Dear OOI Community,
We want to share with you important updates about the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) for the upcoming year. The U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) FY2026 budget request proposes a reduction in funding for OOI. While this is not final given the ongoing congressional appropriate process, it is important to share with the community the potential impact to operations starting in October 2025.
Since its inception, the OOI has been a cornerstone of sustained ocean observation – designed as a 30-year program to provide transformative science and open-access data. Now entering its tenth year, the OOI has grown into an important community resource that supports discovery, advances research, facilitates technology development, and fosters collaboration across the ocean community. Our commitment remains to ensure continuity of operations, manage this essential resource, and sustain the research and innovation it enables.
Despite the budget uncertainty, the OOI Leadership team’s commitment remains strong. We will continue to keep you informed as the congressional appropriations and agency implementation process unfolds and will share more details as they become available. We are actively working with NSF to explore strategies for long-term stability that secure the observatory’s future. In parallel, we are seeking new partnerships and opportunities to broaden support and strengthen the program’s foundation. We continue to encourage research proposals to use the present and historical OOI observations, and when appropriate leverage in-water assets.
Despite anticipated reduced funding, we expect to maintain core capabilities that preserve high-value observations and community access:
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Providing data delivery and distribution from all active instruments, including real-time data where enabled, and data from the past ten years of deployments from our Data Center.
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Operating the Regional Cabled Array (RCA) infrastructure to ensure continued access to the seafloor and a reduced set of water-column data from the deep ocean.
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Operating a scaled-down Pioneer Mid-Atlantic Bight Array with two service cruises and refurbished infrastructure this upcoming year.
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Continuing to provide data from the currently deployed infrastructure at Station Papa and the Irminger Sea Array. The Global Arrays are being operated at reduced sampling to extend their lifetime for the upcoming year.
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Continuing investments in OOI Data Services, including improvements to the Data Explorer and data processing tools.
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Meeting critical obligations such as permitting, reporting, and cybersecurity improvements.
To align with the potentially reduced budget in FY 2026, OOI operations will be scaled back in several areas. This includes the suspension of operation of the Endurance Array after asset recovery in Fall 2025; reduction or suspension of the glider and AUV operations, and suspension of the maintenance cruises for the global and cabled arrays in the upcoming project year.
We recognize these potential changes could disrupt coverage and continuity, particularly for studies that depend on near real-time data, cross-shelf observations, and sustained time series. Collaborations with partner institutions and contributions to regional observing networks may also be affected.
At the same time, the OOI remains committed to serving the community by preserving as much scientific capability as possible within the available funding.
In closing, we encourage you to actively highlight the value and impact of OOI by including it in your proposals, publications, presentations, and conversations with colleagues. Your engagement is vital to demonstrate the scientific impact and wide-ranging applications enabled by the OOI, underscoring its importance as a resource for the oceanographic community.
For any questions related to the OOI, please reach out to the Leadership Team at ooi@whoi.edu.
Sincerely,
The OOI Team
Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation