The SSC received an overview presentation addressing recent North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) funding themes, an update on progress related to 
coordination efforts with Council research prioritization, methods for tracking research priorities, and potential for NPRB database functionality to support coordination with Council processes. The SSC is expected to comprehensively address the Council’s extensive list of research priorities in February 2020 and welcomed the potential for working more effectively with NPRB in improving that effort. A specific improvement that the NPRB could provide is the ability to track NPFMC-identified projects through the sequence of proposal, funding, completion, and publication steps. For the next comprehensive review, the SSC is considering an accompanying evening event to provide stakeholders with a focused opportunity for making research recommendations. There was SSC interest in the NPRB’s two-prong approach to categorizing research funding opportunities by their relevance to either management or ecosystem and other science issues. This could potentially provide a basis for creating two “top ten” lists of highlighted research priorities for the Council rather than the single list that was used in 2018.
Staff contact is Jim Armstrong
