SEARCH Meeting Advances New SEARCH Goals and Implementation Strategy
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Witness the Arctic provides information on current arctic research efforts and findings, significant research initiatives, national policy affecting arctic research, international activities, and profiles of institutions with major arctic research efforts. Witness serves an audience of arctic scientists, educators, agency personnel, and policy makers. Witness was published biannually in hardcopy from 1995-2008 (archives are available below) and is currently published online 3-4 times annually, depending on newsworthy events.
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The SEARCH Science Steering Committee (SSC) and representatives from several government agencies (see sidebar) met 13-15 February 2012 in Washington, D.C. Over the last several months, the SEARCH SSC has developed a new SEARCH vision statement and draft 5-year science goals with input from SEARCH panels and agency representatives. The goal of the SEARCH meeting in February was for the SSC and agencies to further refine the 5-year science goals and develop a plan of action.
The outcomes of the meeting included:
- Agreement on 5-year science goals that align with agency missions and meet pressing scientific priorities identified through the scientific community and agency information needs.
- Agreement on a small set of projects to begin implementation of portions of the 5-year goals and showcase interagency collaboration.
- Agreement on the core elements of an implementation strategy for SEARCH, which will be developed into a detailed plan after the meeting, with input from the broader scientific community and federal and state agencies.
- Input and recommendations for the U.S. Arctic Observing Coordination Workshop that will include a discussion of an implementation strategy pertaining to the Arctic Observing Network (see: http://www.arcus.org/search/meetings/2012/coordination-workshop).
The SEARCH goals will be distributed to the wider arctic science community in April for input via ArcticInfo.
More information about the meeting, including the agenda, list of attendees, and background material, is available at:
http://www.arcus.org/search/meetings/2012/ssc-february.
For more information about SEARCH activities, visit the SEARCH website at: http://www.arcus.org/search/ or contact Helen Wiggins, ARCUS, at helen [at] arcus [dot] org.
U.S. Agencies Represented at the SEARCH SSC meeting:
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Coast Guard
Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation
U.S. Arctic Research Commission
Office of Biological and Environmental Research,
U.S. Department of Energy
Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution
Office of Naval Research
Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, U.S. Department of State
National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior
North Slope Science Initiative
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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