Ocean Facilities Exchange Group
In February 1996, a Tripartite Agreement was signed between NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer) and BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) for the mutual co-operation of marine scientific interests and activities.
Under the aegis of this agreement a Marine Facilities Tripartite Group (MFTG) was established which comprises the managers and planners of the respective fleets of scientific research ships and major marine facilities. This group has been meeting since 1996 with the primary objective of bartering shiptime and exchanging major marine equipment without the need to charter or exchange money.
In November 2002, the NIOZ (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research) became a full member and in April 2003 a Spanish representative was invited to attend meetings as an observer. In light of the fact that the Group now had more than three members the MFTG was renamed the Ocean Facilities Exchange Group (OFEG).
From each organisation's perspective, this arrangement has two significant advantages.
Firstly, it allows scientists access to a wider range of facilities and equipment than would otherwise be possible. This includes 12 research ships and other facilities such as manned submersibles, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), towed arrays and shipboard surveying systems. Such facilities are required to carry out "cutting edge" research, but are frequently so expensive that it makes little sense for each country to purchase their own facilities.
Secondly, it reduces wasted time, and therefore wasted cost, spent on long passage legs between areas of scientific interest, and allows scientists access to a wider range of geographical areas in a given year.
In these ways the tripartite agreement promotes more efficient and cost effective use of each country's national resources.
To facilitate the arrangement, each country has now synchronised its annual planning cycle. In the spring and autumn of each year the Group meets to consider programming and bartering possibilities.
Although the underlying principal is that no money changes hands, the arrangement does not provide "free" ship time. For every cruise on a foreign ship, the beneficiary country must mount a full cruise on one of its own ships in return, and to an equivalent value. The operating costs still fall to the ship owners, and each country has an appropriate scheme of banking to support the process. An equivalence points system has been agreed for the value of each of the ships, to ensure like-for-like value. Points are allocated per ship day used.
Access to these facilities is now automatically incorporated into the planning cycle. For more information on how the agreement works or how to arrange a specific barter, interested marine researcher should contact the representatives in their own country, who will act on behalf of the community to negotiate barters as required. A contact list is included here.
It is anticipated that this tripartite agreement on co-operative programming and exchange of facilities may be the beginning of a coordinated research fleet of European partners, underpinned by nationally owned and managed resources.
