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Strategic Research Themes

Staff Engagement

In January 2023 WHOI research staff were invited to begin “deeper, strategic Institution-level planning, beyond individual department needs” that would “identify those larger institutional directions that will position WHOI for potentially-transformative research growth and leadership in new, forward-looking areas.” Department-level, grassroots strategic planning documents identified dozens of  potential “Big Ideas” which were presented and discussed at a Staff Council retreat. By early 2024, these were distilled by Department Chairs to five Strategic Research Themes (SRTs), each representing distinct multidisciplinary, pan-institutional focus areas to guide future research staffing, facilities, and institutional investment. These SRTs represent strategic growth opportunities to inform and complement specific departmental needs.

THEME 1: EXPLORATION AND FUNDAMENTAL DISCOVERY

Why?

To paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, scientists see further by standing on the shoulders of giants. WHOI must continue to invest in producing those oceanographic giants of the future.

This theme commits us to tending the scientific vessel that brought WHOI to the forefront of ocean science and that will carry us over the horizon into WHOI's second century. Exploration and fundamental discovery are at the heart of WHOI's mission and serve as the basis for defining and answering the most basic scientific questions about the ocean.

We also commit to pursuing the "known unknowns"—those aspects of the ocean we know exist, but understand incompletely and are the focus of other themes—as well as the "unknown unknowns” that are entirely uncharted territories of ocean science. There will always be more things unknown about the ocean than are known, but by maintaining a culture that invests in those with the courage to venture into unchartered waters, WHOI not only pursues the "next big thing," it also commits to building the foundation of ocean science for the future.
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Why now?

THE URGENCY
As we face challenges of unprecedented speed and scale, the world has never needed a research institution like WHOI more than it does today—one with integrity, independence, and unique capabilities to meet evolving or yet-unknown challenges. As WHOI meets the moment by working on society's most urgent problems, we must also double-down on the inherent value of fundamental exploration and discovery, bolstering WHOI’s capacity to define future research problems we may not yet know exist. WHOI explores the unknown with perpetual urgency and must remain vigilant to secure the intellectual capital to do so rapidly and courageously.

THE OPPORTUNITY
WHOI's science and engineering excellence create fertile ground for germinating new areas of oceanography that will emerge as foci for investment in coming decades. Innovations in remote sensing, data analytics, deep-sea robotics, sensing, and autonomous underwater vehicles enable researchers to explore deeper, longer, and more safely, extending our reach into the ocean's most inaccessible regions. Novel molecular techniques have opened new windows into understanding the diversity and functioning of marine organisms, their roles in ocean health and biogeochemistry, and how they respond to environmental change. These and other technological leaps enable WHOI scientists to gather data and analyze phenomena that were previously beyond reach, forging new avenues for exploration and fundamental discovery.

Why WHOI?

WHOI's size, unique combination of science and engineering excellence, broad access to the ocean, and a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration uniquely equip us to lead in exploration and fundamental discovery. The institution's approach to removing cultural and financial barriers and to investing in cross-disciplinary excellence fosters an exploration culture with a vibrancy and breadth unlike anywhere else.
What we need

An Ocean Exploration Hub is proposed as a new focal point for bridging disciples and promoting the culture of innovation and synergy that is so critical to WHOI's ability to attract, develop, and retain top talent across diverse scientific disciplines. The Unleash Talent Program, aimed at providing salary support that is not tied to any existing project, will give WHOI's scientists and engineers the flexibility to truly explore the unknown unknowns and maintain competitiveness with peer institutions.

To facilitate cutting-edge research, WHOI must continue to invest in infrastructure that supports ocean exploration and fundamental discovery. This includes developing a physical space for the Ocean Exploration Hub that will enable engagement, collaboration, and synthesis around key themes. Furthermore, investing in shared research spaces and facilities, such as AVAST, will enhance the interaction between scientists and engineers, fostering breakthroughs in oceanographic tools and methods. Such continued investment in technology is crucial for WHOI to maintain its leadership in ocean sciences. This includes acquiring state-of-the-art equipment for data collection and analysis, enhancing capabilities for deep-sea exploration, and developing innovative robotic tools. Finally, WHOI’s future investment assuring access to ships and other ocean-going platforms focused on high-risk, early-stage exploration is essential to sustaining our culture of exploration and fundamental discovery.

WHOI is known for breakthrough developments in scientific instrumentation but cannot advance into the unknown without the means to observe and measure it. We propose FIRST LOOK (Facilities and Instrumentation for Researchers Seeking Tomorrow's Landmark Ocean Observations and Knowledge), a dedicated program supporting the development, construction, and acquisition of major research instrumentation for individuals and teams to enable early-stage exploration and fundamental discovery deemed too high-risk by other funding sources.

THEME 2: HUMAN-OCEAN CONNECTIONS

Why?

The ocean draws, feeds, and sustains humanity. How the ocean affects us and how we affect the ocean remain poorly understood but are essential to ensuring wise and sustainable use and protection of the ocean and marine resources. The coasts, where humans meet the sea, are among the most densely populated regions worldwide, as well as some of the most dynamic and most imperiled. The Human-Ocean Connections theme focuses on how human activities intersect with ocean dynamics and ecosystem health and services at the coast, with consequential impacts to both ocean and humans. It also seeks to predict and mitigate impacts and maintain benefits in a globally changing environment.

A research initiative on Human-Ocean Connections at WHOI focusing on coastal vulnerability and ecosystem health and services would make substantial progress towards understanding and supporting the human-ocean partnership. Major dynamic catastrophes, such as tsunamis, severe storms, flooding, etc., imperil coastal communities and infrastructure, including salinization of freshwater supplies. Threats to ocean ecosystem resilience include health risks to humans from pathogens (e.g., harmful algal blooms, pollution, plastic contamination) through exposure or consumption of contaminated seafood; geoengineering (e.g., wind farms); ocean warming and accompanying biogeographic threats; and overfishing.

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Why Now?

THE URGENCY
The pace at which human activities are intersecting with the ocean is accelerating. Global carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, with associated changes to the ocean and atmosphere. Plastics are ubiquitous and increasing in the world oceans, with still unknown effects on ocean life that could cascade to humans. Harmful algal blooms are proliferating, supported by warmer and more hospitable oceans. Deep-sea mining and wind energy development are increasing, with poorly understood impacts on ocean ecosystem resilience. More extreme weather is predicted, including stronger, more frequent hurricanes threatening coastal communities and infrastructure. Research is needed now to understand and predict potential impacts and identify solutions for ocean-human intersections, both locally in the Northwest Atlantic and globally.

THE OPPORTUNITY
The coasts, where humans meet the sea, are among the most densely populated regions worldwide. In addition, the value and importance of the global blue economy is growing, making the coasts and near-shore waters of increasing importance to society as a whole.

Why WHOI?

WHOI’s strong observational and analytical capabilities across all temporal and spatial scales and deep, insightful understanding of our ocean make us well-poised to play a leadership role in the observational, experimental, and predictive research required to understand ocean-human interactions and the sustainability of human and ocean well-being. The Institution already has many strengths in the disciplines and expertise required to address these complicated and crucial problems. What is needed now is an infusion of resources and new energy to expand the scope and impact of our research.

What we need

  • Establish leadership through an Urban Oceanography Center to understand the structure and dynamics of the ocean, including geo- and weather-hazards in populated coastal areas, and multiple facets of ecosystem and ocean resilience and their interactions with society and effects on human well-being. In addition to conducting cutting-edge research, the Center would be a focal point to attract, train, and retain the next generation of scientists and for broader communication to specialists, policy makers, and the general public. The existing WHOI Center of Oceans and Human Health could serve as a kernel for a broader effort focusing on the human-ecosystem convergence.
  • Establish and strengthen connections to resource and health communities and marine policy and regulatory entities, including establishing formal, institution-level collaborations with medical and/or public health entities. Partner with public health and medical researchers, social scientists, and economists. Revitalize the Marine Policy Center.
  • Increase capacity for expertise in data analysis (see Computational Oceanography Theme).

THEME 3: CLIMATE CHANGE: SCIENCE, IMPACTS, AND SOLUTIONS

Why?

Earth’s rapidly changing climate is likely to have globally disruptive impacts due to the influence climate has on Earth’s physical, chemical, and biological processes. The Climate Change theme provides a strategy for addressing these challenges through work in three focus areas aimed at (1) advancing fundamental understanding of climate and climate-change impacts; (2) evaluating approaches to enhance the resilience of ecosystems and communities to climate-change impacts; and (3) developing and assessing approaches to mitigate the pace and impacts of climate change. The importance of this theme is clear: Warming oceans, melting ice sheets, rising sea level, increased storminess, shifting precipitation patterns, prolonged droughts, extreme flooding, and changes to coastal landforms present real and present threats to ecosystems and societies. Coastal communities are especially vulnerable, but climate change impacts are global, through related effects on such critical systems as agriculture, marine ecosystems, and water supplies. Effective adaptation and mitigation efforts require a science-based understanding of climate futures, the impacts of changing climate, and the effectiveness and risks of efforts themselves.

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Why Now?

THE URGENCY
Urgency is foundational to all of the Big Ideas in this theme, which address, among other things, climate dynamics and predictability, sea level rise, climate change and ocean circulation, ice sheet trajectories, extreme droughts and floods, the ocean’s role in the global water cycle, a world without ice, and impacts to coral reefs, the coastal ocean and infrastructure, and polar ecosystems and communities. The scope of this work is daunting, but the need to understand these complex processes and systems to improve forecast skill is urgent.

THE OPPORTUNITY
The global focus of nations, industry, scientists and engineers on the looming impacts of rapidly changing climate presents extraordinary opportunity to work at unprecedented pace, scale and focus on a broad swath of complex, interconnected, basic and applied research problems. The rise of private philanthropic donor collectives focused on climate change impacts also points to growing opportunities for new and more diverse funding streams.

Why WHOI?

WHOI is ideally positioned to provide global leadership on climate change science, impacts, and solutions. We have the scientific, engineering, and operational expertise to work at all scales; we understand the science questions; we have an entrepreneurial culture, global presence and reach, abundant experience leading and managing large projects; and we have genuine desire to work on such problems. We also have substantial untapped capacity to work on large projects, as much of our work is scaled to fit within funding-agency limits. We thus often work on several smaller projects at the same time, often independently, diminishing our pace and efficiency due to fragmentation. Pointing the focus of even a dozen WHOI PIs onto a single problem can tap this latent capacity and produce transformative results given appropriate resources.

What we need

There is a call throughout all the strategic-planning documents for the creation of Centers to capitalize on the power of interdisciplinary collaboration. Suggested centers related to climate change include those focused on polar oceans on a melting planet; reef studies; biogeochemical processes associated with carbon transport in the past and present; AI/ML in oceanography; and climate adaptation and mitigation supporting user-inspired convergence research toward climate change solutions. Some of these centers would be collision spaces, some operational hubs, and some well-equipped labs. The commonality of all is the creation of truly interdisciplinary collaborative networks of scientists and engineers.

We will also need new tools (see Sustained and Sustainable Ocean Technology and Instrumentation Theme) to realize this theme’s goals. These include new sensors on new vehicles that can roam the oceans, streaming data back to land; new instrumentation for monitoring complex and difficult coastal environments; and new computational resources to ingest new data streams and produce continuously updating model outputs. We will also need capacity to connect with and continuously engage stakeholders in mitigation and solution-focused efforts.

THEME 4: COMPUTATIONAL FRONTIERS IN OCEANOGRAPHY

Why?

Embracing cutting-edge computational methods and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches will accelerate the pace of discovery and knowledge growth in ocean science and engineering. The Computational Frontiers in Oceanography theme will promote agile adoption of advances from other domains (e.g., AI/ML technology) and collaborative development of novel solutions (e.g., via cloud computing platforms) required for the unique challenges in ocean observation and modeling. These strategies will allow us to remain pioneers in our fields, recruit and retain talent, and benefit science and engineering. The Computational Frontiers theme is interdisciplinary and resonates across multiple departments. The eight big ideas across all five science departments call for a new Center for Computational Frontiers in Oceanography as a focal point for concerted efforts in the areas of AI/ML, high-performance computing (HPC), modeling and simulation, big data, synergies with instrumentation, and ocean observing belong to this theme.

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Why Now?

THE URGENCY
Science and engineering are becoming increasingly computational with rapid advances in computing power and methods. As new paradigms emerge and the landscape quickly changes, WHOI can position itself as a leader in the field.

THE OPPORTUNITY
This is an opportune time to make great advances in oceanography by tapping into unrealized power in big data from high-throughput observation by observatory platforms and from numerical models with rapidly increasing resolution and complexity. On the other hand, the HPC capabilities at WHOI have not kept pace, and WHOI can renew its strategic investment to support computational and data needs.

Why WHOI?

WHOI, with its strong observational capabilities across all temporal and spatial scales and deep, insightful understanding of the ocean, is well-poised to play a leadership role in developing novel and improved data-driven computational approaches and modeling capabilities. This investment will ultimately lead to a better-observed ocean, deeper process-level understanding, and skillful physical and biogeochemical ocean state estimate (digital twins) that will benefit a wide range of sectors including fisheries, shipping, ocean-based renewable energy, the general public and beyond. WHOI also possesses a distinct advantage due to its extensive in-house archive of both surface and subsurface in situ data, supported by our world-class ocean observing capabilities. Investment in this area through the new Center for Computational Frontiers in Oceanography and targeted internal funding calls will establish WHOI as a leader in integrating oceanography and big data science, further reinforcing WHOI's long-standing reputation as a premier oceanographic institution.

What we need

  • Increased support for on-site HPC and off-site cloud HPC infrastructure. The HPC resources at WHOI serve the community as a key infrastructure for research and education, but the capacity has remained level for the last few years. A recent survey shows WHOI PIs mostly rely on the on-site HPC, which has been optimized for their needs. On the other hand, off-site cloud resources are rapidly advancing, but are not yet cost-effective, thus are not fully utilized by WHOI PIs. Some of our computational research can be most effective using the on-site HPC (e.g., climate modeling), while the others (e.g., bioinformatics) are more appropriate to explore the off-site cloud resources, once the cost comes down.
  • New Center for Computational Frontiers in Oceanography, that can create synergy and concerted effort to revolutionize the computational approaches at WHOI. The center will also provide technical support required to advance this theme. Computational approaches are rapidly becoming important in WHOI’s overall research portfolio. Over 40 PIs across all five science departments are identified as having some significant portion of their research related to computationally intensive topics including bioinformatics, AI/ML, autonomous vehicle operation, observational program design, climate modeling, and image processing, etc. A new center will become a focal point to elevate and coordinate the existing expertise and develop new directions.
  • Enhanced technical support for research computing. In addition to the operational computing support that already exists at WHOI, a dedicated team to provide technical support for research computing would be essential to make meaningful advances in this theme. To build such a team, strategic hiring at a senior technical staff level for computational science and engineering expertise would be needed and could be a part of the proposed new center.
  • Educational investment in computational approaches to train and educate next generation oceanographers to better integrate computational tools with oceanography. This includes training programs for scientific and technical staff, postdocs, and students, as well as workshops in topical areas. Postdoctoral scholarships focused on data science, AI/ML, computational science would be desirable to recruit and train young scientists in this area.

THEME 5: NEXT-GEN OCEAN INNOVATION: TOWARDS A TRANSPARENT, AUTONOMOUS, AND DISTRIBUTED OCEAN

Why?

Sustained and sustainable ocean observing is central to our vision of advancing ocean science for the global good and to build a future where we have the capacity to address society’s most pressing problems and take on challenges of extraordinary scale and complexity. Innovative technology is the propeller for advancing ocean observation at global scales. Ocean sensing and observing are essential ingredients for making informed decisions about resource management, for implementing policies to protect and restore ocean health, and for supporting maritime security, infrastructure, and operations. Sustained ocean sensing and observing play crucial roles in understanding the role of the ocean in regulating Earth’s climate; monitoring sea level rise and coastal change; forecasting weather patterns; predicting and tracking natural disasters and hazards; managing marine resources; understanding ocean health; and monitoring rapid changes in biodiversity and degradation of critical habitats and the impacts of an increasingly industrialized ocean. To succeed, we must invigorate community governance and invest in technology development, low-cost sensors, miniature sensors, new materials, battery technology, networked sensors, adaptive techniques, and low-emission ships, and combine platforms, cabled observatories, and remote sensing capabilities.

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Why Now?

THE URGENCY
The urgency in emphasizing ocean innovation is driven by the extraordinary scale and complexity of the imminent challenges facing our oceans and the global communities that rely on the ocean. These problems demand rapid advances in our capacity to continuously monitor a myriad of ocean parameters and processes.

THE OPPORTUNITY
The past two decades have witnessed rapidly growing interest in ocean exploration and exploitation for scientific and commercial purposes. Marine robotics has steadily emerged as a key enabling technology for the execution of increasingly complex and challenging missions at sea and from large satellites and new microsatellite platforms. Research on new technologies such as distributed acoustic sensing and SMART cables is rapidly proliferating, and there is an immediate opportunity to lead in these and many other technological innovations to bolster WHOI’s prominence and leadership in advanced ocean sensing and observing.

Why WHOI?

A Next-gen Ocean Innovation Hub builds on WHOI’s strengths, cuts across departments, supports many themes that have emerged from the strategic planning process, and builds upon WHOI’s nexus of science and engineering. Leadership in ocean discovery, fundamental research, innovation, and solutions-inspired science continue to be accelerated by WHOI’s distinctive capabilities in ocean observing across global scales. WHOI's strengths in ocean sensing and observing build on extensive experience, advanced technological capabilities, interdisciplinary research approaches, commitment to data accessibility, and leadership in global and international oceanographic collaborations.

There is particular interest in focusing on critical environments that impact global climate, including polar and deep-sea environments or coastal regions and urban environments, especially those that impact human communities. WHOI is especially well poised to capitalize on ocean observation in polar environments. No other institution has comparable strength in this area in terms of the number and diversity of polar researchers, the engineering expertise, and track record of polar and polar transferable technology. Other institutions have elements of our expertise, but none have the required breadth of strengths in both science and engineering to address these broad cross-disciplinary challenges.

What we need

Sustained and sustainable ocean observing and innovative ocean technology are integral to the successful implementation of all the themes that have germinated through the strategic planning process. A dedicated space to develop Next-gen Ocean Innovations that invite international collaborations, disciplinary strengths, sustained funding, mixes interdisciplinary teams spanning ocean science, engineering, and technology, and provides a breeding ground for big ideas, could represent a key catalyst. More specific investments include:

  • Commit to leadership in ocean observing. Growth of leadership opportunities in the technical and engineering research ladders to support an expanded effort in ocean observing and technology development. Increased access to hard money support for technical and engineering staff.
  • Invest in training and educating the next generation of scientists and engineers to advance ocean observing capabilities.
  • Establish a Next-gen Ocean Cyberpresence Facility that can expand the number of scientists, citizens, and students engaged in and inspired by ocean exploration.
  • Focus on computational oceanography for assimilation of data gathered by new technology and global observatories (see Computational Frontiers in Oceanography) with scalable and portable resources and accessible interfaces.
  • Facilities for rapid innovation and iteration, lower barriers to advanced vehicle use. Support for high-risk, high-reward technology development.