33 U.S.C. § 3612 — Accelerating innovation at Cooperative Institutes

The Administrator shall consider evaluating the goals of 1 or more Cooperative Institutes of the Administration to include focusing on advancing or applying emerging technologies, which may include— (1) applied uses and development of real-time and other advanced genetic technologies and applications, including such technologies and applications that derive genetic material directly from environmental samples without any obvious signs of biological source material; (2) deployment of, and improvements to the durability, maintenance, and other lifecycle concerns of, advanced unmanned vehicles, regional small research vessels, and other research vessels that support and launch unmanned vehicles and sensors; and (3) supercomputing and big data management, including data collected through model outputs, electronic monitoring, and remote sensing. The Cooperative Institutes shall work with the Interagency Ocean Observation Committee, the regional associations of the Integrated Ocean Observing System, and other ocean observing programs to coordinate technology needs and the transition of new technologies from research to operations.