Strategy & Research

NIOZ as national hub for marine sciences and national research programs focusing on critical outstanding issues – towards defining national marine research programs

Status Quo

Following a major reorganization in 2016, NIOZ now operates successfully from two strategic locations in the Netherlands, on Texel (TX), and in Yerseke (YE), and facilitates a research station on Sint Eustatius (CNSI) in the Dutch Caribbean, in all with some 50 tenured marine scientists, on a total of up to ~350 fulltime and part-time employees, including PhD students. Currently, NIOZ performance, including NIOZ NMF (~6 M€/yr) is based on a baseline NWO funding of ~20 M€/yr, with a gross overturn of ~35 M€/yr (= base funding, including Utrecht University contribution 2,4 M€/yr, and various research projects). NB that current basic-expenses need some 10% additional overhead from projects. The research and other plans for 2020-2025 imply foremost to continue our successful activities, and to continue to improve various aspects, reaching targets and aims mentioned further below, along the lines of the NIOZ 2.0 concept. This will entail to continue seeking funding via ‘regular sources’ in competition, from national (NWO, Waddenfonds, etc.) to international (ERC, Horizon Europe) sources; say: ‘business as usual’. Given its current (2.0) size, albeit often strained and overstretched, the organization has demonstrated its capability to perform very adequately indeed (cf. all reviews 2011-2018), and NIOZ has received the label world leading institute from external peer review. Importantly however, it should be noted that the largest portion of ‘new science’ of NIOZ is realized through the agreement between UU-NIOZ-NWO, providing 2,4 M€/yr since 2015. We expect this situation to continue until 2025 at least. Another – rather ominous – important element is the concomitant necessary renewal of the national research fleet, including the replacement of the ~30 years old RV Pelagia and even older RV Navicula (see further below, ‘infrastructure’, for further information).

NIOZ Strategy

Regarding strategy, one critical element is the required size and funding levels of a national oceanographic institute with the ocean-going and ‘national hub’ mission, ambition, scope, and quality like NIOZ, in general. With its broad mission, carried out by merely ~50 scientists only, and the required technology, instruments, facilities and other support, NIOZ base line (‘direct funding’) budget appears limited when compared to e.g., our nearby EU partner institutions. One may argue that the same holds for the national marine research landscape in its entirety. While the national maritime industry, and applied marine research community is relatively large, the number of FTEs active in more fundamental oriented marine research (and teaching) at universities is comparatively small. This may be regarded as reflection of the (low) national funding levels for fundamental marine sciences in general. One way forward is to steer towards even further increasing coordinating and concentrating cooperative efforts, notably in the shape of rather formalized national marine research programs. The successful recent Netherlands Initiative Changing Oceans or NICO program (2018), with >40 national partner institutes, NGOs and industry participating is taken as a good example, leading the way towards more formalized national programs, coordinated by NIOZ.

The next step: towards building national research programs with Utrecht University

Besides continuing our ‘business as usual’ scenario, considering the above, NIOZ strategy 2020-2025 will be directed towards establishing, at first together with Utrecht University (UU), a set of programs solving critical outstanding questions which we will announce as national marine research programs, attractive not only to UU, but also to many other partners, by open invitation. Linked to our own research rationale and strategy, the strategic agenda of UU, and to the agendas of our various stakeholders, together, and coordinated by NIOZ, we can increase scope, size and impact. With UU overall strategy, notably with the faculties of science and geosciences, we have a major interconnecting theme in their Pathways to Sustainability program, with most pertinent hubs like ‘water, climate and future deltas’, ‘future food’, but also towards ‘industry with negative emissions’. Additionally, matches are within the climate adaptation institute UU-CCCA. Necessary funding for such, to be formulated national programs, apart from UU-NIOZ funding, may be typically sought in programs such as NWA (the Dutch Research Agenda) and KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Convenant), besides Zwaartekracht and also ad hoc funding and contributions from cooperating partners. This besides EU and other major international sources. The UU-NIOZ constellation has been in operation for five years, and now is ready to fully expand on important mutual, and also critical national or even international strategic and scientific missions. Together with principal UU researchers we will organize ‘sandpit’ meetings with them, and preferably other stakeholders, with the central aim to establish programs of wide national interest geared towards solving critical outstanding research questions. Inspiration may be found in already existing quasi-national initiatives, proposals and programs, and/or early stage NWA initiatives such as:

  • NiT: NorthSea in Transition (NWA)
  • EarlySea (sea level; NWA)
  • C2OCEANS (coupled ocean/atmosphere/geosphere Carbon cycling; NWA)
  • Origin of Life (NWA)
  • Sustainable Delta’s (NWA)
  • SIBES
  • Waddenmosaic (Waddenfonds)
  • Global Flyway
  • ‘Zwaartekracht’ program NESSC

Central in all of the above will be the NIOZ science plan. To coordinate the programs, we aim to employ NIOZ, UU and/or potentially PIs from other stakeholders, with logistic support from NWO-I/NIOZ, and overall coordination by NIOZ. This besides linking these to our existing thematic virtual centers of expertise, where fitting. Having experimented with these centers in the past years as connecting vehicles with stakeholders, we now are ready to push further, and to interconnect associated (national) research programs with various stakeholders, where feasible.

The second step: connections with strategic agendas of principal stakeholders and increasing participation

The NIOZ stakeholder group entails major universities with marine programs (e.g., besides Utrecht University (UU): University of Groningen (RUG), Wageningen University & Research (WUR), VU University Amsterdam (VU), University of Amsterdam (UvA), Delft University of Technology (TUD), University of Twente (UT), Radboud University, universities of applied sciences (e.g., HZ University of Applied Sciences), marine TO2 institutions (e.g., WMR, Deltares, Marin, parts of TNO), other types of institutions like KNMI and Naturalis, besides ministries and their departments, various NGOs, and industry. Connecting to their agendas is pivotal in establishing programs and governance on a national level.

Pertinent examples other than Utrecht University include:

  • Wageningen University & Research / Wageningen Marine Research (WUR/WMR): connecting themes: ‘Circular and Climate neutral’, ‘Food security and Water’, and ‘Nature inclusive landscapes’
  • University of Groningen (RUG): multiple connecting themes within the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), and within ESRIG - Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen, and connections with their GCA Global Centre of mitigation and Adaptation.
  • University of Amsterdam (UvA): multiple connecting themes within the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), like Ecosystems and Landscape Dynamics, Evolutionary and Population Biology, Freshwater and Marine Ecology, and Theoretical and Computational Ecology.
  • TO2/Deltares: multiple connecting themes like e.g., Flood Risk, Ecosystems and environmental, Food Nexus, Delta Infrastructure, Transition to climate adaptation and Climate Change Impact

Associated with the above strategy, efforts will be directed towards further increasing the significance and visibility of NIOZ, its stakeholders, and national marine science in general. This not only by professional and efficient networking and outreach on behalf of the Netherlands community (cf. NICO), but also in terms of rethinking national organization and governance.

A possible final step, a ‘spot on the horizon’

As a corollary of establishing national research programs, NIOZ shall at the same time explore pathways to possibly eventually formally connect the institute with major stakeholders through such programs, i.e. not only with UU. This, for example, via a governance structure comparable to our NWO sister institute Nikhef, wherein many national universities embrace the national research programs, and together commit to them in various ways, coordinated by and through the institute. We shall investigate if, when and how such a new governance can be implemented. This may even involve potential expansion of the number of NIOZ sites, e.g. at campus locations of universities with major marine programs, all in close communication and cooperation with our stakeholders

Note on (renewed) NIOZ centers of expertise

Historically, a large portion of our, and stakeholder efforts has been directed to the nearby Dutch marine systems like the North Sea, the Wadden Sea, the Southwestern Delta, but also the Dutch Caribbean. Given also widely recognized societal necessity to provide high quality fundamental and frontier applied knowledge towards large scale national and international engagements within these economically important regions, we established the concept of NIOZ virtual centers of expertise. For these efforts, and principally as external portals, we will maintain or (re)introduce the Wadden, Sea Level, North Sea, Delta and, and Mariculture (future marine food) centers of expertise. In addition, and linked to our research into a ‘marine future’, including adaptation and mitigation, recent times have also seen more and more NIOZ activities associated with so-called ‘nature based solutions’ projects and restoration efforts of various scopes and scales. Therefore, we establish a virtual NIOZ marine nature-based solutions and restoration center. Other centers may also involve setting up networks related to various NWA routes, and may also be solely fundamental in nature (e.g., focused on the ‘origin of life’ or marine bioinformatics). Concomitantly, we aim to intensify our activities involving literally in-depth studies into the vast open oceans, with all stakeholders cf. the NICO program notably focusing on discovery and better understanding the interlinked biodiversity, geochemical cycling, and ecosystem architectures and dynamics during the past, present and future (Anthropocene). Hence, for our ocean research including employment and further development of NMF, an NIOZ Ocean Science and Technology center of expertise may be expected to be instrumental, internally and externally, nationally and internationally, connecting to a multitude of stakeholders. The centers have been, or will thus be installed in view of enhancing internal and external cooperation in general as a connecting external portal. These may, where feasible, be associated with the coordination of the to be established national programs, including e.g., ensuing proposals to NWA, EU and others. This besides the principal task of enhancing visibility and outreach. The centers are hence also a conduit to augment interaction with societal partners. Each center has at least one senior PI (initially from NIOZ, or UU) as its coordinator, who will bring together relevant expertise from all scientific departments and elsewhere when and where opportune, and will act as an ambassador of NIOZ on these topics. Examples of possible NIOZ virtual centers of expertise 2020-2025 related to coordinating national programs may be:

Wadden systems

Delta systems

North Sea system

Sea Level

Caribbean Ecosystem Dynamics

Ocean Science and Technology

Sea Mariculture – Future Marine Food

Marine nature-based solutions and restoration

Marine bioinformatics