5.2: NOAA's Engagement Enterprise

Understand user needs and engage stakeholders and customers across local, regional, and international levels.

Other Information:

As the challenges NOAA must address become more complex, the Agency will need increasingly sophisticated organizational mechanisms to understand user needs and engage stakeholders and customers across local, regional, and international levels. Many of the challenges that NOAA helps address do not stem from a lack of information, but from an uneven distribution of information. The best way for NOAA to meet the needs of its stakeholders is often to better deliver data and knowledge to those who have not yet accessed it. NOAA must understand these needs and respond to them. Conversely, NOAA's next breakthrough in research, development, operational improvement, or policy action may depend upon the unique knowledge or needs of a partner or customer. NOAA must fully engage with society to be most effective as a service agency. NOAA's capacity to engage individuals and other organizations effectively will determine its long-term success. It is not sufficient for NOAA to conduct, fund, and direct science. NOAA must be aware of science conducted, funded, and directed by others and must integrate and convert that scientific information into applications used within the Agency, and accepted and recognized by the scientific community world-wide, then harness its stewardship responsibilities by meeting society's broader needs for more information. Scientists must solicit management needs as early as possible in the design of research with a constant eye toward management's potential use of research results. Scientists must engage with their peers, but also with colleagues around the world in other disciplines and with the public at large. Managers of NOAA's environmental data and information services must engage with decision makers in local governments and industries. Regulators must engage with communities they regulate, as well as with their regulatory counterparts in other nations. NOAA must also engage with constituents, educators, and communicators to share knowledge and information.

Stakeholder(s):

• NOAA Partners: NOAA Partnerships in its Engagement Enterprise—Engagement implies a commitment of service through a partnership between NOAA and society based on reciprocity and shared goals, objectives, and resources. Implicit to engagement is a respect for each partner that involves listening, dialogue, understanding, and mutual support. In the areas of weather and climate,


• Weather Product Enterprises: NOAA is a major component of the public, commercial, and academic enterprises that provide a full suite of weather products and services to the Nation.


• Weather Service Enterprises


• Students: In turn, partners have strong and ongoing relationships with such constituent populations as students (from kindergarten through undergraduate programs) and faculty, local governments, businesses and industries, and the general public.


• Faculty


• Local Governments


• Businesses


• Industries


• The General Public


• Universities: NOAA has strong partner relations with many universities through Sea Grant, Cooperative Institutes, and the National Estuarine Research Reserve System programs.


• Sea Grant, Cooperative Institutes


• Coastal Ecosystem Learning Centers: NOAA partners with organizations including Coastal Ecosystem Learning Centers; Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence; nongovernmental organizations such as the Nature Conservancy; and with numerous science centers, museums, zoos, and aquariums.


• Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence


• Nongovernmental Organizations


• Nature Conservancy


• Science Centers


• Museums


• Zoos Aquariums


• Aquariums


• Professional Societies: NOAA actively engages such professional societies as National Science Teachers Association, National Marine Educators Association, and the American Meteorological Society.


• National Science Teachers Association


• National Marine Educators Association


• American Meteorological Society


• Federal Agencies: NOAA coordinates with other Federal Agencies that have similar engagement missions, including NASA, DOI, EPA, and the National Science Foundation.


• NASA


• DOI


• EPA


• National Science Foundation


• Western Governors' Association: At the State and regional level, NOAA's partners include such groups as Western Governors' Association, the Northeast Regional Ocean Council, and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance.


• Northeast Regional Ocean Council


• Gulf of Mexico Alliance


• World Meteorological Organization: Internationally, NOAA works with such bodies as the World Meteorological Organization, the International Maritime Organization, and the International Whaling Commission.


• International Maritime Organization


• International Whaling Commission

Indicator(s):

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