When the project proposal is received by the IDOE Office, it is 

 sent out for mail peer review by anywhere from two to ten referees. 

 The peer reviews are collated and summarized by the program manager, 

 and the package presented to the IDOE Proposal Review Panel which 

 meets three or four times a year. The Panel consists of eight members 

 from various disciplines, so that all aspects of the IDOE program are 

 represented. Panelists are generally familiar with many of the leading 

 members of the U.S. oceanographic community, including those who 

 are called on to ser\e as referees and, often, those who are identified as 

 principal investigators, as well as with the facilities and capabilities of 

 the various oceanographic institutions. This is significant, for Panel debate 

 often centers not so much on the scientific validity of the proposal as on 

 the ability of the identified researchers and institutions to implement it; 

 prime points of discussion often concern the availability of needed facili- 

 ties and technical support and the extent to which inter-institutional co- 

 operation is adequately provided for. If the panel gives its approval, the 

 funding decision is left up to the IDOE Office, where it is made on the 

 basis of available funds and the relative priority of various approved 

 proposals. 



Once the process of preparing a formal project proposal is underway, 

 the planning committee works closely with the program manager in 

 putting together an appropriate management structure. Here again every 

 project is diflferent. As a general rule, two or more major institutions, 

 and additional individual scientists from other institutions, are likely to 

 be involved. Projects of this sort cannot be managed in the same way 

 as the typical ''small" project supported by NSF's Research Directorate,^ 

 involving one principal investigator, one or two post-doctoral associates, 

 and one or two graduate students. (A major IDOE project may involve 

 twenty or more principal investigators from ten or more institutions, 

 with attendant graduate students, technicians, etc.) When IDOE began 

 there existed little in the way of management models for such efTorts. 

 One exception is NSF's Deep Sea Drilling Project which is managed 

 by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling 

 (JOIDES), a scientific planning body consisting of eleven institutions in 

 four countries, with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography serving as 

 prime contractor. 



The management apparatus that has evolved centers, typically, on 

 a scientific council consisting of all the principal investigators working 

 on the project. This council may, as appropriate, be subdivided into 

 committees or panels dealing with distinct aspects of the project (e.g., 

 a theoretical panel, a statistical panel, a committee on ship needs, etc.). 

 There is a steering committee or executive committee consisting of from 

 three to ten members of the council: this group provides continuing 



^ See footnote on page 7. 



41 



