How can the LTER Network avoid being viewed by the larger community of scientists interested in long-term ecological research as the proverbial 600-pound gorilla?
The expanding efforts of the LTER Coordinating Committee to develop an effective and scientifically productive network include a challenging job this fall—the development of a strategic plan for the LTER Network. Strategic planning will be the major agenda item at the Committee’s semi-annual meeting to be held at Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, and Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, Durham, New Hampshire, from October 11-15, 1989. This planning is a major effort to define the collective objectives of the LTER Network and to identify the activities and resources that are needed to achieve them.
How do we view the future? Where would we like our individual and Network programs to be in five years? What are some of the collective scientific goals—issues that need to be addressed at the multi-site level? What kind of organizational arrangements and resources would be necessary to achieve these goals? How can the LTER Network assist in the development of the larger network of sites and scientists interested in long-term research?
Strategic planning is essential to the long-term future of the LTER program. The Coordinating Committee has conducted several exercises during the last 18 months aimed at identifying goals, but their further development remains the most important and difficult task ahead because they will provide the focus for all our activities.
The relationship of the LTER Network to the far larger network of sites and scientists interested in long-term ecological research is an extremely important part of this planning effort. How can the LTER program facilitate improved communication and collaboration within this larger community without being viewed as the proverbial 600-pound gorilla? We have already been doing many things toward this goal as a part of our LTER activities for example, we have consistently included participants from non-LTER sites in our workshops, and have developed and disseminated standards for measurement and data management programs.
Much more could be done, but we need suggestions from both LTER and non-LTER scientists as to what and how. I hope the new section of the Ecological Society of America on Long-Term Studies wifi be an important arena for some of this cooperation. Your ideas on this issue are urgently solicited.