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Executive Summary
The development of the draft Ocean Research Priorities Plan (ORPP), Charting the Course for
Ocean Science in the United States: Research Priorities for the Next Decade, represents the first
coordinated national research planning effort involving all federal agencies that support ocean science.
The Bush Administration's U.S. Ocean Action Plan directed the National Science and Technology
Council's Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology (JSOST) to prepare the ORPP and
Implementation Strategy. The JSOST asked the National Research Council (NRC) to review both the
draft and final ORPP.1 This activity has importance and value for opening lines of communication among
and across government agencies, academia, non-governmental organizations, and industry that cannot be
overstated. The draft plan succeeds in a number of important ways: (1) the central link between the ocean
and society is clear and well articulated, (2) the six broad themes around which the report is organized
succeed in capturing the main ocean-related issues facing society in a comprehensive and coherent way,
(3) three important overarching opportunities are identified, (4) the role of research in improving
technology, monitoring, management, and fundamental understanding of the ocean, coasts, and Great
Lakes is recognized, and (5) the plan includes research priorities in the social sciences, a necessary
component for improving ocean stewardship.
In this review, the committee identifies ways in which the draft ORPP may be improved. Most of
these are highlighted in the Summary and detailed in the body of the report. The major recommendations
of the committee are summarized below.
VISION AND CHALLENGES
The draft ORPP lacks a bold and compelling vision for ocean research in the next decade. The
specific challenges for ocean science should clearly follow from the problems and opportunities facing
society, but these connections are not clearly articulated in the current plan. The rationale and process for
the selection of the individual priorities does not emerge from the supporting text. Additionally, the plan
gives minimal reference to other major efforts to identify national priorities for ocean science and
technology such as the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, the Pew Oceans Commission, and the Joint
Ocean Commission Initiative. The draft plan thus misses an opportunity to build upon previous efforts
and recognize the evolution of a consensus on the future direction of ocean science and technology to
meet societal needs.
RECOMMENDATION: The Ocean Research Priorities Plan should provide a bold and compelling
vision for the future of ocean science research. This vision should be placed near the front of the
plan and referenced throughout to help integrate the discrete sections of the document. To provide
1Although the Implementation Strategy will be released with the final ORPP, it has not been released in draft form
and is not part of the NRC review. The draft ORPP includes a brief description of the topics to be addressed in the
Implementation Strategy in the section titled "The Next Steps."
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a clearer connection between the research priorities and the underlying societal needs, the plan
should identify a series of challenges for science and society under each theme.
LINKAGES BETWEEN THEMES
Major ocean research and management challenges facing our nation require multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary approaches that cut across the defined missions of individual government agencies as
well as non-governmental organizations, academia, and industry. Because of the complexity of these
challenges, sophisticated approaches that draw on strong expertise from a range of disciplines will be
needed to acquire and apply knowledge for scientifically sound management strategies. The value of
strong interdisciplinary and multi-agency approaches to ocean research has been highlighted in the U.S.
Ocean Action Plan and other recent documents. While the importance of interdisciplinary science, as well
as approaches that cut across agency missions, are acknowledged, the draft plan lacks a consistent
approach across the themes that: (1) identifies the linkages among themes and intersections of the
research priorities; (2) elucidates the mechanisms to foster collaborative research in those areas; and (3)
emphasizes the need for strong interagency cooperation and collaboration.
RECOMMENDATION: The ORPP should provide a more comprehensive description of the needs
and opportunities for multidisciplinary research, as well as research partnerships (multi-agency
and agency/academic/industry/international), for each societal theme. The Implementation Strategy
for the ORPP should evaluate the adequacy of existing mechanisms for interagency and agency-
academia collaborative research to identify opportunities to improve collaboration among sectors.
IMPLEMENTATION AND METRICS
Issues central to assessing the feasibility of the plan and its responsiveness to the nation's needs
are the level of funding and the strategy for implementation. Because the Implementation Strategy was
not included in the draft research plan, it is difficult to assess either feasibility or responsiveness.
The ORPP does not provide a straightforward explanation of the scope of the plan. Is the ORPP
designed to include all ongoing research activities, in addition to new programs to be initiated in the next
10 years? The document would be easier to interpret if it stated whether the plan incorporates existing
research programs and, if so, identified the new initiatives associated with each of the themes.
In addition, the plan lacks metrics by which the plan will be judged. There is a huge range in the
costs of conducting the various types of ocean research addressed in the priorities that logically will have
an impact on the implementation of the research plan and progress towards achieving societal goals.
Similarly, new capabilities in forecasting ocean processes (both physical and biological) will not benefit
society unless there is a strategy for converting research programs into operational activities. Presumably,
the JSOST's Implementation Strategy will specify the general funding assumptions under which the plan
was developed. The ORPP lists items to be addressed in the Implementation Strategy including the roles
and responsibilities of different agencies in implementing the plan, mechanisms for cooperation and
coordination of agency activities, and performance measures. Since this information was not provided in
the draft ORPP, it is difficult to evaluate if the research priorities can be achieved.
RECOMMENDATION: The ORPP should clearly state the goals, challenges, and research
priorities of the plan and how these relate to existing programs and new initiatives. The
implementation strategy should include a schedule by which these priorities could reasonably be
addressed, a set of benchmarks by which progress could be assessed, and a strategy for maintaining
new capabilities (made possible by advances in knowledge of processes, modeling, and technology)
through the transfer from research to operational programs.
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ORGANIZATION OF THE PLAN
The sections Expanding the Scientific Frontier: The Need for Fundamental Science, Overarching
Opportunities, Making a Difference, and Opportunities for Progress are key pieces of the draft ORPP that
define critical areas for science and technology efforts as well as for infrastructure and education needs.
In a sense, the issues identified in these sections underlie or cut across all of the themes and research
priorities. The placement in the current draft plan, with 3 sections at the end of the document, misses the
opportunity to effectively integrate each of these cross-cutting areas into the ORPP.
RECOMMENDATION: The plan should be reorganized to include a discrete section devoted to
cross-cutting elements that are central to the vision for ocean research. The concept of cross-
cutting themes used in the Planning Document should be reintroduced and moved toward the
beginning of the plan as a way to reinforce the importance of these elements in creating the
foundation for progress on the societal themes.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
implementation strategy
