Implementation Plan

View our implementation plan in its entirety online or download a pdf.

Bringing Maryland Sea Grant’s strategic vision to life requires both definitive goals and appropriately ambitious benchmarks against which actions can be assessed over time. Our Implementation Plan is a clear articulation of the steps we will take as a program to achieve impacts. The plan identifies how our integrated research, outreach, and education efforts link to our strategic goals. In the best sense, the Implementation Plan represents our commitment to fulfilling our mission in an efficient and accountable manner. The Plan not only enables tracking of ongoing programs, but provides an important context for new, often proactive efforts that take advantage of the creative energies — both internal and external — that Maryland Sea Grant engages. Progress toward fulfilling the benchmarks identified in the plan is evaluated annually and the plan itself revised on a biennial basis.

An excerpt from our 2005-2010 Implementation Plan:

Maryland Sea Grant's Approach

Maryland Sea Grant seeks to be a catalyst for both integrative science in the Chesapeake watershed and for the development of ecosystem-based approaches to the management of our coastal resources.

The multi-dimensional characteristic of this challenge is found in many, if not most, of the goals of our strategic plan. This demands that we think and act in new ways and recognize the growing importance of science that spans traditional disciplinary boundaries. The goals outlined in our strategic plan: Coastal Processes and Ecosystem Responses; Natural Resources of Coastal Maryland; Education; and Maryland's Coastal Communities and Economies are therefore, by design, interrelated, and many of our efforts impact more than one objective. We call this "crosstalk" and it is an essential mechanism to build greater impacts. Taken in total, our approach positions us well to make strong, creative contributions.

Our program is committed to a process of engagement and synthesis to drive ongoing refinement of priorities and define actions that lead to measurable outcomes. We use critical evaluation to measure our progress. While conceptually we present this as a cycle, operationally there is considerable interaction at all stages — this is an iterative process designed to foster learning and adaptive management. Each operational element of Maryland Sea Grant (research, extension, communications and education) contributes unique capacity and products to this approach, with overall coordination and integration the central focus of program administration. We consider our activities as components of integrated portfolios, each representing strategic investment of resources — both monetary and human — in varying amounts, designed to have tangible impacts.