Scientists are constantly looking at what others are doing. That's part of our training. That's part of what we do. Innovation is an important element in any region, because your patch of water will be different from the neighbour's patch of water, but we have a number of collaborative projects. A couple of weeks from now, I'm flying to Norway to take part in a comparative study. A number of scientists from this region will actually be contributing information, and we'll be getting information back. The idea is to have joint projects like that, that build on what the other guys do. One of the problems is that we can't do everything. This is the only way we can progress and stop from reinventing the wheel all the time.
We also have to keep in mind the differences among systems. We spend a great deal of time trying to do that. There are some countries where it's easier to share. Norwegians are really good about it, the Russians less so. That's just a cultural issue more than anything else. We collaborate with the Spanish and Portuguese as well. I've been on NAFO working groups very often.
The marine science community is small. We like to work together, because we don't have a choice. That's how we build. That's how we foster knowledge. I've been on a number of international panels where the reason we work together is to build on everybody else's information. That's traditional in science, and it's particularly significant in marine science as well, because there are so few of us.