OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



41 



n. FINANCIAL SUPPORT 



Each laboratory furnished information on the amounts and sources of finan- 

 cial support for the fiscal year 1958. The totals are summarized in table 2. An 

 attempt was made to classify the laboratories into logical groups according to 

 their primary function and size. It is helpful to divide them into two size cate- 

 gories according to whether their budgets are greater or less than $300,000. In 

 almost all cases this criterion separated laboratories capable of operating in the 

 deep ocean from those which specialize in investigations of inshore environments. 

 They were also divided into university, Navy, State fishery, or Federal fishery 

 laboratories. A few nonuniversity laboratories such as the Woods Hole Oceano- 

 graphic Institution and the Bermuda Biological Station were included in the 

 university classification because of essentially similar research functions. Three 

 other laboratories which could not be put readily into any of these groups were 

 not considered in the comparisons that follow. 



Table 2. — Sources of financial support in various kinds of oceanographic 



laboratories 



[Fiscal year 1958; monetary figures in thousands of dollars] 



1 Does not include ship operating costs. The oceanographic work at 3 Navy operated laboratories and 

 2 laboratories operated under contract by a single Navy agency is included in this category. 



The contributions to marine research in industrial laboratories have not been 

 included in this survey. Although their participation in geophysical explora- 

 tion of offshore and Continental Shelf areas is large, the results of this work 

 are not commonly made public. Some grants and contracts are given to marine 

 laboratories by various industries. These funds are included. 



Some additional comments may be made about the contributions from various 

 sources of support. Only two laboratories reported that combined endovraients 

 and private grants provided more than half of their total support. Both of 

 these were small, private laboratories. State funds were the sole source of 

 support for four laboratories and the major support of seven others. Twenty- 

 two laboratories received almost all of their support from the Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries, and five were financed solely by Navy funds. Six laboratories 

 reported that they received more funds from the Office of Naval Research than 

 any other source. Federal and State funds totaled 70 percent of the university 

 budgets. With minor exceptions, private universities were as dependent on 

 Government funds as the State universities. 



ni. PERSONNEL ENGAGED IN 0CBIA.N0GRAPHIC WORK 



Data on laboratory staffs are compiled in table 3. In addition to listing the 

 various categories of staff members, the average cost of supporting the staff is 

 tabulated in items 12 through 15. The questionnaire also requested information 

 on visiting scientists computed on a man-year basis. These totaled 61 Ph. D.'s, 

 41 with the master's degree or equivalent, 242 summer students, and 36 visitors 

 in other categories. It was estimated that 35 percent of the scientific output of 

 the visitors could be considered oceanographic, as contrasted with 89 percent 

 of the work of permanent staffs. 



