Annex A
LARGE FACILITIES
ROADMAP: OCEANOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH SHIP
1. Executive summary
1.1 The oceans play a pivotal role in the
functioning of the Earth system, for example the possible rapid
collapse of the Atlantic Ocean's thermohaline circulation would
lead to severe and rapid climate change in north west Europe.
Seagoing science is an essential element of Earth-system science.
To maintain the UK's strong international leadership in producing
high quality research in this area, NERC must retain the capability
to field internationally competitive scientific programmes at
sea using state-of-the-art research ships. NERC has two dedicated
research ships for multidisciplinary ocean science cruises—the
Discovery and the Charles Darwin (to be replaced by the James
Cook in 2006)—and continued investment in these facilities
is required to ensure that the UK remains in the first division
of seagoing science nations.
1.2 The Discovery will be at the end of
its scientifically useful life by 2011, by which time the ship
will have been in service for 49-years. The replacement of Discovery
with a ship that is capable of supporting large multidisciplinary
science cruises is required to avoid driving detrimental large-scale
changes to UK marine science research, to deliver NERC's strategy
of Earth-system science, and to ensure that the UK's ocean sciences
overall ranking as second to the USA in research excellence is
maintained. It will ensure that the UK continues to provide strong
international leadership and partnership within International
programmes, and that the UK can continue to be involved in large-scale
international collaborations. Failure to invest in the timely
replacement of Discovery would risk the delivery of NERC strategic
priorities and the UK's strong international reputation with it
collaborative science and barter partners—as the ship may
have to be withdrawn from service at short notice in the event
of a major systems failure.
1.3 The UK is heavily involved with the
bartering of marine facilities with its partners in the United
States, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Norway—with
ca.200 barter days a year exchanged by NERC. These arrangements
ensure that research ships are used far more efficiently and cost-effectively,
and they allow the UK scientific communities access to a wider
range of marine facilities (including 32-research ships) and geographical
areas than would have otherwise been possible. Continued access
for the UK research community to barter facilities is contingent
on the UK having state-of-the-art facilities to barter with, and
so the replacement of Discovery will ensure that the UK's barter
arrangements remain strong and that the UK science community can
continue to conduct research on a worldwide basis.
1.4 The total cost of the replacement of
Discovery with the required specification will be £55 million,
and NERC has earmarked 30 per cent of the required funding (ie
£16.5 million) for this project. The indicative funding profile
for the build of a ship to be delivered in 2011 is outlined below:
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| FY 06/07 | 07/08
| 08/09 | 09/10
| 10/11 | 11/12
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|
| 100k | 1000k
| 14000k | 18000
| 18000k | 3900k
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2. IMPORTANCE OF
THE SCIENCE
KNOWLEDGE DELIVERED
2.1 NERC has two dedicated ocean-going research ships,
the Discovery and the Charles Darwin—both of which are approaching
the end of their scientifically useful lives. The Darwin will
be replaced by the James Cook in 2006, and the Discovery will
reach the end of her useful life by 2011. The timely replacement
of Discovery with a new state-of-the art ship will ensure that
the UK can continue to mount the large multidisciplinary science
programmes that are required to improve our understanding of the
inter-relationships between biological, chemical, physical and
geological processes, in the marine and atmospheric realms, many
of which are on a scale that will continue to require strong international
collaboration. Such programmes are required to meet key outcomes
in the sustainable Earth system theme that are highlighted in
the Government's 10-year Science & Innovation Investment Framework.
These include: a considerable reduction in the uncertainties in
predicting climate change and sea level rise, both globally and
regionally; a significant reduction in the current uncertainties
about the possible rapid collapse of the Atlantic Ocean's thermohaline
circulation; and understanding of the implications of global environmental
change for the sustainability of marine ecosystem goods and services.
2.2 The science knowledge provided by research ships
is critical to delivering against a number of NERC's strategy
and delivery plan science priorities. NERC's two dedicated research
ships have been essential research facilities for improving our
understanding and prediction of the Earth's environment and they
will continue to underpin the UK's approach to Earth system science.
This is driven by NERC's science strategy, "Science for a
Sustainable Future" (SSF), in which seagoing research makes
a major contribution to two of NERC's three strategic science
priority areas (ie `climate change' and "Earth's life-support
systems") and to fourteen of SSF's thirty-two strategy questions.
In addition, seagoing science will make a major contribution to
realising the 3 to 10-year objectives of the NERC Delivery Plan,
such as through: the directed investments in Integrated Ocean
Drilling (for site survey investigations), the UK Surface Ocean
Lower Atmosphere Study, and Rapid Climate Change; planned future
investments in Deep Oceans and Sustainable Management of Marine
Bioresources; and the renewal of seagoing programmes at four of
NERC's Research and Collaborative Centres. This research is important
for the UK as it will improve our understanding of the Earth's
life-support system—and its sustainability and ability to
adapt to climate change—and our prediction of the various
drivers of climate change, and consequent impacts, so that the
UK can minimise and mitigate effects that will cause serious harm
to the environment, the economy and society.
2.3 Further measures of the importance of the science
knowledge are the quality, multidisciplinarity and international
collaboration that are delivered. The UK has world-class strengths
in the ocean sciences—with the UK's ocean science ranking
as second to the USA in research excellence—and the maintenance
of the health of this science base is heavily dependent on the
UK having world-class marine facilities and maintaining its access
to some of the best international facilities via barter partnerships
(see section 7. for more information). Access to ship-time (on
NERC and barter ships) is only provided for science programmes
that have been graded as being of international quality at peer
review and these programmes are increasingly multidisciplinary
in nature with strong collaborations with a number of partners
from UK and international institutions. NERC typically programmes
ca.550 science days at sea a year, which is effectively
all of the available ship-time. Approximately two-thirds of this
science is funded by NERC with directed strategic funding (that
contributes to NERC's science priorities), with the remainder
coming from NERC's responsive "blue-skies" funding and
other sources, including the MOD, DEFRA, the European Union and
the USA's National Science Foundation. NERC believes that the
timely replacement of Discovery is required to avoid driving detrimental
large-scale changes to UK marine science research, to meet its
strategy of delivering Earth-system science, and to ensure that
international barter partnerships remain strong.
3. CONTRIBUTION TO
INTERNATIONAL POSITIONING
OF UK SCIENCE
AND SCIENCE
STRATEGY
3.1 Oceanography and earth science are two of the seven
strongest areas of UK research in the environmental sciences.
Bibliometrics analysis (using the ISI's Science Citation Indices)
shows that in the environmental disciplines that the ocean sciences
make a major contribution, the UK is second only to the USA, and
closing the gap[71].
If the UK is to maintain this leadership edge and to retain its
world-class centres of research excellence, which is Government's
ambition outlined in the 10-year framework, then it will require
on-going investment in state-of-the art marine facilities and
continued access to the best international ships available through
NERC's barter arrangements (see section 7. for more information).
Such access is contingent on the UK continuing to have state-of-the-art
ships to barter with.
3.2 The strength of the UK in the ocean sciences has
ensured that it provides international leadership, influence and
partnership within International programmes—notably those
of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International
Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP)—and has allowed NERC
to fund and manage three International Project Offices (IPOs):
WCRP's Climate Variability (CLIVAR) project; IGBP's Global Ocean
Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC), and Surface-Ocean Lower-Atmosphere
Study (SOLAS). Through hosting these IPOs the UK is able to help
set the scientific agenda of these international projects to maximise
their value for the UK.
3.3 On-going international partnership in multidisciplinary
research programmes is critical if the UK is to conduct world-class
research in collaboration with world-class scientists. Over the
last 5-years, 50 per cent of NERC's research cruises have involved
collaboration with international scientists and students—who
have come from 49 institutions and 17 countries—and this
level of collaboration will only be maintained if the UK's research
ships remain state-of-the-art. One recent example of international
collaboration has allowed for the deployment of a £10 million
US-UK instrumental array stretching across the Atlantic Ocean
to continuously study the dynamics, strength and structure of
the large-scale circulation that moderate European climate. Maintenance
and data-recovery require access to large research ships throughout
the year. Recent work on this circulation indicates that the circulation
may have reduced by 30 per cent over the past decade[72]—a
change that could have significant climatic implications; the
array will enable the true variability to be established, and
the risk of associated rapid climate change in Europe to be quantified.
Such large-scale international collaboration is realistically
only possible if the UK continues to have access to two state-of-the-art
research ships.
3.4 The UK science community is currently able to conduct
research on a worldwide basis. Through close co-operation with
NERC's barter partners, ocean-going research ships are positioned
strategically around the world. In recent years this has allowed
the international community to gain access to ship-time in, for
example, the Indian Ocean on NERC ships and the Pacific Ocean
on US and French ships. The non-replacement of Discovery would
stop NERC supporting science on a worldwide basis—as NERC
ship-time would mainly be restricted to the North Atlantic—and
that would severely restrict the UK's contribution to international
science programmes and to the "virtual" fleet of international
barter ships.
4. Timeliness: urgency or potential lost opportunity if
delayed from proposed start date
4.1 Research ships are typically designed for a life
of 25 to 30 years after which they are at the end of their scientifically
useful lives. The Discovery has been in service for 43 years,
which makes it the oldest ship in the world's oceanographic research
fleet. A major refit to Discovery in 1992, which cost half the
replacement cost of a new ship, was commissioned to ensure that
the ship continued to have state-of-the art facilities for another
15 years (ie until 2007). NERC has continued to invest in the
enhancement of Discovery's facilities to extend its life by a
further 4-years, including the fitting in 2003 of a ca.£2
million scientific winch system. By 2011, the Discovery will have
reached the end of its scientifically useful life; and it is expected
that the programming of the ship will become increasingly difficult
in the years leading up to 2011 as the ship becomes less capable
of supporting the requirements of future multidisciplinary science
programmes.
4.2 Failure to invest now in the replacement of Discovery
will severely reduce the UK's ability to deliver world-class multidisciplinary
ocean sciences, and it will reduce the scientific impact of UK
science and its contribution to major international programmes.
This would lead to some world-class scientists and engineers in
UK universities and research institutes relocating to other countries.
4.3 To prolong the ship's life beyond 2011, by which
time it will be 50-years old, is unrealistic on science grounds
and the ship's major systems will increasingly be at risk of failure.
This is because some of the Discovery's systems, such as its propulsion
motors, are original and the "new" electronic systems
that were fitted during its major refit in 1992 are now obsolete
and cannot be easily repaired. A major failure would render the
ship unfit for service and there is doubt about the cost-effectiveness
of major refit works given the ship's age and its scientific capability.
A major failure would seriously disrupt the cruise programme and
delivery of NERC strategic objectives. Given that the UK cruise
programme includes a significant number of international collaborative
and barter cruises, which cannot easily be changed in the event
of a ship being withdrawn from service (because international
cruise planning typically takes some 12-18 months), there is a
significant risk to the UK's international reputation in using
the Discovery so near to the end of its operational life. A modest
failure on the Charles Darwin, which comes out of service in 2006,
highlighted this risk as the disruption that was caused to the
UK's cruise programme jeopardised the support of the recovery
and re-deployment of four sets of long-term moorings for four
German and Dutch research programmes.
5. BREADTH OF
SCIENCE BASE
THAT WILL
BENEFIT
5.1 The UK currently has world-class strengths in marine
physics, chemistry and biology; marine geology and geophysics;
marine engineering and technology; environmental computational
modelling; atmospheric physics and chemistry; and earth observation—all
of which need the data and samples that are collected using NERC's
research ships.
5.2 The UK currently has eighteen seagoing research groups
in RAE graded 5 and 5* university departments and four world-class
marine research institutes (NB. this was recently established
by peer review). In addition, the data and samples collected during
cruises are used by many other groups in the UK in universities
and stakeholder institutions, such as the Met Office, Hadley Centre
and Natural History Museum, and by groups in many international
institutions.
5.3 Most cruise data and samples are readily available
to the UK and international scientific community via, for example,
NERC's British Oceanographic Data Centre website, which can provide
access to biological, chemical, physical and geophysical oceanographic
data with some 10,000 different variables. In addition, cruise
data are available to Government Departments, agencies, and users
via the UK Marine Environmental Data Network partnership.
6. OPPORTUNITY FOR
KNOWLEDGE OR
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
AND INNOVATION,
AND WIDER
BENEFIT
6.1 Access to research ships provides the UK ocean sciences
and engineering community with significant opportunities for technology
transfer. The development of innovative new oceanographic instruments
and sensors for use on research cruises will continue to be required
if we are to improve our understanding of the Earth system. These
instruments have wider applications. For example, an electromagnetic
instrument originally developed for the study of volcanic activity
in mid ocean ridges is now used by the oil industry for the detection
of new sources of offshore hydrocarbons. This development has
led to the recent floating of a University of Southampton technology
spin-out company, Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping Limited, for a
value of just under £50 million. Similarly, the development
of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) as a ship-launched platform
for oceanographic sensors has led to a licensing agreement to
give Halliburton Subsea exclusive use of the AUV for applications
in the oil, gas and subsea cable markets.
6.2 The UK's world-class ocean sciences research also
provides for knowledge transfer activities, such as, those of
the recently launched National Centre for Ocean Forecasting (NCOF)—which
is a collaboration between the Met Office and a number of NERC's
Research and Collaborative Centres. NCOF will co-ordinate the
UK's ocean forecasting activities and provide as much information
on the short-range (5-10 day) conditions in the oceans as is currently
available about the weather. Development such as this will ultimately
benefit society and the economy by providing support to, for example,
oil slick responses, search and rescue, defence, the management
of water quality, ecosystems and fisheries, wind farms, oil exploration,
safety of shipping and improved weather forecasts.
6.3 The 10-year framework emphasises the need to deliver
evidenced-based policies and this is central to many of the UK's
seagoing science programmes. For example, the Sustainable Management
of Marine Bioresources programme will, following wide consultation
with UK stakeholders, meet key elements of the underpinning knowledge
that Government will need to formulate policy in this area. And
on-going investments in the seagoing research that are required
to reduce uncertainties in climate prediction will continue to
contribute to the development of international policy via the
work of, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
7. SCOPE FOR
PARTNERSHIP WITH
OTHER FUNDERS
7.1 The UK exchanges more time on marine facilities through
international barter arrangements, and with more partners, than
any other country. These arrangements promote a more efficient
and cost effective use of each country's marine facilities by
allowing the scientific communities access to a wider range of
technical facilities and geographical areas in a given year than
would have otherwise been possible. In recent years these arrangements
have allowed the UK to programme science on state-of-the-art facilities,
such as a US geophysics ship, and to maximise the science that
is programmed through, for example, the use of the most appropriate
ships given the size and geographic location of science programmes.
They are also increasingly being used for opportunistic barter
cruises (that take advantage of the geographic location of barter
ships) to recover UK moorings that have broken free and are drifting
in the North Atlantic—which saves expensive capital equipment
and data. Continued access for the UK research community to barter
facilities is however contingent on there being on-going modernisation
of the UK research fleet and an enhancement of its facilities,
and so the timely replacement of the Discovery will ensure that
the UK's barter partnerships remain strong.
7.2 The UK has arrangements with France, Germany, the Netherlands,
Norway and the USA. These partnerships have strengthened significantly
over the last 4-years with NERC exchanging ca.200-days
a year, which represents over a third of the available ship-time
within NERC's annual cruise programme. The leverage gained by
the UK each year is considerable—not least because the number
of science days "lost" to passage and down-time (when
no UK science programmes are bidding for the available time) are
significantly reduced by having effective international ship programming.
In 2005, for example, NERC's ships operated at full capacity throughout
the year (ie ca.550 sea days) in the Southern Indian Ocean,
South Atlantic and North Atlantic, and only 15 sea days were `lost'
to passage (ie ca.2.5 per cent of available ship-time).
7.3 NERC has proactively examined co-ownership options
with its barter partners to see if it is possible for the UK to
have shares in two or more ships, which collectively would provide
the UK with the same number of sea days as Discovery. At this
time there are no opportunities to co-own any large ocean-going
research ships and this is principally because no partners have
any immediate requirement and/or funding in place for new ships.
The strong international partnership relations within the Ocean
Facilities Exchange Group (in which NERC is a member) will ensure
that all new ship plans are made available to partners for comment
so that, wherever possible, all new ships are compatible with
the requirements of each nation. This is now leading to the establishment
of a virtual fleet of research ships that can easily be used by
all partners. The proposed replacement of Discovery is supported
by NERC's barter partners and any new ship would be built to complement
the capabilities within the barter fleet and so, for example,
it would not duplicate highly specialised capabilities, such as
an ice-strengthened hull or 3-D seismics, that can be delivered
using barter ships.
8. SCOPE FOR
TRAINING AND
PRODUCTION OF
TRAINED PEOPLE
8.1 There are approximately 50 PhD students currently
conducting research that has involved active participation in
research cruises and in a typical year up to 350 scientists, engineers
and students would gain research training and experience whilst
using NERC's research ships.
8.2 As seagoing science has become more multidisciplinary
it has allowed for NERC's research cruises to provide for more
cross-disciplinary training for scientists and engineers, which
is a key area for further improvement in the Government's 10-year
framework. One current example of a multidisciplinary research
programme is the £2.4 million consortium on the Atlantic
Meredional Transect (AMT), which has just been independently reviewed
for NERC. This Review found that AMT, which had 6 cruises over
3-years, had contributed to 11 UK and 16 internationally funded
research programmes and 21 UK registered and 7 international PhD
and MRes studentships, and was judged by the Review team to be
"an outstanding means of training" UK ocean scientists
71
3 Source: UK environmental science review report for the Environment
Research Funders' Forum Back
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Nature (in press) Back
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