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place in this post-cold war period that seem to cry for new approaches to 

 partnerships in the oceanographic scientific community. In fact, as he pointed 

 out, "concerns about the ocean as a medium for warfare as a threat to national 

 security are decreasing while environmental problems of the coastal zone and 

 understanding how the ocean controls climate are of increasing importance." 

 Further, he states that while "major advances in understanding the ocean in the 

 development of technologies for observing it have set the stage for much greater 

 research achievements," this comes at a time when "resources necessary to 

 obtain this understanding are increasingly scarce." Hence, the Ocean Studies 

 Board thought it important to undertake the study of where marine science 

 found itself today and where it needed to head tomorrow. 



The NRC report established a broad "framework in which improved 

 partnerships . . . can sustain the advances of the past, and lead our country and 

 the world to greater understanding of the many roles the ocean play in human 

 life." That report and continuing activities of the NRC have served to define, in 

 a well reviewed mamner, what science should be done in the ocean. And Dr. 

 Alberts' testimony has re-affirmed that. My discussion focusses on how to 

 accomplish these science objectives. 



Partnerships have been deemed a particularly useful mechanism in 

 oceanography as the issues being addressed are generally large in scale (in terms 

 of geography, complexity, or time and resources required) and partnerships are a 

 very effective means to overcome those hurdles unique to ocean science 

 including security concerns, distributed ownership of resources, complicafions in 

 communicatioris within the community and a severe lack of public awareness of 

 the importance of the oceans to society. Addihonally, partnerships have proven 

 effective as evident from the successes cited earlier in this testimony. For these 

 reasons, we are compelled to study past successes (and failures) and apply any 

 lessons learned to future efforts. 



Therefore, it is in the foregoing context that, with the support of NSF, NASA, 

 ONR, ARPA and DOE and with oversight and review by a high-level 

 Coordinating Group of community leaders, over 100 scientists and other experts 

 from the ocean science and technology community, (represented by Federal 

 agencies, academia, and industry), were brought together in the CORE 

 Interagency Partnership Initiative to establish a new and reinvigorated 

 partnership concept. The idea was to lay the groundwork for carrying out the 

 many challenges outlined within the NRC report where integration of more 

 than one of these participating communities can add value to all connected 

 partners and increase mission effectiveness and efficiency. 



Four broad themes deemed highly relevant to society's needs and therefore our 



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