SRFMEStrategic Research Fund for the Marine Environment

 

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Ships entering port

SRFME funded 12 PhD students at four Western Australian Universities who have strongly supported the program through co-investing in stipends and operating funds and providing supervision.

Southern Surveyor deck

Research described in the final report outlines the involvement of ten research organisations in SRFME projects with the vast majority of projects having collaborations amongst multiple organisations.

data visuaisation

Data Access and Visualisation tools: SRFME has developed software tools that will allow WA marine managers, and the broader researcher community to interactively explore and visualise SRFME datasets and datasets from other projects.

 

 

Executive Summary

Mission

The Strategic Research Fund for the Marine Environment (SRFME) is a 6-year (2001-2006), $20 million joint venture between CSIRO and the Western Australia Government. SRFME has the following as its mission:

SRFME will enhance Western Australia’s marine research capability and capacity, deliver strategic research outcomes of benefit to Western Australia and enhance collaboration among marine researchers in Western Australia.

Goals

SRFME was established with the following high-level goals:

  • Build capability and capacity in marine science in Western Australia
  • Facilitate strong collaboration among the Western Australian marine science community
  • Conduct fundamental and strategic research that is of benefit to Western Australia and Australia

With these goals and focus in mind, SRFME has invested in strategic research on the Western Australian marine environment in a way which enhances capability and capacity for marine science, encourages collaboration amongst the Western Australian research community and delivers strategic research outcomes which will have long-term benefits to the state.

Achievements

This final report completed in December 2006 is aimed at presenting SRFME’s achievements to date to its members, stakeholders and collaborators. Some of the work presented here is still in progress and will be completed over the coming year. Even then much of the work that has been initiated by SRFME will be ongoing. This is a product of both the nature of strategic scientific research and strong and enduring collaborative partnerships that have been developed as a result of SRFME.

By any measure, SRFME has achieved its goals and has set a new benchmark in establishing collaborative research partnerships.

With regard to building capability and capacity in marine science in Western Australia, SRFME has achieved its goal by growing CSIRO’s marine research capacity in Western Australia from just 4 scientific and support staff in 2001 to over 25 in 2006. These staff have been relocated or recruited to its Floreat laboratories where they have formed part of a critical mass of over 300 staff within CSIRO’s Centre for Environment and Life Sciences. A strong partnership developed between SRFME and CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship has also ensured strong links between SRFME researchers in WA and those elsewhere in CSIRO working towards Wealth from Oceans ambitious national and international goals in climate science, operational oceanography and multiple use management.

Ongoing benefits

Capability and capacity have also been further developed in Western Australia through SRFME’s Postgraduate Scholarship program and the SRFME Collaborative Projects program. SRFME funded 12 PhD students at four Western Australian Universities who have strongly supported the program through co-investing in stipends and operating funds and providing supervision. Many of the SRFME students participated in the SRFME Core Projects and were co-supervised by staff from CSIRO and state research or management agencies. SRFME has also created capability and capacity through the recruitment of 6 postdoctoral researchers at Western Australian Universities as part of its $2 million investment in the SRFME Collaborative Projects.

In terms of facilitating collaboration, SRFME has brought about a range of strong multidisciplinary collaborations to its research programs. Research described in this report outlines the involvement of ten research organisations in SRFME projects with the vast majority of projects having collaborations amongst multiple organisations. In particular the SRFME Core projects and the Jurien Bay Collaborative projects comprise large multidisciplinary teams and include postdoctoral fellows and PhD students in the projects. Through these large multidisciplinary research projects, SRFME researchers have also secured a large number of national facility sea days aboard the Southern Surveyor enhancing these collaborations.

Strategic focus for Western Australia

Lastly, SRFME has met its goal to conduct fundamental and strategic research that is of benefit to Western Australia and Australia through all of its programs. The highlights of this work are outlined in this final report. Volume 1, Chapter 1 sets out the background to the establishment of SRFME, how it is managed and how its research portfolio was developed. Chapter 2 provides summary reports on each of the SRFME PhD scholarship projects, Chapters 3 and 4 contain the SRFME Collaborative Projects and State Linkage Projects reports respectively and Chapter 5 provides an overview of the large SRFME Core Projects: Biophysical Oceanography, Coastal Ecosystems and Biodiversity and Integrated Modelling. Chapter 6 provides a list of all the publications arising from SRFME to date. Volume 2 covers the SRFME Core Projects beginning with a summary and synopsis of the research in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 on Oceanography, including the Indian Ocean and role of the Leeuwin Current, as well as Inshore Dynamics and Hydrodynamic Modelling, Sediment Dynamics, and Wave Propagation and Dissipation, Chapter 3 on Coastal and Shelf Pelagic Community Structure, including temporal and spatial variability in primary and secondary productivity, Chapter 4 on Biogeochemistry and Modelling, including a review of regional nutrient dynamics, Chapter 5 on Benthic Ecosystem Structure, including spatial and temporal variability in animal and plant diversity, Chapter 6 on Benthic Ecosystem Dynamics, and Chapter 7 on Data Access and Visualisation tools. Much of this work is now completed and has been published in PhD theses, technical reports and the primary literature, and the data, models and tools developed during SRFME are available to researchers and natural resource managers.

 

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