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11 



Past Partnerships - Principles and 

 Oceanographic Experience 



WHY PARTNERSHIPS: 



Partnerships are a valuable tool for exploiting distributed capabilities and resources. In 

 essence, the set of issues which the oceanographic community is bracing to address are 

 enormous by any dimension: the volume of data, the geographic breadth of impact, the 

 range of disciplines, the variety of assets, and the physical challenges. A characteristic 

 issue faced by this small but diverse community of scientists is that the expertise is 

 distributed throughout the nation. The breadth of skills required in oceanography, 

 coupled with the relatively small number of skilled practitioners translates to a thin, but 

 wide distribution of capabilities. The situation might be compared to having a different 

 medical specialist located at each hospital throughout the covmtry: all of the necessarv^ 

 skills are at hand, but they are widely distributed. This condition is dramatically 

 compounded by the high level of sophistication and multiple, costly platforms needed 

 to make measurements or predictions in the ocean envirormient. Many of the major 

 resources (people, equipment, platforms) are one-of-a-kind, resulting in a de facto 

 establishment of many centers of excellence for the field. By fostering the development 

 of new partnerships we can overcome many of these apparent obstacles. Through 

 sharing of resources, data, and knowledge the ocean sciences community will provide 

 an impressive machine for working towards solutions. 



The partnership-based solutions provided by the working groups are not aimed at 

 redefining national priorities for research in the marine environment. The ejuestion is 

 not 'What should be done', hut, rather, 'How should it be done'. These concepts were 

 developed with the goal of optimizing the performance of the oceanographic 

 community, with the payoff being the enhancement of the US national interests. It is 

 also noteworthy that the emphasis is not on the concept of partnerships, since such a 

 concept is hardly new. Instead, the emphasis is on which NEW partnerships are needed 

 and how they can best be constructed. 



In a related effort of the State-Federal Technology Partnership Task Force (chaired by 

 Govs. Richard Celeste and Dick Thomburgh in collaboration with the Carnegie 

 Commission on Science, Technology and Government, the National Governor's 

 Association, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, The White House Office of 

 Science and Technology Policy, and the National Conference of State Legislatures) a 

 very thoughtful definition of the principles of successful partnerships has been 

 provided. These principles (which are categorized as "Overarching Principles" and 

 "Operational Principles") are cited here; clearly the oceanographic community has a 

 rich heritage of partnering which adheres to these fundamental concepts. 



