Our informal network consists of research facilities across Northern Canada, including year-round research stations, seasonally operated field camps, community research facilities, sites for long term biophysical observation, monitoring sites, and research vessels. OCARI facilities are operated by academic organizations, non-governmental organizations, and a variety of government organizations.
This network offers an opportunity for Canada’s Northern research facility operators to share information related to research operations, identify areas of common concern, and to develop opportunities for facility operators to collaborate with each other when it makes sense to do so.
One of the strengths of the collective network is information sharing and the ability to develop programs that can be delivered across stations and facilitate development of programs beneficial for the operators such as researcher/student exchanges, group leveraging, reducing barriers to users, sharing costs and training opportunities. Another strength of the network is to provide an access point for Canadian and international research teams to quickly and easily assess research facilities and potential partners across Northern Canada and help Operators develop new clients for their facilities.
There is increasing interest in northern research across broad geographic areas that can be facilitated through access to our facilities and network partners. Having one strong voice speaking for Northern research infrastructure, rather than a collection of voices from scattered individual stations, raises the profile of Canada’s capacity in Arctic and northern research and makes collaboration opportunities easier to identify and act upon.
To advance the collective interests of Canada’s northern research infrastructure operators through coordination, outreach, and joint action in order to help them achieve excellence in technical and logistical support individually and as a network.
