Innovative and integrated ocean science might hold the key to find new solutions for protecting the ocean and for the transformation to sustainable use of the marine system. This will require more cooperative and integrated approaches, bringing together the natural and social sciences, humanities and engineering, as well as policymakers, resource managers, ocean industries, civil societies and other societal partners. Future Earth and its organizational partners has the ambition to facilitate the formation of trans-disciplinary teams that can address these exciting ocean challenges under the novel framework of Knowledge-Action Networks (KANs). What exactly is the Ocean Knowledge-Action Network (Ocean KAN), how does it work and can you contribute? The Ocean KAN is supported by the international programmes Future Earth, WCRP, IOC-UNESCO and SCOR and their marine core projects, and aims at advancing integrated ocean research globally to chart a course from knowledge of ocean systems to changes in policies, practices, governance, and behaviours that will assist in sustaining those systems. In a bottom-up process the Ocean KAN will initiate trans-disciplinary teams and new integrative initiatives that will address these challenges by co-designing scalable and integrated systems-approaches in collaboration with users of knowledge and decision-makers around the world.