I'm going to focus my remarks on a very brief overview of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans science agenda, and I'm going to focus on three specific things.
First of all, I'm going to give you a very brief overview of our mandate and our resources. Secondly, I'm going to describe our renewal agenda that we've put in place in the last couple of years. Finally, I'm going to touch more specifically on one aspect of that renewal agenda, which is our science human resources strategy. We've put that in place in order to deal with some very pressing challenges.
As some of you might know, DFO has a very broad mandate. Surrounded by three oceans and home to a very vast freshwater system, Canada is one of the foremost maritime nations on the planet. In addition to our primary internal clients, such as fisheries management, other departments rely on Fisheries and Oceans science for a wide range of scientific information. Some of our colleagues here today--Environment Canada, Natural Resources, Transport Canada, and CFIA, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency--rely on that information, and we work very closely with them.
Beyond the traditional fisheries clients, we work collaboratively with and provide advice to the various industry sectors, such as the energy sector. We provide direct products and services to Canadians, primarily hydrographic charts for navigation--tides and currents--for the use of shipping companies and the recreational boating community.
The science that's conducted at Fisheries and Oceans is very much regulatory in nature, as Dr. Carey indicated. In keeping with our mandate, and as stewards of Canada's oceans and freshwaters, our focus is on habitat protection, fisheries management, and safe and sustainable development.
Fisheries and Oceans has 1,700 staff, nationally, who work in and around science. They're not all research scientists, but they work in related fields, such as technicians, hydrographers, etc. Less than 10% of them work in Ottawa. We're a very decentralized department. We're situated in about 15 major institutes and laboratories across the country.
Over the last few years, funding for the science sector in Fisheries and Oceans has been stable, and in some cases it has been increasing in some targeted areas.
In recent years, like many other science-based departments and agencies, Fisheries and Oceans has faced delivering services in a more complex environment and with increasing demands for scientific information, advice, and products and services. In order to address these challenges, we instituted a full-scale review of the science program in 2002 and 2004. What resulted was a science renewal framework for the future, which we have since begun implementing. It focuses on guiding our modernization agenda, and it also seeks to ensure that the DFO science program is relevant, effective, affordable, and valued.
Some of the key pieces of that renewal agenda include the development of the five-year research agenda, which we now have, and an ecosystem science framework to guide integrated ecosystem-based management. We've modernized our service delivery by creating 12 centres of expertise, and ecosystem research initiatives as well, across the country. We've developed a human resources strategy. For our governance, we've established a science management board, and we've also developed an outreach strategy in order to get our message out about what we do for Canadians. Of course, all of these activities are aligned with our work in implementing the federal S and T strategy.
Given that the scope of the aquatic and marine science required to deliver our mandate exceeds our capacity within one sector, collaboration isn't only important, it's absolutely critical. Our approach to collaboration is multi-faceted, and it permeates every aspect of our research agenda. If you're interested in further examples of some of those collaborative efforts, I would invite you to read our latest annual science report.
In order to deal with our HR challenges, we've instituted a very detailed HR action plan. I'd be very pleased to provide you with additional details on that.
In closing, I would like to say that in the near future we're going to focus our attention on improving collaboration, building our capacity, strengthening our relationships, and working to implement the federal S and T strategy.