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SUMMARY 



practical rule-making procedures of the Environmental Protection 

 Agency. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

 has a wide range of responsibilities in the ocean but is only now 

 beginning to develop significant research programs in many of its 

 areas of responsibility. The future vitality of basic oceanographic 

 research in academia may depend on its forging productive part- 

 nerships with NOAA. Partnerships between academic oceanogra- 

 phers and NASA, DOE, USGS, or the Minerals Management Ser- 

 vice will add diversity and vitality to the national oceanographic 

 effort. 



No simple description can usefully encompass the range of 

 partnerships between federal agencies and the academic oceanog- 

 raphy community. However, under the traditional arrangement, 

 mission agencies, such as EPA, have received relatively little in- 

 tellectual input from academia and provided relatively little fund- 

 ing to academic institutions. These agencies, whose short-term 

 missions often require highly applied research, rely primarily on 

 their own scientists. Yet, these same agencies have relied on 

 academic scientists to provide the underpinning knowledge upon 

 which their policy decisions are based. In general, the mission 

 agencies have not contributed much to advancing fundamental 

 knowledge in their areas of concern, perhaps assuming that NSF 

 or ONR would fund basic research adequately. Such a perspective 

 has the danger of focusing oceanography primarily on short-term 

 applied problems. Achieving a sensible balance between basic 

 and applied oceanographic research should be the concern of each 

 agency using the results of ocean research. 



As the context in which oceanography is conducted changes, 

 how can federal agencies and oceanographers in academic institu- 

 tions strengthen and improve their cooperative efforts? In gen- 

 eral, partnerships must be extended beyond financial relationships 

 to include the sharing of intellect, experience, data, instrument 

 development, facilities, and labor. 



Communication 



Many mission agencies and academic scientists have little ex- 

 perience in interacting with one another, but both groups would 

 benefit from doing so. The board recommends that each agency 

 with an ocean mission and without existing strong links to the 

 nongovernment community establish permanent mechanisms for 

 ensuring outside scientific advice, review, and interaction. The 

 obvious advantage of external consultation is that it provides an 



