Table 13. COMPARISON OF THREE OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS 

 SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



LAMONT GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY 



The panel also has identified a number of 

 institutional funding problems. They will be dis- 

 cussed in the section on Federal organization. 



In the sections that follow, the panel discusses a 

 variety of necessary institutional arrangements 

 which it believes essential. 



I. THE NEED FOR DIVERSITY 



Important discoveries in oceanography have 

 been made in the major university institutions, in 

 government laboratories, in small institutions, and 

 by scientists with no formal connection to any 

 oceanographic department or laboratory. Further- 

 more, the scientists who are now most active in 

 oceanography received their training in a variety of 

 ways, some in large institutions, some in small, 

 many entering the field from other disciplines. 



There is no single best way to produce either 

 oceanographic science or oceanographers and it 

 would be a mistake to support one institutional 

 arrangement to the exclusion of others. Although 



a similar statement can be made about nearly 

 every field of science, it is particularly pertinent in 

 oceanography. More than most sciences, it is 

 interdisciplinary. Discoveries and techniques from 

 other fields are being continually applied to 

 problems in oceanography. Oceanographic hori- 

 zons are expanding so rapidly it would be in- 

 correct to suggest that all or even most progress 

 will be made in a single class of laboratories or by 

 persons with a particular type of training; there is 

 a need for various kinds and sizes of marine 

 laboratories in the Nation. 



Because of the diverse and expanding nature of 

 the field, it is almost impossible to find agreement 

 on a simple definition of oceanographic institu- 

 tions or oceanographers. If one accepts a simple 

 operational definition such as "oceanography is 

 done by those working at oceanographic institu- 

 tions and oceanographic institutions are those 

 laboratories with sea-going facilities," one is left 

 with the following kinds of problems: important 

 work on oceanic circulation theory has been done 



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