March 2016

Dear colleagues,

This email is being sent to people who attended the National Marine Science Symposium held at the Academy of Science in November 2014, and other key contributors to the National Marine Science Plan released in August 2015.  

This is intended to be the first in an ongoing series of quarterly updates to this national marine science community. There is an ‘unsubscribe’ option at the bottom of the email.

A tremendous amount of effort was put in during 2014 and 2015 to develop white papers, conduct the National Marine Science Symposium, write the National Marine Science Plan, and launch the Plan at Parliament House.  

2016 is the year in which we begin implementation.  

Achieving the vision set out in the Plan will require concerted and coordinated effort across the national community, sustained through time. The National Marine Science Committee has a significant leadership role to play.  However the exciting vision articulated in the Plan won’t be achieved ‘by Committee’.  Perhaps the most important role of the Committee will be to mobilise the national community and build on the great momentum established during 2014 and 2015.

We recognise that effective communication is crucial in this respect. The commitment to quarterly email updates is one step.

Another important step is a new NMSC website, which is now live – www.marinescience.net.au.

The initial objective of the website was to capture all of our existing material and make it readily accessible and identifiable with NMSC. Hopefully we have done this well. It is our intention that the website will be developed over time based on community feedback and input.

The first meeting of NMSC will be held on 13 April, and will provide the basis for our next quarterly update.

Please feel free to forward this update to people you believe would be interested in its contents. Anyone can subscribe to the 'NMSC Community Update' distribution list by following the link at the bottom of this email.

We look forward to your continued engagement in providing the marine science that will drive development of Australia’s blue economy.

Regards,

Tim Moltmann, Chair
on behalf of the National Marine Science Committee