EuroGOOS’ initial strategy document describes it as an “informal association,” and indeed, for many years its most binding classification was a “club.” It was something which would assemble from the bottom-up. In the words of Dr. Flemming:
“We set up EuroGOOS as a technocratic cross-border association between agencies such as departments of fisheries, environmental management, coastal defences, offshore energy, and marine science rather than through a government-to-government treaty. This made EuroGOOS more flexible, with multiple expertise from each country, and able to take quick decisions when needed.”[i]
The 1996 strategy outlines that this structure in part emerges from the general European principle of subsidiarity: the costs of operational oceanography on a large scale being too unwieldy for most single European states, only investment in oceanography at a highly granular, local level could provide the immediate return on investment that would make the operations feasible.[ii] Yet this would rely on elements from larger scale models built up with the aid of international data. The responsibility to share whatever information is gathered and pool resources reduces the investment of time and money required to produce oceanographic data in this way, allowing what was collected regionally to inform and refine the international datasets and vice versa.[iii]
Initially, funding for EuroGOOS was predominately sourced from the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).[iv] The Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER) contributed a deputy director and funded their salary to aid in the management of the organisation.[v] The responsibility for this contribution was later assumed by the German Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH).[vi] EuroGOOS’ first headquarters, the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton, was also set up by NERC and the University Grants Commission in an attempt to consolidate various elements of the UK’s oceanographic capabilities in one location.[vii]
After five years of operation in this fashion, the funding of the association changed to follow more fully an organisational logic of internationalism and subsidiarity in the establishment of a member fee base.[viii] In contrast to most GRAs which can obtain funding “only through ad hoc projects, if at all,” as a 2019 paper notes, EuroGOOS’ member fee base offers the GRA the stability and possibility for continuous operation of a larger organisation with a dedicated programme budget without bringing the burden of funding down on one member agency or state alone.[ix] This model, in not relying primarily on project-based funding avoids the organisation’s long-term goals being derailed by the necessities of such work in the short term, integrating the opportunities such a structure offers while maintaining the integrity of the core operations and responsibilities. In 2002 EuroGOOS moved its headquarters from the UK National Oceanography Centre to the Swedish Meteorological Office in the City of Norrköping.[x]
The GOOS prospectus of 1998 described EuroGOOS as a strong “proof of concept” for the 2nd primary objective of GOOS, that of an international co-ordinated strategy for ocean observations. Perhaps more than any of the other early international GRAs, EuroGOOS’ pan-Europeanism incarnated the principles of cross-border scientific collaboration itself.[xi]
[i] Apollonia on my Mind, p. 375
[ii] The Strategy for EuroGOOS, p. 32
[iii] The Strategy for EuroGOOS, p. 32
[iv] Buch, Erik. Interview.
[v] Flemming, Nicholas. Personal Correspondence. (Data could be confirmed).
[vi] Flemming, Nicholas. Personal Correspondence. (Data could be confirmed).
[vii] Apollonia on my Mind, p. 370
[viii] Buch, Erik. Interview.
[ix] A Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), Delivered Through Enhanced Collaboration Across Regions, Communities, and New Technologies, p. 5
[x] Buch, Erik. Personal Correspondence.
[xi] The GOOS 1998, p. viii
