Introduction

SJR44 requests that representative State and Federal organizations jointly develop a Research and Development (R&D) plan to:

• help expand and diversity Alaska's economy,
• Strengthen and maintain the health of state research institutions, and
• protect the health of Alaskans and the environment of Alaska.

Specifically the plan seeks to:

• include ways to ensure that the federal and state governments work together,
• identify and assess high economic potential from resource development and tourism of federal and state lands, waters, and airspace, and
• be presented during the first regular session of the 23rd Alaska State Legislature.

The Organizing Group identified in the resolution (University of Alaska (UA), Alaska Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF) North Pacific Research Board (NPRB), Arctic Research Council (ARC) and the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) suggested that six working groups comprised of topical tasks forces simultaneously address issues of importance to the state, the nation, and the scientific enterprise (Figure 1). The Study Coordinating Committee--the Organizing Group plus Working Group Chairs--is responsible for assembling the output of the Working Groups into the R&D Plan on schedule.

Leaders of each Working group and supporting Task Force are asked to organize their efforts in consonance with common organizing principles, approaches and measures, including common terminology, to provide meaningful and coherent recommendations. Initial guidance follows:

Organizing Principles

1. The study should seek to identify R&D directions, and associated resource requirements, to meet well defined needs of the state. Each group's principal aim should be to recommend to both sponsors and researchers the critical scientific issues and questions where Alaska and Alaskans--by virtue of their unique location, culture, and environment--can help provide answers. What are the most important lines of investigation by, in, and for Alaska, as well as the human, physical and fiscal resources needed to pursue them?
2. Recommendations must stress the importance of economic and cultural sustainability. How should we plan for sustainable use while protecting natural and human dimensions of Alaska's environment, in both rural and urban settings?
3. R&D programs should emphasize interdisciplinary integration and breakdown of the barriers between basic research and application to meet society's needs. A holistic approach to the R&D enterprise, with an emphasis on human dimensions, should be central to all deliberations.
4. Working groups should understand, and account for, the potential impact of climate change (itself an important scientific and cultural topic where Alaska has important responsibilities, and opportunities to make major contributions to knowledge and action) upon Alaska and other Arctic regions. Chapter 10 of the US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change should serve as the baseline for study efforts. (See http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/alaska-mega-region.htm)
5. The study should consider the degree to which R&D directions proposed for Alaska, and their potential outcomes, are extensible to other states and nations.
6. The study must also consider, as a topic of interest to the Legislature, how to enhance the state's research capability and its capacity to create wealth. How might investment in R&D contribute to supporting Alaska's training and research capabilities, and other public services?
7. Each topical task force should seek broad representations, including federal, state, local, Native, academic, industrial, and NGO groups, as appropriate. WGs and task forces should develop recommendations in consonance with the visions and evolving goals of Alaska 20/20 (http://www.alaska2020.org/visionsgoals.html).

Approaches

1. Initial study outputs should include a web-based inventory of Alaskan research resources (physical and human), and a data base for R&D projects in and about Alaska for all associated study topics. These should be designed for easy access and long term maintenance.
2. Recommendations should address maturity and timing aspects of R&D (i.e., the path of innovation, from invention and discovery through exploitation, and associated expectations for duration of effort, maturation of technology, and the timeframe of results), and be clustered by year groupings for implementation.
3. Recommendations should suggest appropriate roles and responsibilities for, and relationships among, funding, sponsoring, coordinating, oversight and performing organizations--federal and state, public and private.
4. Recommendations must be prioritized at each level of the study's structure. Since a principal objective is to identify the most critical lines of investigation, it is important to consider the value of answering the R&D questions being posed. Cost and benefit should be considered in multiple dimensions: economic, environmental, and human.

Measures

1. Do recommendations build a better R&D structure for the state in its role in, and responsibilities to, the national R&D complex in terms of capability, competitiveness (e.g., in peer reviews or in global marketplace), resources and responsibilities?
2. Is there a match between the recommended R&D directions and competency of either State or appropriate outside performers?
3. Does each recommendation contain measurable outcomes that would meet the intent of the Government Performance and Results Act (which mandates such measures, as well as strategic and annual plans and reports, for all Federal agencies)?

Glossary (to be extended and discussed)

Economic Development: expansion of the state's economic base by selling products and services (including R&D) outside the state that bring money into the state. The test is, does it expand exports or replace imports?

Sustainability: the equitable preservation of built and natural environments, cultural heritages, and economic opportunities.

Sustainability Science: an emerging field that seeks to understand the fundamental character of interactions between nature and society; such an understanding must encompass the interaction of global processes with the ecological and social characteristics of particular places and sectors.

Basic Research: the pursuit of new knowledge

Applied Research: the application of knowledge to solve problems or create new capabilities

Development: exploitation or maturation of knowledge and capabilities to create products and systems.

Monitoring, observation, assessment and evaluation: Systematic collection and assessment of information and data to support the process of innovation (for the purposes of this study, these practices are considered part of R&D when they fit the definition)

Innovation: discovery and invention combined with exploitation

Figure 1: Study Structure