When conducting the OpenNESS analyses, it is important to recognise the institutional context of ecosystem management and governance. Identifying the institutional context allows us to understand what has produced the current management systems and which institutions will condition the future recommendations. We have to consider and analyse institutions at several governance levels and pay attention to their interplay. Institutional analysis can be carried out in a general and qualitative fashion, or it can be developed into detailed hypotheses and subjected to empirical testing.
