The Council adopted research priorities for 2022-2024 as recommended by the SSC, including their suggested process changes for future reviews that incorporate SSPT and FEP research priorities. The SSC’s recommendations updated the comprehensive list of projects maintained on the Council’s online research priorities database as well as the projects the SSC is recommending for the “Top Ten” projects in need of funding (Table below). The SSC will provide their overall process recommendations at the June 2021 Council meeting and as directed by the Council, staff will develop a graphic to improve transparency about the overall review process including points (onramps) for stakeholder input. In accordance with the MSA, the Council’s research priorities will be transmitted to the Secretary of Commerce and the Alaska Fishery Science Center, and will also be shared with a number of universities and funding entities in order to inspire progress on research in support of its management decisions.
The NPFMC’s research priorities cover a wide range of topics and are organized and managed within a publicly accessible database. Priority ranking of research topics is done to emphasize the correspondence of research to the Council’s time horizon of management concerns. The Top Ten list of Council research priorities identified at the April 2021 Council meeting is provided on the Council’s website (https://www.npfmc.org/research-priorities/).
