message of coral reef conservation to millions of learners around the world. The Education Program will create an active awareness of the direct contributions reefs make to human lives regardless of where they reside. The educational goal is simple: Reefs matter to you and you need to be informed and involved in their conservation. The Global Reef Expedition has both the capacity and commitment to deliver cutting-edge applied research holistically with motivational hands-on learning that will provide pathways to significantly improving the health and future of global coral reefs.

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Ocean Foundation’s Global Reef Expedition initiative is fulfilling an urgent priority at the crossroads of an ocean health crisis. It is the first scientific research expedition intended to directly impact the world’s collective responsibility to reverse the decline of invaluable coral reef resources around the globe, to safeguard the health of the oceans that regulate and sustain all life on the planet.

The Living Oceans Foundation embraces Science Without Borders® in all facets of its operations. Science Without Borders® is registered to the Foundation for financial sponsorship of coral reef research, marine science conservation programs and scientific research expeditions, and to promote public awareness of the need to preserve, protect and restore the world’s oceans and aquatic resources.