Oceanic Institute (OI), Hawaii, is facing a future without federal earmark funding and will need to make significant changes to its business model if it is to survive.

OI's president, Dr. Tony Ostrowski told a local business magazine, Pacific Business News (PBN), that even without the federal earmark funding the research institute, which relies heavily on federal grants  but which also gets income from tuition and fees paid by students at an affiliated private university, will take in about $8 million this year. He has managed to save some previous federal funding to delay budget cuts while trying to make the Oceanic Institute more self-sustainable, he told the publication.               

PBN said Ostrowski's plan is to diversify funding, which includes the privatization of developed technologies, even as it continues to try to attain federal research grants and hone in on more of its educational component.

 “We have technologies that are still developing, which includes our shrimp grow-out, an intensive production system that’s ready to be tested and proven on a commercial scale,” he said. “We’ve already been selling shrimp overseas to places like China, Japan and India.”

Oceanic Institute is also hoping to find more partnerships for its Moi hatchery that would allow it to sell more of that technology to global markets the report said. [Source: Pacific Business News]