Executive Director’s Note

In science, the word evolution has a very particular meaning. It is a change in the characteristics of a species over time. This year witnessed a step-change in the evolution of the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), and, during my second year at the helm of SOI, I am proud to work alongside our extraordinary and dedicated staff, crew, Advisory Board, and principals who made this possible.
In March we finalized the first Schmidt Ocean Institute Conceptual Framework and Strategic Implementation Plan, just before acquiring our new 110-meter research vessel, R/V Falkor (too). The 10-year Strategic Framework, One Ocean – Seven Continents, Seven Topics – One Decade, builds upon SOI’s foundation and provides a Pathway to the Future that merges research, technology development, and broader engagement across seven topical areas that are essential to exploring and answering critical questions to characterize our ocean.
Instrumental in continuing our collaborative research in the next decade and beyond is our new R/V Falkor (too). This vessel, with three times the interior capacity of R/V Falkor and more than six times the deck space, is currently at Freire Shipyard in Vigo, Spain, where advanced scientific labs and equipment are being added, including the largest gondola and sonar array on a research vessel.
As the world continued to navigate the pandemic for another year, R/V Falkor was Crossing Oceans in 2021 as it sailed from Australia – across the Pacific and the Atlantic – to Pass the Baton to R/V Falkor (too) in Spain, completing seven expeditions along the way. With scientists from around the world, we mapped almost 120,000 square kilometers of seafloor, performed almost 80 dives with ROV SuBastian, and collected 97 terabytes of data that have been submitted to public data repositories. From flying the Seabed 2030 flag and Pinging in the New Year by collecting the first seafloor mapping data of the UN Decade in Australia, to gathering the first high quality footage of a glass octopus in the Phoenix Islands, R/V Falkor and the work done onboard inspired the world. And in recognition of the operational excellence on R/V Falkor throughout the last two years, we were proud to accept the AltaSea Explorers Award in October.
Underlying our activities are valuable partnerships – from working with scientists and artists who sail with us to collaborating with incredible organizations. Building Connections and Collaborations are a key piece of amplifying our impact, and 2021 was no exception. We were delighted to formalize new partnerships with Nekton, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, and the Marine Technology Society/IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society. We shared our expertise in technology and communications with our partners in the UN Decade of Ocean Science as we collectively work towards a decade of improved understanding of our beautiful and mysterious ocean ecosystem. Additionally, we expanded our cooperative work with the Ocean Exploration Trust and NOAA’s Office of Exploration and Research on the Deep Ocean Education Project to bring educational resources to a larger audience.
Throughout the year, we engaged the community with numerous conferences, podcasts, ship-to-shore connections, and other events, reaching an audience of over 52,000 people. In February, we hosted our first virtual symposium with our Advisory Board, who moderated the sessions, providing space for our alumni and networks to connect and share their research ‘Beyond the Cruise’. Working with Nekton allowed us to better envision new avenues for engaging public audiences with the ocean, as evidenced by the Oceans Rising white paper and workshop we conducted in July. In November, we premiered our short film, “Climate Under Pressure”, and hosted a panel discussion on this topic at COP26 in Glasgow, emphasizing the need to include the deep ocean in the international dialogue on climate change. Our outstanding communications team earned three MarComm Awards (including a Platinum Award for the 2020 Impact Report!) and a film festival award for our film on the Ningaloo Canyons expedition.
This year we also expanded our commitment to diversifying voices in oceanography with several new initiatives, including providing support to scientists with dependents at home and broadening access to field work for scientists. Our Artist-at-Sea program brought artists onboard from the regions where R/V Falkor was operating and we funded previous Artist-at-Sea Taloi Havini’s first international solo exhibit at the Ocean Hall in Venice, Italy.
These are just some of the activities covered in this report. 2021 was the start of the Ocean Decade, with people and groups coming together from around the globe to make the Ocean a priority – biodiversity, seafloor mapping, and ocean sciences for sustainable development. We look forward to the future, implementing our new strategic framework to boldly explore our unknown ocean, and commencing operations to support research and technology development onboard the R/V Falkor (too). If ever there was a time for this evolution, this is it.