Connecting the dots: Ocean research and public policy

Canada has gained a world-leading position in the science and technology of cabled ocean observing systems, principally through the federal and British Columbia (BC) government investments ($120M) in the VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada ocean observatories, now deployed in coastal to deep ocean waters off BC's West Coast. The combination of continuous power, high bandwidth and real-time data streaming make the VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada observatories transformative in their capacity to support research applications to key areas of public policy, including environmental monitoring, hazard mitigation, resource assessment, and sovereignty and security. While deployed off the West Coast, the technologies are applicable in other settings including the Arctic. Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) was created as a not-for-profit agency by the University of Victoria in 2007 to manage and develop the VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada observatories and their applications to public policy, commercial development, and public outreach. To advance its mandate, ONC was recently named as a federal Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research. The public policy initiatives of ONC, in the context of its broader strategic plan, have included: (a) a review of Canadian federal and provincial policy initiatives and priorities and their relationship to the data types generated by the NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS research programs; (b) planning of workshops with federal science-based departments and agencies to be held later in 2010; (c) discussions with BC government departments related to their emerging Ocean and Coastal Strategy; and, preparation of a discussion paper for federal government departments on application of cabled observatory technologies to the Arctic.