354 



20 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE NEXT DECADE 



viding major oceanographic research vessels. NSF has increas- 

 ingly borne the costs of both research and ship operations. 



The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

 established in 1970, has developed several mechanisms for work- 

 ing with the academic community. NOAA's National Sea Grant 

 College Program added a new dimension to university marine sci- 

 ence programs by concentrating primarily on applied coastal re- 

 search and developing extension and public information networks. 

 In particular, Sea Grant supported areas of marine science not 

 emphasized by ONR and NSF — the study of estuaries, fisheries, 

 and pollution and the transition of such research to practical ap- 

 plications. The proximity of NOAA oceanographic and fisheries 

 laboratories to academic institutions leads to opportunities for 

 joint educational and research programs, of benefit to both the 

 academic and the federal laboratories. NOAA provides compara- 

 tively modest extramural research funds as part of its Climate 

 and Global Change Program and its Coastal Ocean Program and 

 through the National Marine Fisheries Service. Other federal agencies 

 support academic scientists, notably the Departments of Interior 

 and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Na- 

 tional Aeronautics and Space Administration. 



In the past decade, oceanography has incorporated new tech- 

 nologies from other fields, for example, space research, electron- 

 ics, and computer science. A fundamental change arising from 

 the use of new technologies has been an increase in both the 

 quality and the quantity of data collected. Thus each oceanographer's 

 capacity to study ocean phenomena has increased dramatically. 

 This increase has also increased the cost of each oceanographer's 

 scientific research. 



Another significant change is the planning, primarily with NSF 

 support, of large-scale, long-term global research programs that 

 focus the work of many scientists on global ocean questions. These 

 large programs are part of the overall scientific quest. They are 

 usually managed by international consortia that involve many 

 scientists, multiple agencies, and often a number of countries. 

 The experience of working in these programs will lead us to ask 

 different questions and to explore different mechanisms of work- 

 ing together in the next decade. 



U.S. STYLE OF LARGE PROGRAM MANAGEMENT 



Since the 1970s, U.S. marine scientists and the federal govern- 

 ment have shown remarkable ingenuity in developing mechanisms 



