Science Coordination

• Revise research priorities to meet revised objectives. For example, research priorities may be expanded to include research related to prevention of species invasions and development of “rapid response” methods for eliminating new invasions before they become established.
   
• Include better understanding of natural functioning of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River ecosystem as a research priority.  Annex 17 focuses on pollutants— the natural functioning of the ecosystem is implied, at best. Understanding of the natural processes of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence ecosystem in their own right should be a priority research topic.

• Include as a research priority approaches to determining the value of ecosystem services in the Great Lakes region.

•  Designate the Council of Great Lakes Research Managers (CGLRM) or the most appropriate binational institution as the chief Great Lakes research coordination and review body. If the CGLRM is selected, its relationship with the Science Advisory Board must be clarified (Articles 7 and 8).
   
• The CGLRM or another selected institution should be charged with responsibility for maintaining a Great Lakes research inventory and identifying and reporting on research gaps and priorities (Articles 7 and 8).

• Charge the institution with identifying additional research priorities on an ongoing basis between Agreement review processes (Articles 7,8 & Annex 17).

• Charge the governments with making participation in the research inventory program mandatory for all agencies receiving federal research funding (Article 5).

•  Provide funding sufficient to meet research priorities (Article 5) and to adequately fund the research coordination and review body (Article 8).

• Revise monitoring programs to meet revised Agreement objectives (Annex 11). For example, monitoring responsibilities should be expanded to include aquatic invasive species, including a coordinated early detection system. 
   
• Improve monitoring coordination by clarifying federal vs. state, provincial, municipal and industrial monitoring obligations.
• Identify and charge the governments with adequately funding a monitoring coordination and review body (Article 7 and/or 8 and Annex 11). This body could be a subgroup or committee reporting to the Binational Coordinating Committee, the Water Quality Board, and/or other appropriate committees or boards. This body would be responsible for:

• Provide for monitoring and data sharing with the St. Lawrence Global Observatory (see: http://ogsl.ca/en.html ) to make sure science is shared through out the basin and research priorities and results are exchanged on a regular basis upstream and downstream.

• Specify a formal selection process that identifies the indicators and endpoints necessary for assessing Agreement objectives (as noted above, the SOLEC process should perform this function but does not evaluate progress on meeting the purpose of the agreement, and is not acknowledged in the Agreement). Aspects of the process that should be identified in the Agreement include general quality of selection criteria, the involvement of experts on various geographic areas and issues, and the participation of stakeholders from non-governmental organizations and all levels of government (Articles 7 and 8 and Annex 11).

• Specify and charge the governments with defining and monitoring indicators for each Agreement objective;

• Apply the above selection process, specify ecosystem objectives (Annex 1) and related ecosystem health indicators for each lake including separate indicators for the nearshore and the offshore zones (Annex 11);
   
• Apply the above selection process, specify chemical and physical indicators that are well-established and widely valued throughout the Great Lakes policy and scientific communities; and

• Give a credible institution, such as the Science Advisory Board the authority to specify additional indicators (through the application of said indicator selection process) on an ongoing basis—that is, outside of the Agreement review process (Articles 7 and 8 and Annex 11).

• Charge the governments with collecting sufficient data for addressing all indicators specified in the Agreement and by designated institution (Article 6 and Annex 11).

• Ensure adequate coordination between monitoring program managers and institution identifying/developing Agreement objective indicators.

• Provide timely and sufficient funding for monitoring programs (Article 6 and Annex 11) and scientific research

•  Establish a joint endowed monitoring fund for select number of monitoring purposes particularly sensitive to funding interruptions (e.g. fish contaminant monitoring). The fund would serve to minimize any short-term funding interruptions but is not intended to replace the governments’ commitment to provide sufficient ongoing funding (Article 6 and Annex 11).

• Increase public involvement in science advisory committees
   
• Increase reporting mechanisms to improve transparency