- Email: [email protected]
Round table discussion on thursday 10 october, 1996
Operational Oceanography. The Challenge for European Co-operation edited by J.H. Stel, H.W.A. Behrens, J.C. Borst, L.J. Droppert, J. v.d. Meulen 9 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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R o u n d T a b l e D i s c u s s i o n o n T h u r s d a y 10 O c t o b e r 1996
The members of the panel are: Paul Gray (chairman), Jean Boissonnas, Rien van der Poel, Jan Stel, Peter Ryder, Silvana Vallerga, Rodney Weiher, John Woods, David Williams, and Jean Francois-Minster. Paul Gray Before we start into the discussion I would like to say few words about the general political situation. The next presidency of the European Union will be held by our hosts government the Netherlands. This is a vital presidency because it will have a key role in the resolution of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) which will determine the course of the European Union for the next five years. A few days ago I had the privilege of hearing the view of the Netherlands foreign minister who sees two major topics for the IGC, the enlargement of the EU and monetary union. In his view the EU is already unequivocally committed to both these actions and it is not a question of whether but when and for enlargement not only when but who. Seven Central European countries are already on the fast track for enlargement candidates being signatories of Europe Agreements. These are based on shared understanding and values and set the path for progressive convergence in a very wide range of activities between these countries and the EU. The significance for marine science is that the majority of these new candidate countries are landlocked and the amount of coastline added to the EU will be very small compared with the land area added. As in Napoleonic times the focus of European politics will become more continental. Attention will be focused for the next ten years on Central Europe and the EU will metaphorically speaking turn its back on the sea. That is why the present time and particularly the Netherlands presidency is a vital period for major decision making by the European institutions on major aspects of marine policy such as support for the EuroGOOS concept. We have a number of questions to discuss and on which you will be asked to vote. In order to allow ample time for participation from the body of the conference we have divided the questions into two groups, each group containing three questions. (See Tables 1 and 2.) A member of the panel will make a short introductory statement for each group. The discussion on the first group will be followed by a free discussion period. During the discussion that follows the introductory statements interventions will be very welcome. In voting you will be asked to choose one of the five possible responses to each question. The vote is a convenient way of testing the views of the conference as a whole. However these questions are complex and continuously evolving so that, while the EuroGOOS board regard the result of the vote as a very useful contribution to their thinking, they could not regard the result as binding them on future policy. Could I now ask Silvana Vallerga to make the introductory statement for the first group of questions? (Table I)
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Chairman of the Round Table Discussion
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Table 1 First group of questions 1. WHAT TYPE OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD EUROGOOS BE IN FUTURE? Platform for discussion Association of National Agencies Consortium of National Agencies European Intergovernmental Organization European Agency -
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2. EUROGOOS WILL BASE ITSELF ON THE INITIATIVES OF EXISTING EUROPEAN BODIES TO IMPLEMENT OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY Fully agree Agree Neutral Disagree Fully disagree 3. DURING THE NEXT FIVE YEARS EUROGOOS SHOULD FOCUS ON: National level Regional level European level Global level Equal at all levels -
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Table 2 Second ~roup of questions 4. WHICH TYPE OF ACTIVITIES SHOULD EUROGOOS EMPHASIZE? Awareness building (PR) Programmes Development for EuroGOOS Regions Technology development Benefits / Costs studies Service / information provider -
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5. EUROGOOS SHOULD ACT AS A BROKER BETWEEN THE RESULTS FROM SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND THE DEMANDS FOR OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY AND INDUSTRIAL NEEDS. Fully agree Agree Neutral Disagree Fully disagree -
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6. FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE MOST IMPORTANT GOOS MODULE IS: Climate Living Marine Resources Coastal Zone Health of the ocean Service -
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Silvana Vallerga EuroGOOS is almost two years old since the conference in Bremen, the ECOPS conference, when it was decided to establish the "Grand Challenge". Now, in October 1996, we can base our view of the future on at least four sound facts. We have established the Technology Planning Working Group and I do not wish to repeat what Jan Bosman said this morning. Then we have the Science and Advisory Working Group and their recommendations are coming out very clearly and furthermore we have the Test Cases, which are going to be implemented. There we will start to check the visibility of EuroGOOS in regional seas of Europe. Finally we have this conference in which we want to have the feedback of our colleagues to plan for the future. I should like to stress that in these two years EuroGOOS has been an association of national agencies in the sense that it is a bottom up approach. As EuroGOOS becomes more mature, we must take a flexible approach, and decide what structure is most effective, and most visible, an association of national agencies, or consortium, or to become an European intergovernmental organisation or a European Agency. I like to ask colleagues to express themselves on these five options.
Paul Gray The main question at issue is "What type of organisation should EuroGOOS be?".
John Marks I represent the ministry of education and culture and science in the Netherlands. I would like to adress the whole problem for setting up and especially operating EuroGOOS. Much of EuroGOOS will be developed by the scientific community. MAST and Euromar were mentioned as programmes to fund the development of the observational equipment etc. This covers only a part of the substantial costs of setting up this system. A major part is also funded through national science funding agencies. Ultimately the system has to be turned over to the operational community and this transfer is a very important issue for EuroGOOS, because who should take responsibility? The customers for these measurements are very spread out. Some of them will be interested in buying the products, but that is different from being willing to take the responsibility for maintaining the system. The question of how to develop a structure which in the end can take responsibility for the maintenance of this system is a very key issue, which I have not heard much about. It will have implications for the direction in which EuroGOOS develops. It was said Eumetsat could take the responsibility for the operational oceanographic satellites. Yes it could, however, Eumetsat is funded through Met Offices, which in many countries have no responsibility for operational oceanography. It thus requires at a national level a restructuring of responsibilities. And this issue can not be picked up too early. I have the privilege to be the chairman of the International Group of Funding Agencies for Global change research. It was set up to support the global change programmes in addressing their resource problems. The discussions in IGFA have played a key-role in making national funding agencies aware of the magnitude of issues. It is clear that in such a many-sided issue an intergovernmental organisation is probably too complicated because it is very complicated to decide which agency or which entity should take the lead. So I would like to hear a little bit more about the
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resources issue in this discussion before it is possible to decide on which of the five alternatives would be the better one to go for.
Peter Ryder As concerns organisational matters, throughout the conference I have thought and talked about the parallels between meteorology and oceanography. Meteorology has progressed in a manner in which developments in the science have enabled improvements in operational services which are valued and therefore funded, in part at least, by customers. However, at present, the heads of the National Meteorological Services are meeting together to try to form something that approximates to a management board of a multi-site consortium, for at least some of their research and operational activities. They have recognised that there has to be a forum to prioritise their investment in the infrastructure on which all depend and from which all benefit. Past experience shows that formal co-operation arrangements are beneficial for some but no-one wants a heavy bureaucracy. Therefore they have stopped short of an intergovernmental arrangement, but want something more than an informal agreement to collaborate. I believe that the agencies which are driving EuroGOOS will find that they have similar needs, and therefore will plump for something like number 3 in the list.
Silvana Vallerga I wish to examine the funding of the trials and testcases for EuroGOOS. They are prepared as projects on a competitive basis, and there we look for funding. We hope that in the future MAST or another marine programme from EUREKA will be developed. That will be just in the first phase. To comment on Dr Ryder, a consortium of national agencies is something more than we are. Because we are an association of funding agencies. So we might decide on a national level what to do. But we should go a step further. We should build a European agency for EuroGOOS.
John Woods I was concerned at the suggestion that the science budgets should pay for operations. We desperately need a continuing flow of basic research on the oceans, the science and the technology. So I would hate to see science projects diluted in any way to pay for operations. We need to bring in new money. We have heard about governmental agencies which have substantial funds and are examining ways in which they might redeploy some of them to ocean operations. But there is another source, and that is private money. If you look what is happening in the oil-industry. They are getting out of the business of paying for their own research with large in-house research teams. They are contracting that out. What grew up as a large number of small service companies are picking up the research that previously was done inside Shell, BP and other big companies. In the last year those small service industries all round the world have been merging and large private sector service organisations are developing outside the oil companies, but primarily serving the oil companies. A similar move is happening in environmental consultancies and small environmental consultancies. A large number of relatively small undercaptilised environmental service companies have formed here in the Netherlands, in Britain and elsewhere. But what is happening in Britain is that there is a large predator come in to that pool and is buying them up, and trying to create a large well capitalised service company.
720 We can look for new money from entrepreneurs who see this is a growing private sector service industry, and of course governments are getting slimmer in what used to be their inhouse research bodies. Their Met Services are in many cases becoming private or more autonomous and told to act more commercially to bring in more money from outside. That is the way we are going to go, and certainly should not rely on the science budgets.
Ola Johannessen. I do not agree totally with John Woods because we have a lot of action on Norwegian shelfs and the oil money is drying up. It is harder and harder to get research money for applications from oil companies in oceanography. We had a committee called Operators Committee North, and they had a really sizeable budget, but that committee was cancelled. The second point I would like to mention to Dr Ryder concerns the parallel with meteorology. I am not sure that we are in the same situation, because meteorology is very well organised. In each country you have one Met Office. It is easy to get the heads of the national agencies together, while in oceanography it is all fragmented. You do not have national agencies in oceanography. So I will vote that EuroGOOS must be a platform for further discussion before we start, making either an agency or association. John Marks I very much agree with John Woods that the money for operating the system should not come from the science funding agencies. Once (Euro)GOOS becomes operational, it requires another source of funding and it is putting together that source that, I think, is really a major issue for EuroGOOS. I agree that it will be very difficult to get private money for taking responsibility for the maintenance of the operational system. Most if not all, operational agencies are under heavy budget pressure. New tasks will have to be taken on at the expenses of old ones. The example of Eumetsat. Meteosat could only be funded because at that time the operational weatherships were taken out of service. That freed the budget for funding Meteosat. If a mechanism like that does not exist it will be very hard to find money in the operational community. It is necessary to put together a group of sufficient breadth of agencies with different operational tasks as well as the science agencies. Whether a consortium is the right way to go or whether an association is better, is something you will have to think about. Jan Stel I would like to comment on the fragmentation in oceanography. In my opinion the development of EuroGOOS creates transparency in the organisation of oceanography. When we look at the situation in the Netherlands during the last three years, I notice that through a natural process RIKZ has become the leading operational agency in oceanography and not the scientific community in the Netherlands. When you look at a more global scale, let us say the IOC-level, it is clear that there is a need for more clarification leading to commitments for the development of GOOS. Based on these considerations, and based upon the fact that EuroGOOS is developing fast, I think that the EuroGOOS organisation could be ready for a consortium. In the long run this could then lead to an European agency. Paul Gray As Chairman I would like to use the privilege of my position to make three comments. The first is that setting up agencies creates a discussion between EU Member States as to in which
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country they should be established and this can take a long time to resolve. The debate went on for four years as to which Member State of the EU should host a number of agencies, such as the Pharmaceutical Agency in London, that has a very clear role to give European approval for new medicines, and the Environmental Agency in Copenhagen. Both these agencies are hampered by underfunding. The second point relates to European competition law. A unique provider of services could create some problems with regard to the competition articles of Treaty. This is being discussed in relation to Meteorological Offices who want to create resources by selling some of their products and the solution obtained for Meteorology could well be applied to EuroGOOS. The third point, and it is perhaps more positive, relates to the statute of European Economic Interest Groups. This provides a legal framework for setting up European wide entities and could be a useful legal vehicle for EuroGOOS.
Silvana Vallegra One of the main tasks of the EuroGOOS Secretariat it has been to identify the users. A large user survey has been made. The oil industry customers maybe are going down, but for us in the Mediterranean that has never been the main target. The tourist industry is growing instead. We must base EuroGOOS on the user survey we did to identify the proper users. Of course also scientists are endusers, and that was discussed last year in Sorrento.
Nic Flemming There is a paradox between the search to satisfy user requirements in the short to medium term, and some of the issues which are global and are central to the study of global climate change and the infrastructure and integrity of many of the modelling concerns. National interest and commercial and business requirements tend to propagate outwards, from the small areas where there is an intensive level of activity. That will leave gaps on the global scale. The role of governments and agencies and the assessment of national and global requirements leaves us with the responsibility of fdling in the gaps. We have to accept that there are governmental and supernational responsibilities to do the bits of the work that nobody else wants to do. They are essential for global models.
Paul Gray I think the important word in this question is "focus". If you focus on one aspect you do not necessarily exclude the others. We will move on to the first round of voting. The questions are: 1 - What type of organisation should EuroGOOS be in the future ? 2 - EuroGOOS will base itself on the initiative of the existing European bodies to implement operational oceanography 3 - What should be the focus of EuroGOOS in the next five years ?
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Table 3. Results of the first round of voting 1. WHAT TYPE OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD EUROGOOS BE IN FUTURE ? Platform for discussion Association of National Agencies Consortium of National Agencies European Intergovernmental Organization European Agency
7 26 51 6 10
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2. EUROGOOS WILL BASE ITSELF ON THE INITIATIVES OF EXISTING EUROPEAN BODIES TO IMPLEMENT OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY Fully agree 39 Agree 37 Neutral 19 Disagree 3 Fully disagree 2
% % % % %
3. DURING THE NEXT FIVE YEARS EUROGOOS SHOULD FOCUS ON: National level Regional level European level Global level Equal at all levels
% % % % %
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1 22 53 7 17
We are now going to an open session of discussion that will be introduced by Jean Boissonnas. I would like to remind you that Mr. Tent told us earlier in the conference about the Commission's document "Inventing T o m o r r o w " that was sent to Parliament and the Council in July 1996. A second document is to follow at the end of this year and then the proposal for the framework programme that may or may not say something about marine science. It is on the basis of this document that the Council will allocate funds to each large area within the general framework and if marine science is not included then the debate is closed. Jean Boissonnas The guiding principles of the future Framework Programme 5 (FP5) proposal are spelt out in a Commission document called "Inventing Tomorrow". In a section called "Shifting the balance (from the current FP4) to improve the impact on society and the e c o n o m y " the document stresses the following 3 points:
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Supporting basic research: it is essential to maintain a research context which is open to new ideas, for work on basic questions which may possibly generate new fields of activity. Bringing research more in line with the real market: "we should be moving ... the research aimed at satisfying consumers by providing high quality goods and services which are produced in an acceptable manner at low cost ..." Doing more to exploit results:" ...in order to extend the relationships between partners and networks so that results are better exploited...
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It seems to me that the EuroGOOS community can feel comfortable with these three basic principles. No one can tell for sure what FP5 will look like, nor how it will be structured. However, "Inventing Tomorrow" gives us a few possible clues. There will be three main priority topics: 9 Unlocking the resources of the living world and the ecosystem: this theme would include i.a. the "in-depth study of matters relating to global environmental change, the basic cycles, natural hazards and European ecosystems". 9 Creating a user-friendly information society: "this research could aim at the development of technology, infrastructure, services and applications that are interoperable at World level". 9 Promoting competitive and sustainable growth: i.a. the design and production of new products and materials. It seems intended to cross-cut these three "vertical" blocks of research with three "horizontal" activities: improving human potential, innovation and participation of SME's, confirming the international role of European research. In conclusion, no matter what will be structure of FP5, whether MAST will continue or not as a separate programme, I can see ample opportunity to construct or organise R&D activities around a number of well defined targets, and thus to express the priorities of EuroGOOS. I can see that EuroGOOS or GOOS related activities are eminently suitable for the approach that I was just mentioning about constructing building blocks. A kind of foundation or basement of basic research based on scientific requirements, and leading in to preoperational and later to operational activities.
Silvana Vallegra Jean Boissonnas was telling us very important news on the fifth programme, because apparently the human dimension in now included. I would like to add that we should also take into account other sources of European funding such as the structural funds, which are large amounts of funding for less developed regions. Starting in 1999 there will be no limitation for the regions that can enjoy these funds. We are talking about millions of ECU's, that can be used for instance for build up centres of excellence~
Gregorio Parilla I have a question related to the first statement in the poll we had earlier, about establishing a consortium. The majority agreed on this point. I like to bring this to the open. Which comes first the money or the work, or the new structure? Anybody want to comment on this?
Peter Ryder I voted in favour of that statement. It is a harsh statement, but it is hard to deny the central proposition that we will not be able to build new operational activities requiring significant investment without being able to assemble the economic arguments for that investment. I have spent the last 15 years and a lot of nervous energy trying to find ways of making such investments in operational meteorology. There was a time when it was sufficient for people
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with vision and a track record of success to attract investment by asking for it. Today it is not so; the discipline of the investment appraisal is a fact of life.
Svein Ehrling Hansen I represent industry, or at least part of the industry. In which way does EuroGOOS allow the private sector to act as a service provider for operational services? If EuroGOOS encourages industry also to take part in this type of preparation, and so to say fostering widely European industry, we could have more success outside Europe. I would also like to have some indication where we could define the boundary between the governmental responsibilities for operational oceanography and the opportunities for the private sector in the same market.
John Woods Out of the five options on the poll question, I think that there are three focuses that EuroGOOS can follow. One is the programme development, which I think is very important, and it is important to exploit the scientific work that is done. Second is the operational interface, which I think answers your point on how do providers get into the service system. If EuroGOOS specifies what operational services it foresees; how it foresees them; what type of measurements it would like, then people can begin to respond. And third is addressing the funding requirement, and that leads to cost-benefit. EuroGOOS must develop a consistent theme. For EuroGOOS to succeed, it needs to address those three things rather than choosing between them.
Paul Gray I would like to underline the last point that you made. In my 23 years in the commission I have seen many initiatives fail because of a lack of coherence in what I might call the lobby. It is very dangerous to say one thing to the Commission or other institutions and another to national governments. Even if you do not agree between yourselves on the detail it is very important to agree on what you will say to government bodies. It is important for EuroGOOS to have a battle flag and an overall concept to sell. Within this concept you must look at the individual modules that you wish to start up. EuroGOOS will have to move into operation step by step on a pragmatic basis but a grand plan is necessary for EuroGOOS to have public visibility.
Peter Ryder This diagram (Figure 1.), I used yesterday talking about the economics of operational oceanographic services. It illustrates, in a highly schematic fashion, the basic value-adding process of almost all environmental information services. It is derived from operational meteorology but applies equally well to oceanography, I believe. The key features are the data banking/archival activity required to establish a historical record, and numerical modelling to produce predictions about the future. These rely on access to a wide range of basic data sources and enable a potentially huge diversity of services. I am not suggesting that only one model need be run nor that all data should be held in one central archive; the physical realisation of the process is likely to be highly distributed. However I have called the functions to the left of the dotted line "core functions" because they are not customer-specific. Those to the right of that line are customer-specific, and are based upon core products and possibly their own customer-specific data sources.
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Value-adding process
Figure 1. The basic value-adding process of almost all environmental information services
( Peter Ryder ) Now you asked where the boundaries between public and private responsibilities should lie. If the data policy of operational oceanography follows that of meteorology, then core data and products will be freely exchanged and it will be impossible to commercialise them; you cannot commercialise what you give away. To be effective such a data policy needs to be agreed internationally and by governments, and it carries with it a responsibility on governments to fund the generation of those data and products. In effect, an agreement to distort the market carries with it responsibility to sustain the alternative. Activities to the right of the line should be funded by those who benefit from them - or in the case of public-good services, by the responsible government departments. Such an arrangement encourages the development of effective customer supplier relationships.
Frank Dolan I represent a small company, InstallOcean, in the UK. The first thing I would like to say is that I think you are somewhat dismissive in saying that industry generally becomes involved in these projects by taking their own initiatives. It is quite true that the industrial data users will take their own initiatives if they find that their requirements are not being satisfied. Smaller service companies do not have this options to the same extent. We are almost universally, as John Woods has said, undercapitalized. We cannot just grasp the opportunities. So what I would really like to do is to restate the question posed by Oceanor. "How can we contribute our knowledge towards the successful implementation of EuroGOOS at this early stage, not
726 tomorrow when the market will be for huge data products. How can we do work for you now and how can we get paid for it?"
Rien van der Poel I can add some comments to that. Yesterday evening we had an Euromar Board Meeting. There the same problem came up: what is EuroGOOS doing with industry? Until now EuroGOOS is not communicating with industry. Industry tried to find ways to contact EuroGOOS. And I think it is impossible. Especially the small companies, and there are many kinds of small companies in this field. They need rather quick returns. But this morning I got a much better feeling. Nic Flemming in his introduction, started talking about involving industry partners in funding proposals, involve industry partners in pilot projects. After that Jan Bosman talked about the programme, and the results of the technical programme group. He even talked about Euromar getting involved those partners in the competitive stage, and then I thought: well, my work is done, I do not have to do anything this morning if EuroGOOS are going to do those things. I think industry can be satisfied. Thank you. Nic Flemming EuroGOOS is just about to approach its second birthday, and it is taking a while obviously to sort out details and priorities. I can understand that from the perspective of the outside world, there did not seem to be very much communication. But as Rien van der Poel has just said, we are now embarking on establishing contacts as fast as we can and I thank you very much for those very constructive remarks. Secondly, because of this meeting, we are reacting very strongly to the points which have been made to us during this meeting by people from companies of all sizes. From the largest players in the field to the smallest service companies. There will be an officers meeting this afternoon, and link with industry will be at the top of our agenda. Although it is too early to say what the mechanism will be, we will establish a consultative forum. Finally, if I can ask the question which the two or three previous speakers perhaps wanted to say but did not. The data sources boxes in Figure 1. on the left of the dotted line are the infrastructure big global regional observation systems. The ones on the right of the dotted line were more site specific, extra variables, extra things which are needed locally for a particular product. The question I want to put Peter Ryder, do you see any of the work in the "data-source" boxes, the primary observations, being contracted to the commercial sector? Peter Ryder My previous comments related generally to funding by public and private sources, and specifically to the role of governments as purchasers. The supply of all of the functions, whether to the left or right of the line, should be established competitively and, in principle, can by either the private or public sectors. Silvana Vallerga I wish to make a point as a representative of Italy. When we talk about information there are a number of people always saying they are not being informed. I like to remind you that we started from the very beginning with information to Euromar. Last year in Sorrento, we had a workshop on EuroGOOS and we had a representative of Euromar of course. For SME's I am pleased to say that the technological survey we did in Italy was answered in a ratio 2:1 by small medium enterprises with respect to public institutes. That is very important. We have small
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commercial enterprises in the test case for the Mediterranean.
Jean Minster The question of the diagram and the impact of service companies. I do not think that the data sources will be connected to any central facility for data management. And most people would think that this would not be a good system. The private companies in general do not pay for most of the oceanographic data acquisition and infrastructure. On the other hand they are using the existing data sets from distributed data centres with quite a lot of difficulty because they are not that accessible and they make elaborate products. In general when you discuss with NOAA people of private companies they will tell you, what they can sell or what you could call derived products, meaning starting from existing measurements elaborating the product, but quite simple. These are the ones for which there is a market. What is important is to get the connection between the companies who know which are the final products which can be sold and the data centres to provide them the facility they need to produce these derived products. The important thing is to establish the connection both in the hardware, meaning getting access to the data, and in the meaningful sense, meaning which are final products for which there is a market.
Klaus Pfeiffer I am from Germany, representing also, as John Woods said, undercapitalized 'SME'. We appeal to EuroGOOS to open up channels and platforms where we can obtain the information, but where we can also address our services to EuroGOOS and to the EuroGOOS members Make smooth for us the ways so that we do not have to make such a effort in projecting, marketing and addressing our services, because that, especially for the SME's is almost an impossible task. Especially if you think of multi-user communities. So, please open us channels how industry can communicate, probably through EuroGOOS, with larger administrations. All other activities, which will create too much overhead and which do not give industry a medium term profit, will result in economic suicide. Thank you.
Paul Gray As time is short I will not ask for a reaction from the panel. The last group of questions are: 4 - Which type of activities should the EuroGOOS emphasise; 5 - How EuroGOOS should act as a broker between the results from the scientific community, demand for operational oceanography and industrial needs; and 6 - From my point of view the most important GOOS module is .... We have discussed question 5 during the last few minutes so I will now ask Peter Ryder, to make an opening statement on this group.
Peter Ryder I am not an economist, but a scientist who has had to develop some skills of an economist. This is your opportunity to comment on where the EuroGOOS community should focus its efforts, where the priorities lie and their importance. There is no European organisation carrying out cost-benefit studies in this field. Would it be useful for EuroGOOS to concentrate its limited resources here? Or should we encouraging technical development? Are the regional programmes a priority? There is certainly a need to build up an awareness outside the community of what we are trying to accomplish; should effort be concentrated on the PR task?
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Or finally, should EuroGOOS be concentrating its energies upon the way in which services might be provided and by whom?
Barias I do not think that we can answer this question for the moment because some of the activities are more important now than others; but probably all of them important. So, I do not know if we can give a clear cut answer.
Paul Gray I agree with you that it is not easy to make choices and like all multiple choice questions there is no perfect answer. Perhaps we ought to tackle this question in another way and look at the activities that EuroGOOS should concentrate on the next year. Any other comments - the speaker from the back of the hall please. (This speaker did not use a microphone but protested that there was no room in the procedure for dissent.) We did not wish to give the impression that there is no room for dissent that is why we have invited views from the floor. It is very important to hear conflicting views. Maybe we should break this part of the discussion in a different way and vote now on question 4 "Which type of activities should E u r o G O O S emphasise". Table 4. Votinl~ result of question 4 WHICH TYPE OF ACTIVITIES SHOULD EUROGOOS EMPHASIZE? Awareness building (PR) Programmes Development for EuroGOOS Regions Technology development Benefits / Costs studies Service / information provider -
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14 % 51% 10 % 12 % 13 %
Question 5 is a rather harsh statement and depends very heavily on what the concept of a broker is. There is a need to see that science is exploited in the nicest sense of the word. I would interpret it as should EuroGOOS broker the optimum way of feeding the results of science through to the user community. Since we have already had some discussion on this earlier and nobody seems to want to intervene from the panel I am proposing to vote on this now.
Table 5. Voting; result of question 5 EUROGOOS SHOULD ACT AS A BROKER BETWEEN THE RESULTS FROM SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND THE DEMANDS FOR OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY AND INDUSTRIAL NEEDS. Fully agree 21% Agree 47 % Neutral 12 % Disagree 10 % Fully disagree 10 % -
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Impression of the voting system Now we will pass on the last question, number 6, on what is the most important GOOS module. It is fairly clear that the various modules all overlap to some extent. Clearly many living marine resources are in the coastal zone which is also cross cutting with climate and services. The provision of services is also cross cutting. The importance of one module compared to another will also depend on whether your criteria are economic or scientific.
Silvana Vallerga I would like to add a point, because we are voting on GOOS now, and I am going to vote for GOOS in different way than I could vote for EuroGOOS. Because while, personally I think that climate is the most important module for GOOS. I do not think it is the same for EuroGOOS. So I would like to make that clear that we are voting on G O O S now.
Paul Gray Of course there is a big debate in political circles on climate. The problem is that governments are usually elected with a short, usually five year, mandate. If E u r o G O O S is to get operational it will have to choose subjects that have an immediate political relevance. Maybe we should vote twice once for GOOS and once for EuroGOOS. We could do just that to show the versatility of the system. Further comments please.
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Nic Flemming I hope people would not interpret the coastal zone in a very narrow sense, meaning just a few kilometres wide. I think of the perspective of most people who have to w o r k in the coastal zone. It implies modelling an area tens if not hundreds of kilometres across. Particularly in the European and adjacent seas.
Jan Stel Although I am also representing the IOC, I am not certain if what I am now going to say is the opinion of the IOC. Reflecting on what Nic Flemming said about the coastal zone, let us say the exclusive economic zone, and being pragmatic I think that we can only convince developing countries to invest in G O O S when they focus on the coastal zone / EEZ.
Mark White As G O O S is about providing service to the global community in terms of managing the oceans and the seas it would appear that number 5, service is the most appropriate choice. Clearly from a cost-benefit point of view economics is important, for example, what would happen the economics of Europe if the Gulf Stream were to switch off? That G O O S provides a service to our communities through understanding the impact of the ocean on climate, on marine resources, on coastal zones and on the health of the oceans is most important.
Paul Gray If there are no further comments then we will vote first of all for G O O S (Table 6). Table 6. Voting result of question 6a FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE MOST IMPORTANT GOOS MODULE IS: Climate Living Marine Resources Coastal Zone Health of the ocean Service -
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7% 4% 44 % 6% 39%
Now we will vote on the same modules for E u r o G O O S (Table 7). Table 7. Votin~ result of question 6b FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE MOST IMPORTANT EUROGOOS MODULE IS: Climate 41% Living Marine Resources 4% Coastal Zone 17% Health of the ocean 5% Service 33% -
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Well we are just about on time and the and I see little point in spinning out the discussion further. I would like to thank you all for participating so actively and especially the panel. I leave you with a final thought. If you want to get a feeling what EuroGOOS is really about then listen to Walt Whitman's poetry set to music in Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony in which the sea is described as uniting all nations
Leen Droppert I want to thank Paul Gray for being here. Thank you Paul.
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R o u n d T a b l e D i s c u s s i o n o n T h u r s d a y 10 O c t o b e r 1996
The members of the panel are: Paul Gray (chairman), Jean Boissonnas, Rien van der Poel, Jan Stel, Peter Ryder, Silvana Vallerga, Rodney Weiher, John Woods, David Williams, and Jean Francois-Minster. Paul Gray Before we start into the discussion I would like to say few words about the general political situation. The next presidency of the European Union will be held by our hosts government the Netherlands. This is a vital presidency because it will have a key role in the resolution of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) which will determine the course of the European Union for the next five years. A few days ago I had the privilege of hearing the view of the Netherlands foreign minister who sees two major topics for the IGC, the enlargement of the EU and monetary union. In his view the EU is already unequivocally committed to both these actions and it is not a question of whether but when and for enlargement not only when but who. Seven Central European countries are already on the fast track for enlargement candidates being signatories of Europe Agreements. These are based on shared understanding and values and set the path for progressive convergence in a very wide range of activities between these countries and the EU. The significance for marine science is that the majority of these new candidate countries are landlocked and the amount of coastline added to the EU will be very small compared with the land area added. As in Napoleonic times the focus of European politics will become more continental. Attention will be focused for the next ten years on Central Europe and the EU will metaphorically speaking turn its back on the sea. That is why the present time and particularly the Netherlands presidency is a vital period for major decision making by the European institutions on major aspects of marine policy such as support for the EuroGOOS concept. We have a number of questions to discuss and on which you will be asked to vote. In order to allow ample time for participation from the body of the conference we have divided the questions into two groups, each group containing three questions. (See Tables 1 and 2.) A member of the panel will make a short introductory statement for each group. The discussion on the first group will be followed by a free discussion period. During the discussion that follows the introductory statements interventions will be very welcome. In voting you will be asked to choose one of the five possible responses to each question. The vote is a convenient way of testing the views of the conference as a whole. However these questions are complex and continuously evolving so that, while the EuroGOOS board regard the result of the vote as a very useful contribution to their thinking, they could not regard the result as binding them on future policy. Could I now ask Silvana Vallerga to make the introductory statement for the first group of questions? (Table I)
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Chairman of the Round Table Discussion
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Table 1 First group of questions 1. WHAT TYPE OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD EUROGOOS BE IN FUTURE? Platform for discussion Association of National Agencies Consortium of National Agencies European Intergovernmental Organization European Agency -
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2. EUROGOOS WILL BASE ITSELF ON THE INITIATIVES OF EXISTING EUROPEAN BODIES TO IMPLEMENT OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY Fully agree Agree Neutral Disagree Fully disagree 3. DURING THE NEXT FIVE YEARS EUROGOOS SHOULD FOCUS ON: National level Regional level European level Global level Equal at all levels -
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-
-
-
-
Table 2 Second ~roup of questions 4. WHICH TYPE OF ACTIVITIES SHOULD EUROGOOS EMPHASIZE? Awareness building (PR) Programmes Development for EuroGOOS Regions Technology development Benefits / Costs studies Service / information provider -
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5. EUROGOOS SHOULD ACT AS A BROKER BETWEEN THE RESULTS FROM SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND THE DEMANDS FOR OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY AND INDUSTRIAL NEEDS. Fully agree Agree Neutral Disagree Fully disagree -
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6. FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE MOST IMPORTANT GOOS MODULE IS: Climate Living Marine Resources Coastal Zone Health of the ocean Service -
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Silvana Vallerga EuroGOOS is almost two years old since the conference in Bremen, the ECOPS conference, when it was decided to establish the "Grand Challenge". Now, in October 1996, we can base our view of the future on at least four sound facts. We have established the Technology Planning Working Group and I do not wish to repeat what Jan Bosman said this morning. Then we have the Science and Advisory Working Group and their recommendations are coming out very clearly and furthermore we have the Test Cases, which are going to be implemented. There we will start to check the visibility of EuroGOOS in regional seas of Europe. Finally we have this conference in which we want to have the feedback of our colleagues to plan for the future. I should like to stress that in these two years EuroGOOS has been an association of national agencies in the sense that it is a bottom up approach. As EuroGOOS becomes more mature, we must take a flexible approach, and decide what structure is most effective, and most visible, an association of national agencies, or consortium, or to become an European intergovernmental organisation or a European Agency. I like to ask colleagues to express themselves on these five options.
Paul Gray The main question at issue is "What type of organisation should EuroGOOS be?".
John Marks I represent the ministry of education and culture and science in the Netherlands. I would like to adress the whole problem for setting up and especially operating EuroGOOS. Much of EuroGOOS will be developed by the scientific community. MAST and Euromar were mentioned as programmes to fund the development of the observational equipment etc. This covers only a part of the substantial costs of setting up this system. A major part is also funded through national science funding agencies. Ultimately the system has to be turned over to the operational community and this transfer is a very important issue for EuroGOOS, because who should take responsibility? The customers for these measurements are very spread out. Some of them will be interested in buying the products, but that is different from being willing to take the responsibility for maintaining the system. The question of how to develop a structure which in the end can take responsibility for the maintenance of this system is a very key issue, which I have not heard much about. It will have implications for the direction in which EuroGOOS develops. It was said Eumetsat could take the responsibility for the operational oceanographic satellites. Yes it could, however, Eumetsat is funded through Met Offices, which in many countries have no responsibility for operational oceanography. It thus requires at a national level a restructuring of responsibilities. And this issue can not be picked up too early. I have the privilege to be the chairman of the International Group of Funding Agencies for Global change research. It was set up to support the global change programmes in addressing their resource problems. The discussions in IGFA have played a key-role in making national funding agencies aware of the magnitude of issues. It is clear that in such a many-sided issue an intergovernmental organisation is probably too complicated because it is very complicated to decide which agency or which entity should take the lead. So I would like to hear a little bit more about the
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resources issue in this discussion before it is possible to decide on which of the five alternatives would be the better one to go for.
Peter Ryder As concerns organisational matters, throughout the conference I have thought and talked about the parallels between meteorology and oceanography. Meteorology has progressed in a manner in which developments in the science have enabled improvements in operational services which are valued and therefore funded, in part at least, by customers. However, at present, the heads of the National Meteorological Services are meeting together to try to form something that approximates to a management board of a multi-site consortium, for at least some of their research and operational activities. They have recognised that there has to be a forum to prioritise their investment in the infrastructure on which all depend and from which all benefit. Past experience shows that formal co-operation arrangements are beneficial for some but no-one wants a heavy bureaucracy. Therefore they have stopped short of an intergovernmental arrangement, but want something more than an informal agreement to collaborate. I believe that the agencies which are driving EuroGOOS will find that they have similar needs, and therefore will plump for something like number 3 in the list.
Silvana Vallerga I wish to examine the funding of the trials and testcases for EuroGOOS. They are prepared as projects on a competitive basis, and there we look for funding. We hope that in the future MAST or another marine programme from EUREKA will be developed. That will be just in the first phase. To comment on Dr Ryder, a consortium of national agencies is something more than we are. Because we are an association of funding agencies. So we might decide on a national level what to do. But we should go a step further. We should build a European agency for EuroGOOS.
John Woods I was concerned at the suggestion that the science budgets should pay for operations. We desperately need a continuing flow of basic research on the oceans, the science and the technology. So I would hate to see science projects diluted in any way to pay for operations. We need to bring in new money. We have heard about governmental agencies which have substantial funds and are examining ways in which they might redeploy some of them to ocean operations. But there is another source, and that is private money. If you look what is happening in the oil-industry. They are getting out of the business of paying for their own research with large in-house research teams. They are contracting that out. What grew up as a large number of small service companies are picking up the research that previously was done inside Shell, BP and other big companies. In the last year those small service industries all round the world have been merging and large private sector service organisations are developing outside the oil companies, but primarily serving the oil companies. A similar move is happening in environmental consultancies and small environmental consultancies. A large number of relatively small undercaptilised environmental service companies have formed here in the Netherlands, in Britain and elsewhere. But what is happening in Britain is that there is a large predator come in to that pool and is buying them up, and trying to create a large well capitalised service company.
720 We can look for new money from entrepreneurs who see this is a growing private sector service industry, and of course governments are getting slimmer in what used to be their inhouse research bodies. Their Met Services are in many cases becoming private or more autonomous and told to act more commercially to bring in more money from outside. That is the way we are going to go, and certainly should not rely on the science budgets.
Ola Johannessen. I do not agree totally with John Woods because we have a lot of action on Norwegian shelfs and the oil money is drying up. It is harder and harder to get research money for applications from oil companies in oceanography. We had a committee called Operators Committee North, and they had a really sizeable budget, but that committee was cancelled. The second point I would like to mention to Dr Ryder concerns the parallel with meteorology. I am not sure that we are in the same situation, because meteorology is very well organised. In each country you have one Met Office. It is easy to get the heads of the national agencies together, while in oceanography it is all fragmented. You do not have national agencies in oceanography. So I will vote that EuroGOOS must be a platform for further discussion before we start, making either an agency or association. John Marks I very much agree with John Woods that the money for operating the system should not come from the science funding agencies. Once (Euro)GOOS becomes operational, it requires another source of funding and it is putting together that source that, I think, is really a major issue for EuroGOOS. I agree that it will be very difficult to get private money for taking responsibility for the maintenance of the operational system. Most if not all, operational agencies are under heavy budget pressure. New tasks will have to be taken on at the expenses of old ones. The example of Eumetsat. Meteosat could only be funded because at that time the operational weatherships were taken out of service. That freed the budget for funding Meteosat. If a mechanism like that does not exist it will be very hard to find money in the operational community. It is necessary to put together a group of sufficient breadth of agencies with different operational tasks as well as the science agencies. Whether a consortium is the right way to go or whether an association is better, is something you will have to think about. Jan Stel I would like to comment on the fragmentation in oceanography. In my opinion the development of EuroGOOS creates transparency in the organisation of oceanography. When we look at the situation in the Netherlands during the last three years, I notice that through a natural process RIKZ has become the leading operational agency in oceanography and not the scientific community in the Netherlands. When you look at a more global scale, let us say the IOC-level, it is clear that there is a need for more clarification leading to commitments for the development of GOOS. Based on these considerations, and based upon the fact that EuroGOOS is developing fast, I think that the EuroGOOS organisation could be ready for a consortium. In the long run this could then lead to an European agency. Paul Gray As Chairman I would like to use the privilege of my position to make three comments. The first is that setting up agencies creates a discussion between EU Member States as to in which
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country they should be established and this can take a long time to resolve. The debate went on for four years as to which Member State of the EU should host a number of agencies, such as the Pharmaceutical Agency in London, that has a very clear role to give European approval for new medicines, and the Environmental Agency in Copenhagen. Both these agencies are hampered by underfunding. The second point relates to European competition law. A unique provider of services could create some problems with regard to the competition articles of Treaty. This is being discussed in relation to Meteorological Offices who want to create resources by selling some of their products and the solution obtained for Meteorology could well be applied to EuroGOOS. The third point, and it is perhaps more positive, relates to the statute of European Economic Interest Groups. This provides a legal framework for setting up European wide entities and could be a useful legal vehicle for EuroGOOS.
Silvana Vallegra One of the main tasks of the EuroGOOS Secretariat it has been to identify the users. A large user survey has been made. The oil industry customers maybe are going down, but for us in the Mediterranean that has never been the main target. The tourist industry is growing instead. We must base EuroGOOS on the user survey we did to identify the proper users. Of course also scientists are endusers, and that was discussed last year in Sorrento.
Nic Flemming There is a paradox between the search to satisfy user requirements in the short to medium term, and some of the issues which are global and are central to the study of global climate change and the infrastructure and integrity of many of the modelling concerns. National interest and commercial and business requirements tend to propagate outwards, from the small areas where there is an intensive level of activity. That will leave gaps on the global scale. The role of governments and agencies and the assessment of national and global requirements leaves us with the responsibility of fdling in the gaps. We have to accept that there are governmental and supernational responsibilities to do the bits of the work that nobody else wants to do. They are essential for global models.
Paul Gray I think the important word in this question is "focus". If you focus on one aspect you do not necessarily exclude the others. We will move on to the first round of voting. The questions are: 1 - What type of organisation should EuroGOOS be in the future ? 2 - EuroGOOS will base itself on the initiative of the existing European bodies to implement operational oceanography 3 - What should be the focus of EuroGOOS in the next five years ?
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Table 3. Results of the first round of voting 1. WHAT TYPE OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD EUROGOOS BE IN FUTURE ? Platform for discussion Association of National Agencies Consortium of National Agencies European Intergovernmental Organization European Agency
7 26 51 6 10
% % % % %
2. EUROGOOS WILL BASE ITSELF ON THE INITIATIVES OF EXISTING EUROPEAN BODIES TO IMPLEMENT OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY Fully agree 39 Agree 37 Neutral 19 Disagree 3 Fully disagree 2
% % % % %
3. DURING THE NEXT FIVE YEARS EUROGOOS SHOULD FOCUS ON: National level Regional level European level Global level Equal at all levels
% % % % %
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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1 22 53 7 17
We are now going to an open session of discussion that will be introduced by Jean Boissonnas. I would like to remind you that Mr. Tent told us earlier in the conference about the Commission's document "Inventing T o m o r r o w " that was sent to Parliament and the Council in July 1996. A second document is to follow at the end of this year and then the proposal for the framework programme that may or may not say something about marine science. It is on the basis of this document that the Council will allocate funds to each large area within the general framework and if marine science is not included then the debate is closed. Jean Boissonnas The guiding principles of the future Framework Programme 5 (FP5) proposal are spelt out in a Commission document called "Inventing Tomorrow". In a section called "Shifting the balance (from the current FP4) to improve the impact on society and the e c o n o m y " the document stresses the following 3 points:
9
9
9
Supporting basic research: it is essential to maintain a research context which is open to new ideas, for work on basic questions which may possibly generate new fields of activity. Bringing research more in line with the real market: "we should be moving ... the research aimed at satisfying consumers by providing high quality goods and services which are produced in an acceptable manner at low cost ..." Doing more to exploit results:" ...in order to extend the relationships between partners and networks so that results are better exploited...
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It seems to me that the EuroGOOS community can feel comfortable with these three basic principles. No one can tell for sure what FP5 will look like, nor how it will be structured. However, "Inventing Tomorrow" gives us a few possible clues. There will be three main priority topics: 9 Unlocking the resources of the living world and the ecosystem: this theme would include i.a. the "in-depth study of matters relating to global environmental change, the basic cycles, natural hazards and European ecosystems". 9 Creating a user-friendly information society: "this research could aim at the development of technology, infrastructure, services and applications that are interoperable at World level". 9 Promoting competitive and sustainable growth: i.a. the design and production of new products and materials. It seems intended to cross-cut these three "vertical" blocks of research with three "horizontal" activities: improving human potential, innovation and participation of SME's, confirming the international role of European research. In conclusion, no matter what will be structure of FP5, whether MAST will continue or not as a separate programme, I can see ample opportunity to construct or organise R&D activities around a number of well defined targets, and thus to express the priorities of EuroGOOS. I can see that EuroGOOS or GOOS related activities are eminently suitable for the approach that I was just mentioning about constructing building blocks. A kind of foundation or basement of basic research based on scientific requirements, and leading in to preoperational and later to operational activities.
Silvana Vallegra Jean Boissonnas was telling us very important news on the fifth programme, because apparently the human dimension in now included. I would like to add that we should also take into account other sources of European funding such as the structural funds, which are large amounts of funding for less developed regions. Starting in 1999 there will be no limitation for the regions that can enjoy these funds. We are talking about millions of ECU's, that can be used for instance for build up centres of excellence~
Gregorio Parilla I have a question related to the first statement in the poll we had earlier, about establishing a consortium. The majority agreed on this point. I like to bring this to the open. Which comes first the money or the work, or the new structure? Anybody want to comment on this?
Peter Ryder I voted in favour of that statement. It is a harsh statement, but it is hard to deny the central proposition that we will not be able to build new operational activities requiring significant investment without being able to assemble the economic arguments for that investment. I have spent the last 15 years and a lot of nervous energy trying to find ways of making such investments in operational meteorology. There was a time when it was sufficient for people
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with vision and a track record of success to attract investment by asking for it. Today it is not so; the discipline of the investment appraisal is a fact of life.
Svein Ehrling Hansen I represent industry, or at least part of the industry. In which way does EuroGOOS allow the private sector to act as a service provider for operational services? If EuroGOOS encourages industry also to take part in this type of preparation, and so to say fostering widely European industry, we could have more success outside Europe. I would also like to have some indication where we could define the boundary between the governmental responsibilities for operational oceanography and the opportunities for the private sector in the same market.
John Woods Out of the five options on the poll question, I think that there are three focuses that EuroGOOS can follow. One is the programme development, which I think is very important, and it is important to exploit the scientific work that is done. Second is the operational interface, which I think answers your point on how do providers get into the service system. If EuroGOOS specifies what operational services it foresees; how it foresees them; what type of measurements it would like, then people can begin to respond. And third is addressing the funding requirement, and that leads to cost-benefit. EuroGOOS must develop a consistent theme. For EuroGOOS to succeed, it needs to address those three things rather than choosing between them.
Paul Gray I would like to underline the last point that you made. In my 23 years in the commission I have seen many initiatives fail because of a lack of coherence in what I might call the lobby. It is very dangerous to say one thing to the Commission or other institutions and another to national governments. Even if you do not agree between yourselves on the detail it is very important to agree on what you will say to government bodies. It is important for EuroGOOS to have a battle flag and an overall concept to sell. Within this concept you must look at the individual modules that you wish to start up. EuroGOOS will have to move into operation step by step on a pragmatic basis but a grand plan is necessary for EuroGOOS to have public visibility.
Peter Ryder This diagram (Figure 1.), I used yesterday talking about the economics of operational oceanographic services. It illustrates, in a highly schematic fashion, the basic value-adding process of almost all environmental information services. It is derived from operational meteorology but applies equally well to oceanography, I believe. The key features are the data banking/archival activity required to establish a historical record, and numerical modelling to produce predictions about the future. These rely on access to a wide range of basic data sources and enable a potentially huge diversity of services. I am not suggesting that only one model need be run nor that all data should be held in one central archive; the physical realisation of the process is likely to be highly distributed. However I have called the functions to the left of the dotted line "core functions" because they are not customer-specific. Those to the right of that line are customer-specific, and are based upon core products and possibly their own customer-specific data sources.
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Value-adding process
Figure 1. The basic value-adding process of almost all environmental information services
( Peter Ryder ) Now you asked where the boundaries between public and private responsibilities should lie. If the data policy of operational oceanography follows that of meteorology, then core data and products will be freely exchanged and it will be impossible to commercialise them; you cannot commercialise what you give away. To be effective such a data policy needs to be agreed internationally and by governments, and it carries with it a responsibility on governments to fund the generation of those data and products. In effect, an agreement to distort the market carries with it responsibility to sustain the alternative. Activities to the right of the line should be funded by those who benefit from them - or in the case of public-good services, by the responsible government departments. Such an arrangement encourages the development of effective customer supplier relationships.
Frank Dolan I represent a small company, InstallOcean, in the UK. The first thing I would like to say is that I think you are somewhat dismissive in saying that industry generally becomes involved in these projects by taking their own initiatives. It is quite true that the industrial data users will take their own initiatives if they find that their requirements are not being satisfied. Smaller service companies do not have this options to the same extent. We are almost universally, as John Woods has said, undercapitalized. We cannot just grasp the opportunities. So what I would really like to do is to restate the question posed by Oceanor. "How can we contribute our knowledge towards the successful implementation of EuroGOOS at this early stage, not
726 tomorrow when the market will be for huge data products. How can we do work for you now and how can we get paid for it?"
Rien van der Poel I can add some comments to that. Yesterday evening we had an Euromar Board Meeting. There the same problem came up: what is EuroGOOS doing with industry? Until now EuroGOOS is not communicating with industry. Industry tried to find ways to contact EuroGOOS. And I think it is impossible. Especially the small companies, and there are many kinds of small companies in this field. They need rather quick returns. But this morning I got a much better feeling. Nic Flemming in his introduction, started talking about involving industry partners in funding proposals, involve industry partners in pilot projects. After that Jan Bosman talked about the programme, and the results of the technical programme group. He even talked about Euromar getting involved those partners in the competitive stage, and then I thought: well, my work is done, I do not have to do anything this morning if EuroGOOS are going to do those things. I think industry can be satisfied. Thank you. Nic Flemming EuroGOOS is just about to approach its second birthday, and it is taking a while obviously to sort out details and priorities. I can understand that from the perspective of the outside world, there did not seem to be very much communication. But as Rien van der Poel has just said, we are now embarking on establishing contacts as fast as we can and I thank you very much for those very constructive remarks. Secondly, because of this meeting, we are reacting very strongly to the points which have been made to us during this meeting by people from companies of all sizes. From the largest players in the field to the smallest service companies. There will be an officers meeting this afternoon, and link with industry will be at the top of our agenda. Although it is too early to say what the mechanism will be, we will establish a consultative forum. Finally, if I can ask the question which the two or three previous speakers perhaps wanted to say but did not. The data sources boxes in Figure 1. on the left of the dotted line are the infrastructure big global regional observation systems. The ones on the right of the dotted line were more site specific, extra variables, extra things which are needed locally for a particular product. The question I want to put Peter Ryder, do you see any of the work in the "data-source" boxes, the primary observations, being contracted to the commercial sector? Peter Ryder My previous comments related generally to funding by public and private sources, and specifically to the role of governments as purchasers. The supply of all of the functions, whether to the left or right of the line, should be established competitively and, in principle, can by either the private or public sectors. Silvana Vallerga I wish to make a point as a representative of Italy. When we talk about information there are a number of people always saying they are not being informed. I like to remind you that we started from the very beginning with information to Euromar. Last year in Sorrento, we had a workshop on EuroGOOS and we had a representative of Euromar of course. For SME's I am pleased to say that the technological survey we did in Italy was answered in a ratio 2:1 by small medium enterprises with respect to public institutes. That is very important. We have small
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commercial enterprises in the test case for the Mediterranean.
Jean Minster The question of the diagram and the impact of service companies. I do not think that the data sources will be connected to any central facility for data management. And most people would think that this would not be a good system. The private companies in general do not pay for most of the oceanographic data acquisition and infrastructure. On the other hand they are using the existing data sets from distributed data centres with quite a lot of difficulty because they are not that accessible and they make elaborate products. In general when you discuss with NOAA people of private companies they will tell you, what they can sell or what you could call derived products, meaning starting from existing measurements elaborating the product, but quite simple. These are the ones for which there is a market. What is important is to get the connection between the companies who know which are the final products which can be sold and the data centres to provide them the facility they need to produce these derived products. The important thing is to establish the connection both in the hardware, meaning getting access to the data, and in the meaningful sense, meaning which are final products for which there is a market.
Klaus Pfeiffer I am from Germany, representing also, as John Woods said, undercapitalized 'SME'. We appeal to EuroGOOS to open up channels and platforms where we can obtain the information, but where we can also address our services to EuroGOOS and to the EuroGOOS members Make smooth for us the ways so that we do not have to make such a effort in projecting, marketing and addressing our services, because that, especially for the SME's is almost an impossible task. Especially if you think of multi-user communities. So, please open us channels how industry can communicate, probably through EuroGOOS, with larger administrations. All other activities, which will create too much overhead and which do not give industry a medium term profit, will result in economic suicide. Thank you.
Paul Gray As time is short I will not ask for a reaction from the panel. The last group of questions are: 4 - Which type of activities should the EuroGOOS emphasise; 5 - How EuroGOOS should act as a broker between the results from the scientific community, demand for operational oceanography and industrial needs; and 6 - From my point of view the most important GOOS module is .... We have discussed question 5 during the last few minutes so I will now ask Peter Ryder, to make an opening statement on this group.
Peter Ryder I am not an economist, but a scientist who has had to develop some skills of an economist. This is your opportunity to comment on where the EuroGOOS community should focus its efforts, where the priorities lie and their importance. There is no European organisation carrying out cost-benefit studies in this field. Would it be useful for EuroGOOS to concentrate its limited resources here? Or should we encouraging technical development? Are the regional programmes a priority? There is certainly a need to build up an awareness outside the community of what we are trying to accomplish; should effort be concentrated on the PR task?
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Or finally, should EuroGOOS be concentrating its energies upon the way in which services might be provided and by whom?
Barias I do not think that we can answer this question for the moment because some of the activities are more important now than others; but probably all of them important. So, I do not know if we can give a clear cut answer.
Paul Gray I agree with you that it is not easy to make choices and like all multiple choice questions there is no perfect answer. Perhaps we ought to tackle this question in another way and look at the activities that EuroGOOS should concentrate on the next year. Any other comments - the speaker from the back of the hall please. (This speaker did not use a microphone but protested that there was no room in the procedure for dissent.) We did not wish to give the impression that there is no room for dissent that is why we have invited views from the floor. It is very important to hear conflicting views. Maybe we should break this part of the discussion in a different way and vote now on question 4 "Which type of activities should E u r o G O O S emphasise". Table 4. Votinl~ result of question 4 WHICH TYPE OF ACTIVITIES SHOULD EUROGOOS EMPHASIZE? Awareness building (PR) Programmes Development for EuroGOOS Regions Technology development Benefits / Costs studies Service / information provider -
-
-
14 % 51% 10 % 12 % 13 %
Question 5 is a rather harsh statement and depends very heavily on what the concept of a broker is. There is a need to see that science is exploited in the nicest sense of the word. I would interpret it as should EuroGOOS broker the optimum way of feeding the results of science through to the user community. Since we have already had some discussion on this earlier and nobody seems to want to intervene from the panel I am proposing to vote on this now.
Table 5. Voting; result of question 5 EUROGOOS SHOULD ACT AS A BROKER BETWEEN THE RESULTS FROM SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND THE DEMANDS FOR OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY AND INDUSTRIAL NEEDS. Fully agree 21% Agree 47 % Neutral 12 % Disagree 10 % Fully disagree 10 % -
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Impression of the voting system Now we will pass on the last question, number 6, on what is the most important GOOS module. It is fairly clear that the various modules all overlap to some extent. Clearly many living marine resources are in the coastal zone which is also cross cutting with climate and services. The provision of services is also cross cutting. The importance of one module compared to another will also depend on whether your criteria are economic or scientific.
Silvana Vallerga I would like to add a point, because we are voting on GOOS now, and I am going to vote for GOOS in different way than I could vote for EuroGOOS. Because while, personally I think that climate is the most important module for GOOS. I do not think it is the same for EuroGOOS. So I would like to make that clear that we are voting on G O O S now.
Paul Gray Of course there is a big debate in political circles on climate. The problem is that governments are usually elected with a short, usually five year, mandate. If E u r o G O O S is to get operational it will have to choose subjects that have an immediate political relevance. Maybe we should vote twice once for GOOS and once for EuroGOOS. We could do just that to show the versatility of the system. Further comments please.
730
Nic Flemming I hope people would not interpret the coastal zone in a very narrow sense, meaning just a few kilometres wide. I think of the perspective of most people who have to w o r k in the coastal zone. It implies modelling an area tens if not hundreds of kilometres across. Particularly in the European and adjacent seas.
Jan Stel Although I am also representing the IOC, I am not certain if what I am now going to say is the opinion of the IOC. Reflecting on what Nic Flemming said about the coastal zone, let us say the exclusive economic zone, and being pragmatic I think that we can only convince developing countries to invest in G O O S when they focus on the coastal zone / EEZ.
Mark White As G O O S is about providing service to the global community in terms of managing the oceans and the seas it would appear that number 5, service is the most appropriate choice. Clearly from a cost-benefit point of view economics is important, for example, what would happen the economics of Europe if the Gulf Stream were to switch off? That G O O S provides a service to our communities through understanding the impact of the ocean on climate, on marine resources, on coastal zones and on the health of the oceans is most important.
Paul Gray If there are no further comments then we will vote first of all for G O O S (Table 6). Table 6. Voting result of question 6a FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE MOST IMPORTANT GOOS MODULE IS: Climate Living Marine Resources Coastal Zone Health of the ocean Service -
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7% 4% 44 % 6% 39%
Now we will vote on the same modules for E u r o G O O S (Table 7). Table 7. Votin~ result of question 6b FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE MOST IMPORTANT EUROGOOS MODULE IS: Climate 41% Living Marine Resources 4% Coastal Zone 17% Health of the ocean 5% Service 33% -
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731
Well we are just about on time and the and I see little point in spinning out the discussion further. I would like to thank you all for participating so actively and especially the panel. I leave you with a final thought. If you want to get a feeling what EuroGOOS is really about then listen to Walt Whitman's poetry set to music in Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony in which the sea is described as uniting all nations
Leen Droppert I want to thank Paul Gray for being here. Thank you Paul.