Strategic Plan for the
Climate Change
Science Program
Review draft, November 2002

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Chapter 15: Program Management and Review

The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) oversees and coordinates the Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) and the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The CCSP has joint membership with the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, the interagency body responsible for coordinating the USGCRP. In the CCSP, responsibility for implementation of different components of the research program is distributed across participating federal departments and agencies. The basic rationale for this distributed organization is that the issues of climate and global change are complex and wide ranging and thus extend beyond the mission, resources, and expertise of any single agency.

In June 2001, in response to evaluations of the USGCRP that raised questions about the ability of the existing interagency mechanism to develop adequate focus, President Bush requested that the Secretary of Commerce take the lead in reviewing the arrangements for coordinating climate and global change research. In February 2002, the President announced a new management structure for federal climate change science and technology development to improve the research support for decisionmaking and to increase accountability.

At the highest level, the new structure includes the Executive Office of the President, with a combined National Security Council (NSC), Domestic Policy Council (DPC), and National Economic Council (NEC) panel responsible for program review. The Chair of this panel is the National Security Advisor or other Presidential appointee and reports to the President. The Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration was developed to oversee the federal climate change science and technology programs. The Committee is a cabinet-level body that, in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget, provides recommendations concerning climate science and technology to the President and, if needed, recommends the transfer of funding and programs across agency boundaries.

The Interagency Working Group on Climate Change Science and Technology reports to the Committee. The Working Group is composed of departmental and agency representatives at the Deputy Secretary level. It will review all federal programs that contribute to climate change science and technology and will make recommendations to the Committee about the funding level and focus of these programs to advance a climate change science and technology program that contributes to the enhanced understanding needed to better support policy and management decisions.

The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) reports to the Working Group. Its membership includes representatives from all agencies that have a research mission in climate and global change. The CCSP is responsible for effective management of the coordinated interagency research program, oversees the interagency groups responsible for each major research program element listed in this Strategic Plan (i.e., Atmospheric Composition, Climate Variability and Change, Water Cycle, Land Use/Land Cover Change, Carbon Cycle, Ecosystems, and Human Contributions and Responses to Environmental Change), and interacts with various external advisory groups. The Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) is an interagency program that will coordinate and develop a comprehensive, multi-year, integrated climate change technology R&D program for the United States.

The USGCRP has a decade of experience and has established a number of successful methods for planning and implementing interagency programs to support research on complex climate and global change issues. While approaches used in the past provide a good foundation for the future, new mechanisms for improved coordination and integration are being developed. This section of the strategic plan provides a framework for management of climate and global change research by the CCSP in the next decade.

The CCSP incorporates three mechanisms for management of the program:

The interaction of these three management elements is critical for improving the scientific planning, the effectiveness of interagency management, and the focus of climate and global change research to support governmental and non-governmental needs.

The US and international science communities bring essential expertise to the CCSP activities. Relevant committees and boards of the National Academy of Sciences, in particular, will be asked to provide scientific guidance.

Scientific Steering Committees (SSCs) will be established for each research program element to assist the agencies by developing detailed science plans that describe in greater detail than is possible in this Strategic Plan the research that is required to address the questions in each of the research program elements. An example of a detailed science plan is the US Carbon Cycle Science Plan  (Sarmiento et al., 1999). This science plan was requested by several agencies participating in the USGCRP and was developed by a Carbon and Climate Working Group that drew on the expertise of the entire US carbon cycle science community through workshops. It was subsequently published and serves as detailed scientific guidance for USGCRP activities in this area. Scientific plans have been developed or are being developed for the other CCSP research program elements as well to guide research efforts.

The science review of implementation plans and progress towards achieving objectives is also essential. This will provide crucial information for both the program managers and the CCSP in evaluating whether the CCRI and USGCRP are making progress toward their goals.

The CCSP draws on the strengths of many agencies and departments. It requires a significant degree of coordination, however, to ensure that research planned and implemented across these departments and agencies supports agreed-upon scientific objectives.

At the level of individual research program elements, interagency committees of program managers work together to ensure that the science plans for each element inform departmental and agency budget priorities and are translated into implementation plans that explain how research efforts will achieve specific deliverables. The CCSP will oversee development of an interagency implementation plan for each research program element. The implementation plans will identify and prioritize the scientific programs necessary to meet the key science objectives and the roles of each participating agency. They will also provide generalized timelines and budget estimates for the investments necessary to carry out the activities, noting any critical dependencies. Each implementation plan will also prioritize the observations and/or observing systems necessary to meet the goals of the research as well as critical modeling efforts and/or information-management issues. These priorities will inform the choices that will need to be made by agencies and by CCSP as a whole.

Each implementation plan will be developed by an interagency working group, reviewed by external scientists, and approved by the CCSP. This process assures the agreement of agencies to the overall timelines and budget priorities as well as transparency and credibility to the planning process. This process also provides a mechanism for identifying any critical dependencies requiring action by the CCSP and by those responsible for agency budgets. The implementation plans will be updated and revised regularly in order to ensure that they reflect evolving scientific discovery, agency participation, and budget priorities.

These interagency working groups will also be responsible for providing program-level coordination for budgets, joint announcements of opportunity for the scientific research community, coordinated studies by agency staff, and periodic evaluation of progress toward the scientific goals.

The coordination of the CCSP is facilitated by the CCSP Office, consisting of a Director (a Department of Commerce detailee) and staff. The office is supported on a shared-cost basis by the participating agencies and by the allocated time of agency staff.

This draft Strategic Plan describes the important questions and goals for research over the next decade. The CCSP has responsibility for periodically reviewing these questions and goals and ensuring that program objectives are met. This responsibility includes an annual cycle of program and budget review.

The CCSP will adopt a problem-driven rather than a disciplinary approach in setting priorities and sequencing investments, identifying for early action and support those projects and activities that meet agreed-upon criteria in the following areas:

Some projects and activities may be identified for early implementation because they lay the foundation for subsequent work in other areas or are ready for implementation due to prior planning. The CCSP will also ensure periodic program reviews and evaluations involving both internal and external partners, including the scientific research community and other users of climate and global change information. Individual agencies will enable external review of their research strategies and plans (e.g., by the National Research Council (NRC) and Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) advisory committees) to ensure quality, relevance, and timeliness of the CCSP and its agencies' goals.

Developing answers to the questions posed in the draft Strategic Plan will require integration of research conducted or supported by different departments and agencies. The past decade has shown that the research on climate and global change often includes components that do not fall neatly into the core mission of any one of the participating agencies, are entirely new program needs, or are key to the integration of separate agency activities. An example is the development of comprehensive climate and Earth-system modeling necessary for projecting climate change and assessing its impacts on natural and human systems. Other examples include developing decision support resources for natural resource management and policy decisions and preparation of integrated products such as the proposed periodic CCSP reports.

One necessary approach for addressing such integrating activities is to develop a mechanism that allows functions that are not central to the core missions of the participating agencies, but that are highly relevant, to be fostered. Some functions might be of short-duration but critical to integration. Others might be long-term efforts that eventually lead to the transition of multi-agency research activities to operational activities associated with a specific agency.

Sarmiento et al.1999.  Sarmiento et al., Carbon and Climate Working Group of the USGCRP, US Carbon Cycle Science Plan (Washington, DC: USGCRP).