NOAA has released its draft Five-Year Research and Development (R&D) Plan for public comment, to be accepted from May 3 – June 3, 2013.  NOAA is seeking public input on the plan because your input is important to setting the course for R&D at NOAA in the coming years.

R&D at NOAA increases understanding of the world and produce applications that improve how the agency fulfills its mission of science, service, and stewardship. NOAA seeks an understanding of the global ocean-atmosphere system and the ecosystems it supports to inform decision-making aimed at building a more sustainable society. Such a broad portfolio creates many challenges and opportunities for R&D at NOAA.  For a mission-based agency, strategic, directed, and use-inspired research is key to meeting NOAA’s mission to serve society. 

The draft NOAA Five Year R&D Plan is the third Research Plan produced by NOAA and the first to explicitly include “development” as part of the research enterprise.  It also includes ways to define success, evaluate progress, and transition research outcomes to applications.  In addition to publicly documenting the course of NOAA’s R&D, the Plan will:

•guide the internal management of R&D projects by providing a basis for planning, tracking, and evaluating results, and

•promote collaboration with partners inside and outside the federal government to further serve society through NOAA’s R&D enterprise.

Led by the NOAA Research Council, the draft NOAA Five Year R&D Plan has been developed across the agency as a whole and with input from stakeholders. Please provide your input to further strengthen the plan. 

When providing comments, please consider how best to

•emphasize areas where collaboration with non-NOAA scientists would be particularly valuable,

•enhance integration of R&D across goals and disciplines towards a more holistic understanding of the Earth System,

•highlight connections and interdependencies among R&D goals and objectives, and

•further focus NOAA\'s five-year targets to achieve clear results.

The plan will be revised based on comments received during this public comment period. 

To provide comments, please visit http://www.nrc.noaa.gov/plans.html and follow the instructions.   The public comment period officially ends on June 3, 2013. This is your opportunity to provide input into NOAA’s R&D portfolio prior to the release of the final version this summer.