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4
Proposed Management and
Administration
A review of other relevant science programs demonstrated that a
sound management plan is necessary if the program is to succeed.
A strong management structure ensures that the science activities
advance the program's missions, goals, and themes. A notable feature of
sound management plans is developing mechanisms for providing sci-
ence guidance, including both internal and external review, and creating
fair procedures for announcing and awarding grants.
The current structure, outlined in Chapter 1, could be improved with
several minor changes; the proposal process should be significantly
altered. The proposed structure discussed below may help ensure the
legacy of the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB). This structure is
recommended after analysis of management and administration struc-
tures from other science grant-awarding agencies, including the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). Many of these programs have similar compo-
nents to structure proposed in this chapter. Although other approaches
can lead to a successful program, the following structure is most appro-
priate because it provides mechanisms for impartial proposal review,
strong science advice, and periodic program review--some of the elements
of a successful science plan outlined in Chapter 2.
66
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PROPOSED MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 67
NPRB MEMBERS, STAFF, AND PANELS
NPRB Members
The enabling legislation contains an adequate number of board
members; therefore no changes are suggested.
NPRB Staff
Currently the only NPRB staff member is the executive director. The
executive director is tasked with chief administration but lacks adminis-
trative staff. As such, administrative staff positions should be established
as the NPRB moves forward because one person will not be sufficient to
provide scientific leadership and conduct all necessary administrative
support functions.
Science Panel
The Science Panel ensures that the highest possible quality of research
is conducted under NPRB support. It is important that NPRB activities be
carried out with full knowledge of related activities supported by other
funding agencies. To achieve this goal, Science Panel members could be
selected to bring representation from a subset of these agencies. The
Science Panel should also have responsibility for writing or overseeing
the writing of the science plan and then recommending annual modifica-
tions of goals and themes for the NPRB Science Plan.
At least during the NPRB's formative stages the Science Panel should
be kept advised of budgetary constraints, be briefed on the work plan,
and then modify the work plan and the Science Plan as necessary.
Advisory Panel
The Advisory Panel should provide input to the Science Panel to
ensure the relevance of the science to the mission and goals of the NPRB.
The appropriate point for this input is in setting research priorities and in
drafting the request for proposals (RFPs). The Advisory Panel should not
be involved in the review process or the selection of funding proposals to
avoid a real or perceived conflict of interest.
NPRB Participants
The group of NPRB participants consists of all scientists who are cur-
rently principal investigators (PIs) of NPRB grants. They provide an
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68 ELEMENTS OF A SCIENCE PLAN FOR THE NPRB
information resource that should be tapped by the NPRB executive
director. The executive director should sponsor an annual meeting of
NPRB participants in which they report the progress of ongoing research
and share data.
Depending on the size of the program and the number of funded
projects, it may be useful to divide the projects into a smaller number of
science themes represented by theme leaders. These theme leaders, rather
than individual PIs, would then report research results for the group to
the executive director. One outcome of this meeting should be an
appraisal of the current status and projected needs of the program.
THE PROPOSAL PROCESS
A critical NPRB activity is the process it uses to develop and solicit
proposals. During each funding cycle, the executive director drafts an
RFP, with advice from the Science Panel. The Science Panel in turn seeks
input from the Advisory Panel. The RFP clearly reflects the research
themes of the NPRB Science Plan, as well as current priorities recom-
mended by the Science Panel. However, although the development of
new technology may be necessary for some projects (see Chapter 3), there
is a rich history of proxy and historical data in this region. The RFP should
mention that proposers should take into consideration whether proxy
data, such as tree rings and lake varves, are useful in their projects, and
whether historical data, such as traditional knowledge, also could pro-
vide valuable information. The RFP is then distributed to the scientific
community as widely as possible, including posting on the NPRB web
site, e-mail lists from professional societies, and mailings to selected uni-
versities across the country.
Given the importance of the proposal process, a separate Proposal
Selection Committee (PSC) should be established for each RFP to focus
specifically on proposal review. While the members of the Science Panel
should cover a broad range of disciplines in order to oversee the science
program over the longer term, the members of the Proposal Selection
Committee should be narrowly focused on the areas of the current RFP.
The main function of the PSC is to read all submissions carefully and to
judge the quality of the science and its relevance to NPRB goals. The
committee should then recommend to NPRB members, the Science Panel,
and the executive director which proposals should be funded. The PSC
should then be dissolved and another appointed when the next RFP is
issued.
The PSC members should be highly respected scientists with exper-
tise in the areas designated in the RFP. They should not be members of the
NPRB, nor should they have proposals pending in that panel or any
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PROPOSED MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 69
potential or perceived financial gain from the outcome. Although indi-
vidual members of the Science Panel could be selected to serve on the
PSC, the Science Panel as a unit should not be involved in the review
process or funding of science proposals in order to avoid a real or per-
ceived conflict of interest. Members of the PSC should be appointed by
the executive director, based on advice from the Science Panel. The
number of members and the composition of the Proposal Selection Com-
mittee should depend on the number of proposals received and their
scientific breadth.
As the NPRB matures and begins implementing its science plan, it
will have to ensure that the processes by which proposals are considered,
evaluated, and funded are clearly specified in a policy statement within
its Science Plan. The NPRB has to establish objective procedures for pro-
posal review, publish those criteria, and then follow them strictly in
awarding grants. The current practice of allowing PIs into the meeting
with NPRB members as proposal funding decisions are made is not
standard practice and should be discontinued.
Proposals should be peer reviewed, both by external reviewers and
by the Proposal Selection Committee. Selection criteria should be based
on the appropriateness of the research to NPRB goals, the quality of the
proposed science, and the track record of the principal investigator(s).
The criteria for proposal selection established by NSF are especially
respected within the scientific community and might serve as a model.
The NOAA Sea Grant proposal process incorporates user group input
and should be examined as well (NRC, 1994). The guiding principles of
(1) peer review by qualified, unbiased reviewers and (2) reviewer anonymity
should be the basis for any review procedure.
The executive director of the NPRB should convene a closed meeting
of the PSC at which all proposals are discussed. The process of assessing
applications requires frank and sometimes difficult discussions that can-
not be conducted in open session while protecting reviewers' anonymity.
At the end of the meeting, the Proposal Selection Committee should make
funding recommendations to the executive director. It is accepted practice
for those having a vested interest to recuse themselves when proposals
from their agency or university are considered. NPRB members should
observe this widely accepted practice. A report of the funding recom-
mendations should be issued by the executive director to the NPRB and
to the chair of the Science Panel.
The NPRB members should approve or modify the funding decisions
contained in the report. It is highly recommended that NPRB members
accept the funding recommendations made by the Proposal Selection
Committee, with little or no change. Above all, the NPRB should avoid
the temptation to award grants based on political or geographic criteria.
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70 ELEMENTS OF A SCIENCE PLAN FOR THE NPRB
Ultimately, the board's long-term legacy will be judged by its contribu-
tion to knowledge of the region, and this will be based on strong, innova-
tive, integrative scientific studies.
According to the legislative mandate, research funding decisions of
the NPRB must be approved by the U.S. secretary of commerce. The leg-
islation also seats a representative or designee of the secretary of com-
merce as a member of the NPRB. Furthermore, although a local official of
the Department of Commerce and NOAA might serve as an NPRB mem-
ber, the final funding decisions should be approved by the secretary di-
rectly or by a representative or designee who is remote from the conse-
quences of local decisions. To avoid any real or perceived conflicts of
interest, the individual serving as representative of the secretary of com-
merce on the NPRB should not be the same individual serving as the
secretary's representative or designee for the purposes of approving
NPRB funding decisions.
The executive director should notify the chair of the Science Panel of
the final funding decisions. Funding decisions by the NPRB and the
reasons behind them should be provided to all applicants in a timely
manner.
EXTERNAL REVIEW
The NPRB is conceived as a long-term (i.e., multidecadal) research
program. During the life of the program, technology will change, scien-
tific knowledge will accumulate, and public perceptions will shift. All
long-lived programs benefit from periodic external reviews because those
who can view a program from a distance often provide insight that can-
not come from within. The NPRB will benefit from a regular pattern of
reviews in which it invites a panel of outside reviewers to evaluate its
Science Plan, long-term programs, and the policies and procedures that
govern proposal evaluation and grant administration. It is suggested that
an external review program be conducted every five years. Members of
the external review committee should all be acknowledged experts in
fields relevant to NPRB research activities. The committee should review
all aspects of these activities, both scientific and administrative.
Periodic program reviews are expected to result in amendments to
NPRB science policies and procedures and to short- and medium-range
goals. One caution, however, is that the long-term monitoring compo-
nents of NPRB programs should be protected. Once a long-term monitor-
ing plan has been established, it should be changed only for compelling
reasons and only in such a way that continuity of the long-term record is
preserved.
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PROPOSED MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 71
OUTREACH AND EDUCATION
As the NPRB develops and implements its Science Plan, it will have
to recognize the importance of public interaction. The NPRB Science Plan
must articulate clear mechanisms to seek public input and respond to it.
However, the NPRB should be aware that the specific problems likely to
be identified by the public will find their solutions not in direct problem
solving, but in a basic understanding of the ecosystem. The NPRB must
recognize the need for a broad range of outreach and educational ap-
proaches that reflect the rich diversity of the region's communities.
Outreach can be accomplished either by requiring researchers to in-
clude an outreach component in their proposals or by funding proposals
submitted by public communicators. Researchers can propose to include
items such as web pages, popular science articles, public communication
(e.g., newspaper, radio, television), and public talks to local communities.
This approach to outreach is often satisfactory for many funding agencies
and should be encouraged, but not required, by the NPRB. In addition,
the NPRB should consider establishing or otherwise funding one or more
professional education or media outreach specialists who could produce
radio segments, arrange public lectures, and answer media questions
among other outreach and education tasks. Groups that apply for this
type of funding should be able to meld individual projects into an inter-
esting integrated outreach program.
Along with general outreach, the NPRB could seek ways to expose
research results to the public. This could be done by requesting that re-
searchers publicize their results or by funding a group to publicize NPRB's
research. This type of activity can help to integrate marine science into
the curriculum of K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and continuing science
education in coastal and interior communities, with special emphasis on
Native Alaskans. This can be done both by strongly suggesting that re-
searchers include a graduate student or undergraduate and K-12 training
in their proposals and bringing teachers to their programs. There are many
community and educational groups such as the Youth Area Watch pro-
gram that can help to attain this goal. It is often difficult for researchers to
make these connections themselves, so it would be beneficial for the NPRB
to set up a network or catalog of these opportunities.
DATA POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
The NPRB is charged with conducting research that will address
pressing fishery management or marine ecosystem information needs,
with the ultimate goal of developing an integrated understanding of the
North Pacific ecosystem. To integrate the data from this large-scale re-
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72 ELEMENTS OF A SCIENCE PLAN FOR THE NPRB
search effort, a system will have to be developed and implemented to
provide user-friendly mechanisms for data storage and sharing. Scien-
tists conducting NPRB research have an obligation to share the data and
metadata they collect with the community at large. For these reasons,
there has to be an explicit NPRB data policy. The goal of this policy is to
advance science by encouraging data sharing, making the NPRB whole
greater than the sum of the component projects.
All major research programs have to deal with the challenge of man-
aging their data. Clearly, one goal is for project PIs to publish in peer-
reviewed journals. Beyond that, mechanisms are needed to foster data
integration to form a comprehensive picture of what is available into the
future. This task is increasingly important as observational tools produce
larger amounts of data and computational capabilities allow these data to
be mined in new, innovative ways.
Many research programs have considered data management and
policy, and their conclusions could be useful to the NPRB. Policies of the
NSF's Hawaiian Ocean Time Series, Bermuda Atlantic Time Series, and
Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network all contain relevant
elements. The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), part
of the Smithsonian Institution, uses an interdisciplinary approach and
long-term studies to examine mechanisms regulating the structure and
dynamics of linked ecosystems. SERC has prepared a comprehensive
"data sharing policy" that could serve as the basis for the NPRB's data
policy (see http://www.serc.si.edu/datamgmnt/policy1.htm).
Thus, it is important that the NPRB give early thought to designing a
clear policy for data and information sharing. This will serve to maximize
the dissemination of knowledge even prior to archival publication. All
raw data and metadata (e.g., data types, methods, sample locations)
should be freely accessible through a centralized NPRB Data Manage-
ment Office (DMO). Although recognizing the legitimate rights of the
data originators first use of the data they collect, the NPRB Science Plan
should mandate that researchers provide their data to the board as soon
as possible, and certainly no more than two years after data collection. It
is prudent to place restrictions on certain raw data sets for a period of
time to ensure that data users are fully aware of the limitations and quali-
fications of the data. Nevertheless, such restrictions might be balanced
with an equally critical need to distribute data to ancillary NPRB investi-
gators and outside users. It may be necessary to define the different levels
of data (e.g., general environmental data, meteorological records, versus
the results of complex experiments) having different restrictions. As is
common practice, the principal investigator will be responsible for data
submission. It is essential that NPRB program PIs use a standard data
format so that their data can be accessible to the largest community. All
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PROPOSED MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 73
data originators should be acknowledged properly. Typically, programs
institute policies in which people who fail to comply with the data policy
cannot compete for additional funds.
Most research programs of the size and scope of the NPRB have some
administrative mechanism dedicated to data management. To facilitate
its data policy, an NPRB Data Management Office should be established.
Creation of DMO at the onset of the NPRB project will establish the
importance of data archiving and long-term preservation before impor-
tant opportunities are lost. The DMO will monitor compliance, but data
policy enforcement--if necessary--will be the responsibility of the NPRB.
The DMO should establish and maintain a user-friendly, web-based data
retrieval system patterned after recent successes in the LTER, Ridge Inter-
Disciplinary Global Experiment, Joint Global Ocean Flux Study, and other
similar multi-investigator, interdisciplinary research programs. Further,
the NPRB should consider discussions with other archiving institutions
regarding the development of improved methods for querying the
archived materials. Such technological improvements would be a signifi-
cant achievement for the NPRB. The NPRB should convene a workshop
of the appropriate stakeholders to discuss archival needs and options for
meeting these needs.
The committee cautions that the NPRB should not charge for data
access. Lessons from previous programs clearly show that they are more
successful if they do not charge for the data. For instance, both the
National Center for Atmospheric Research-National Center for Environ-
mental Prediction (NCAR-NCEP) and the European Center for Medium-
Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) recently created multidecadal,
calibrated time series of atmospheric data; the NCEP-NCAR data were
free and the ECMWF data were not. A paper describing the NCEP-NCAR
data set (Kalnay et al., 1996) is the second most highly cited paper in atmo-
spheric science history because people are using their data (E. Kalnay,
Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland, College Park, per-
sonal communication, 2003), while the ECMWF data have remained in
relative obscurity. It is important to add that the ECMWF data are not of
poorer quality, but because people must pay, they do not use the data.
The next edition of the ECMWF data is to be free of charge, highlighting
that a pay system did not work. Similar lessons can be learned from
RADARSAT data, which is seldom used due to costs. The committee
believes that the NPRB's desire to develop a legacy will be hindered by
charging for data.
In addition, the NPRB should establish a partnership for tissues and
organisms. They may have to front some costs for this, but projects that
generate samples should explicitly reflect the costs of archiving them in
their budgets. Archiving tissue samples and organisms is critical to the
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74 ELEMENTS OF A SCIENCE PLAN FOR THE NPRB
documentation of biodiversity and therefore an important part of fulfill-
ing the NPRB's mission. It is likely that the most efficient process for
developing an appropriate archiving function would be to build existing
archives locally, regionally, or nationally (e.g., those of the Smithsonian
Institution).
COORDINATION WITH OTHER PROJECTS AND PROGRAMS
The issues of importance in the NPRB study region are of interest to
other stakeholders, including state and federal agencies, universities, envi-
ronmental groups, industry, and tribes and tribal or native organizations.
To maximize the effect of its finite resources, the board should develop
liaisons with those groups whose missions relate, at least in part, to these
of the NPRB. To facilitate those interactions, representatives of the NPRB
should attend some open meetings of relevant parties and should invite
representatives of other groups to their open meetings and workshops.
Annual requests for proposals should specify areas of research focus,
taking into consideration research being conducted by others, to avoid
duplication of effort. Wherever possible, partnerships should be formed
to leverage maximum benefit from the available funds. Proposals entail-
ing partnerships and cost-sharing might be given some priority, but the
final decision on funding proposals should be based on the appropriate-
ness of the subject and its scientific merit. Given the variety of groups
funding and doing research in an NPRB's region and other areas of
interest, the NPRB liaison should interact with these other groups to
ensure that the board does not fund proposals in areas that others are
already funded. In addition, the NPRB liaison could facilitate leveraging
of funds. The NPRB should also identify the scope and funding of pro-
grams in its region of interest to ensure that it does not fund duplicative
proposals. On the PI level, the NPRB recently participated in a Joint
Science Symposium with other research funding entities that have similar
interests to the NPRB; the NPRB should continue annual PI meetings to
foster collaboration between projects and encourage new interdisciplinary
projects. Where appropriate, representatives from other relevant pro-
grams should be invited to participate. The NPRB should examine the
synthesis activities of programs such as the NSF's Polar Programs and
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. The following
sections provide an initial list of programs and parties involved in fund-
ing and research in the NPRB's region and areas of interest. The liaison
should expand upon this list and form contacts with interested groups.
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PROPOSED MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 75
SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS
Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study (CASES). The central objective
of CASES is to understand the response of the Mackenzie Shelf ecosystem
to changes in atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic forcing of the sea-ice
cover variability. The first activities of the project will consist of a multi-
year observational program in the Mackenzie Shelf region in 2003-2004
(for more information, go to http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/
environment/geography/ceos/projects/cases).
Ocean-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (OAII). The OAII seeks to under-
stand the Arctic marine environment and its role in climate and global
change. To date, the OAII program has supported several small research
projects and has contributed to the following larger collaborative projects:
the Northeast Water Polynya Study (1991-1995), Investigations of the West
Coast and Polar Regions Undersea Research Center (1990-), Western
Arctic (1992-1995), U.S.-Canada Arctic Ocean Section (1994-1997), Surface
Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (1995-2003), Western Arctic Shelf-Basin
Interactions (1999-), and Study of Environmental Arctic Change (2000-),
(for more information, go to http://nsidc.org/arcss/projects/oaii.html).
Western Arctic Shelf-Basin Interactions (SBI) Project. The SBI program
is aimed at improving understanding of shelf-basin exchange and should
lead to improved predictions of global change impacts in the Arctic. The
SBI program includes field and modeling studies directed at elucidating
the physical and biological shelf and slope processes that influence the
structure and function of the Arctic Ocean (for more information, go to
http://sbi.utk.edu).
Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH). SEARCH is con-
ceived as a broad, interdisciplinary, multiscale program with a core
aim of understanding Unaami, the recent and ongoing, decadal (e.g.,
3-50 year), complex of interrelated pan-arctic changes. Contributing
agencies include the Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense,
Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, Environmental
Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science
Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution (for more information, go to
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/search/).
Arctic Community-wide Hydrological Analysis and Monitoring Pro-
gram (Arctic-CHAMP). The Arctic-CHAMP is a new initiative aimed at
understanding the physical, biological, and biogeochemical controls on
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76 ELEMENTS OF A SCIENCE PLAN FOR THE NPRB
the components of the integrated Arctic hydrologic cycle and addressing
linkages between the land and ocean (for more information, go to http://
nsidc.org/arcss/projects/champ.html).
Russian-American Initiative on Shelf-Land Environments in the Arctic
(RAISE). The RAISE program facilitates collaborative research between
Russian and American scientists studying terrestrial, shelf, and ocean
environments in northern Eurasia in the context of global change (for more
information, go to http://arctic.bio.utk.edu/RAISE/index.html).
Arctic and Subarctic Ocean Fluxes (ASOF). The ASOF program aims to
monitor and understand oceanic fluxes of heat, salt, and fresh water at
high northern latitudes and their effects on global ocean circulation and
climate (for more information, go to http://asof.npolar.no/index.html).
Census of Marine Life (CoML). CoML is a growing global network of
researchers from more than 45 nations engaged in a 10-year initiative to
assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine
life in the oceans--past, present, and future (for more information, go to
http://www.coml.org/coml.htm).
Paleoenvironmental Arctic Sciences (PARCS). The PARCS research
program seeks a more complete interdisciplinary understanding of
Arctic paleoenvironmental history and a deeper understanding of the role
of the Arctic in global change (for more information, go to http://
www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/parcs/index.html).
Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (LAII). The LAII research program
seeks to understand interactions between land, atmosphere, and ice in the
Arctic. LAII research, focusing primarily on Alaska, constitutes a major
contribution of land-based data to U.S. global change research in the
Arctic. For more information, go to http://www.laii.uaf.edu/.
Arctic Transitions in the Land-Atmosphere System (ATLAS). The over-
all goal of the ATLAS program is to understand the role of the Arctic
terrestrial system in global climate change by studying the interactions
and feedbacks in the land-atmosphere system that govern ecologically
and socially important impacts (for more information, go to http://
www.arts.monash.edu.au/ges/research/climate/atlas/index.htm).
LAII: The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). The purpose of ITEX
is to monitor and simulate impacts of climate change on tundra vegeta-
tion (for more information, go to http://www.itex-science.net/).
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PROPOSED MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 77
Human Dimensions of the Arctic System (HARC). The major goal of the
HARC initiative is to understand the linkages between human popula-
tions and the biological and physical environment of the Arctic, at scales
ranging from local to global (for more information, go to http://
www.arcus.org/HARC/index.html).
Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). The IOOS is being
designed by Ocean.US (National Office for Integrated and Sustained
Ocean Observation) to provide data that will directly address societal
needs in areas ranging from climate change monitoring, to ship naviga-
tion, to fisheries management. The system is designed to be integrated
with global programs (e.g., the Global Ocean Observatory System) and
with NSF's research-oriented Ocean Observatories Initiative (for more
information, go to http://www.ocean.us/main.jsp).
Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The OOI is being developed by
NSF to provide the basic infrastructure required to make long-term research
observations in the oceans. As it matures, the research-focused OOI will
be networked into and become an integral part of the IOOS (NRC, 2003d).
Steller Sea Lion Coordinated Research Program. This program, admin-
istered by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Alaska Fisheries
Science Center, is composed of hundreds of research projects conducted
on Steller sea lions (for more information, go to http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/
stellers/coordinatedresearch.htm).
Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). AMAP is an
international organization established in 1991 to implement components
of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy. Now a program group of
the Arctic Council, AMAP's current objective is "providing reliable and
sufficient information on the status of, and threats to, the Arctic environ-
ment, and providing scientific advice on actions to be taken in order to
support Arctic governments in their efforts to take remedial and preven-
tive actions relating to contaminants," (for more information, go to http://
www.amap.no/).
International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP). Participants in the IABP
work together to maintain a network of drifting buoys in the Arctic Ocean
to provide meteorological and oceanographic data for real-time opera-
tional requirements and research purposes including support to the World
Climate Research Program and the World Weather Watch Program (for
more information, go to http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/).
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78 ELEMENTS OF A SCIENCE PLAN FOR THE NPRB
Bering Ecosystem Studies (BEST). A new NSF program planned for the
next decade, BEST is concerned with how climate change will affect the
ecosystems of the Bering Sea (for more information, go to http://
www.arcus.org/Bering/).
North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES). PICES is an inter-
governmental organization aimed at promoting and coordinating marine
research in the northern North Pacific and adjacent seas especially north-
ward of 30 degrees North; advancing scientific knowledge about the ocean
environment, global weather and climate change, living resources and
their ecosystems, and the impacts of human activities; and promoting the
collection and rapid exchange of scientific information on these issues
(http://www.pices.int/index.asp).
National Sea Grant Program. The Sea Grant program encourages steward-
ship of marine resources through research, education, outreach, and tech-
nology transfer. The program acts to (1) partner and bridge government,
academia, industry, scientists, and private citizens to help Americans
understand and sustainably use our precious Great Lakes and ocean
waters for long-term economic growth; (2) unite NOAA, 30 state Sea Grant
programs, more than 200 universities, and millions of people; and
(3) encourage scientific discovery, technology transfer, economic growth,
and public education as they involve coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes
resources (http://www.nsgo.seagrant.org/).
Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO).
PISCO is an interdisciplinary marine research program focused on under-
standing the nearshore ecosystems of the U.S. West Coast. PISCO aims to
integrate long-term monitoring of ecological and oceanographic processes
and explore how individual organisms, populations, and communities
vary (for more information, go to http://www.piscoweb.org/).
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service. NMFS is the federal agency
responsible for stewardship of the nation's living marine resources.
NMFS manages, conserves, and protects living marine resources within
the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (water 3 to 200 miles offshore). The
NMFS mission is to provide "stewardship of living marine resources
through science-based conservation and management and the promotion
of healthy ecosystems." The goal of NMFS is to optimize the benefits of
marine resources through sound science and management (for more
information, go to http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/).
Representative terms from entire chapter:
science panel
