NSF cover letter
Date: March 14, 2008
To: Donna Blackman and Ridge2000 Program Steering Committee
re: Mid-Term Program Review of Ridge2000
From: Adam Schultz and Phillip Taylor
Dear Donna
Please find attached a report prepared by the members of the NSF Ridge2000 Program Mid-Term Review panel, which assembled at NSF on 25-26 February, 2008. It is provided to you verbatim and in full. The panelists were provided with the Ridge2000 Review package prepared by the Ridge2000 Program Office, in both printed and CDROM format, and NSF provided additional information requested by the panelists as they read through the review documents in the weeks leading up to the review (including, for instance, budgetary information). NSF personnel were available to the panel during its meeting, including a number of Program Directors and the relevant Section Heads within the Ocean Science Division.
The review process serves an important advisory role to NSF. The participating programs within the Ocean Science Division (Marine Geology and Geophysics and Biological Oceanography) have read through the panel's recommendations, and endorse the advice given. We also recognize, as did the panel, the excellent scientific accomplishments provided by the Ridge2000 program. We ask that you disseminate the review report within the Ridge2000 Steering Committee and also widely throughout the ocean science community interested in the science of Ridge2000.
The NSF programs feel that adoption of the recommendations contained within the review report is essential to the Ridge2000 Program. Doing so will afford Ridge2000 the opportunity to meet the important and challenging goals set forth in the various science plans. The primary recommendations are summarized as follows:
- It is essential, in order to meet its program goals, that Ridge2000 make integration and synthesis the overriding priority of its final phase. This will require re-emphasis of Ridge2000 to a modeling-led approach to understanding the mantle-to-microbe system.
- The leadership enterprise of Ridge2000 (StComm, Chair, Office, committees, and the Data Management efforts) need to be appropriately staffed to achieve the integration and synthesis goals in the final part of the program.
- Release and wide dissemination of data sets is essential if integration and synthesis goals are to be achieved, particularly as modeling efforts become more central to the final phase of the Program. There are certain data sets acquired at the Ridge2000 Program study sites that have not been made available to the community by individual PIs, notwithstanding the applicable data policies for Ridge2000 and NSF/OCE. This is particularly noted for water chemistry and biological data. Failure to make data available immediately risks the overriding Program objectives of integration and synthesis. While it is desirable to see such data sets integrated into the existing Ridge2000 web-based services, it is important to arrange for the release and wide distribution of such data sets as soon as possible, even ahead of the development of sophisticated interfaces. Advice from, or interaction with existing data management efforts which have enabled integration and synthesis in other ocean science programs is encouraged.
- More frequent, smaller-group workshops aimed at integration and synthesis are encouraged, for instance a set of regularly-scheduled meetings for each ISS, followed by workshops aimed at merging and comparing results from the three Pacific ISS plus, if appropriate, data from the MAR and elsewhere.
- Integration and synthesis must take precedence over any new field studies. Any new field studies must be justified by the requirement to obtain specific data sets found to be needed through the modeling-led integration and synthesis effort.
Again, the Mid-Term Program Review was enthusiastic about the accomplishments of the Ridge2000 Program, and has made a set of specific and concrete recommendations to strengthen Ridge2000 as it enters its final phase. We ask you to consider the attached report carefully at the upcoming community meetings and the StCom meeting in Portland, OR scheduled for later this month.