On 2 August 2002, the National Science Foundation released a report reviewing accomplishments of the first twenty years of the LTER program. The report was crafted by a team of 17 reviewers drawn from a broad spectrum of fields and institutions. Under the leadership of Frank Harris (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and Leonard Krishtalka (University of Kansas), the review committee examined the achievements of the LTER program through surveys and discussions with LTER and other researchers. They concluded that
“Twenty years of research at LTER sites have yielded major synthetic and theoretical advances in ecological knowledge, and have served society by informing solutions to environmental problems. New technologies have enabled complex investigations. A legacy of authoritative experimental and observational data has been archived and is being harnessed for deciphering environmental phenomena. And, in the past 20 years, LTER sites have enriched the education of an entire generation of ecologists, as well as thousands of K-12 students through the Schoolyard LTER.”
The report presents 27 recommendations to guide the LTER program during the next decade.
“This 20-year review is intended to help NSF and the LTER community chart a course for the LTER program on this new scientific landscape—one that will enable it to meet the needs, challenges and opportunities of science and society in the next decade.The LTER community has taken the first step by envisioning the coming decade as one of synthesis science ‘...in which the data and knowledge gained over the past twenty years, plus current studies, are brought together to reach new levels of understanding of long term ecological patterns and processes,’ ultimately for ecological forecasting. The 20-year review committee strongly concurs with this goal.”
The committee recommends that the LTER program embrace
“multidisciplinary, multidimensional, scalable, information driven, predictive and model-based, education oriented, and increasingly virtual and global” science. They further recommend the development of a strategic plan for LTER that outlines the scientific focus, niche, and priorities of the LTER program. Reviewers point out the need for delivering research results where they’re needed. “Policymakers, funding agencies, organizations, and the public increasingly are asking science to provide solutions to environmental issues and to be more accountable for public investments in research.”
Mary Clutter, NSF’s assistant director for biological sciences, commented
“This report comes at a critical time in the history of the LTER program, and will help guide the development of the program over the next 10 years. The scientific vision in the report is clear, appropriate, and consistent with the current state of LTER science. The next ten years should be the ‘Decade of Synthesis.’”
View the entire report online:
http://intranet2.lternet.edu/documents/lter-20-year-review-report