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Introduction

The following sections describe six areas in which RAL will focus its efforts. The goals and priorities presented have been defined in ongoing discussions between RAL managers and technical staff, our collaborators in other NCAR laboratories, divisions and institutes, the RAL Advisory Panel, and interested public and private-sector stakeholders. The process of defining goals and priorities was also informed by careful consideration of:

• RAL's mission and vision for the future within the context of the strategic plans of NCAR and of the National Science Foundation
• National and international needs and opportunities in science and technology
• The expertise, interests, and capabilities of RAL staff and research partners

Throughout this process, every attempt has been made to balance RAL's responsibility to attack large-scale, difficult problems with its judgment about the tractability of such problems and prospects for progress

The work described in the six areas presented below corresponds, to an extent, to work that is concentrated in the six RAL Program units described in Section 1. However, by design, the correspondence is only a rough one. It is important to recognize that many scientific and development topics that are being pursued contribute to a broad spectrum of applications goals. There is thus no attempt to "pigeon hole" a piece of research into only one applications topic, or to confine a subject to only one of RAL's six management units. For example, the cross-cutting topic of forecast verification and product quality assessment is an activity that is spread naturally across each of the programs. Also, the topic of precipitation forecasting, though it is clearly a strong aspect of hydrometeorological research and a key aspect of understanding the water cycle, is also highly relevant to the laboratory's work involving numerical weather prediction (NWP) advances, coupled model applications, and a host of other topics dealing with water resource management, transportation, agriculture, climate, etc. It is believed that the research overlap between application themes and the cross-strapping of scientists and physical research topics across RAL program units are strengths of the program. RAL seeks out and maintains similar collaborations and overlapping subject areas with other parts of NCAR, as well as with the universities and other government labs.

The discussion here is intended as a summary, as noted earlier. More detailed descriptions of RAL science and technology transfer can be found in the project plans of the laboratory's six management units and the RAL Annual Report on the RAL web page at www.ral.ucar.edu.

The strategic planning elements that follow are grouped into six general goal areas that are regarded as imperatives for the laboratory. In each of these areas the high-level goal is first stated as an Overarching Priority, followed by a discussion of the motivation for this effort. The specific plans are then presented as essential Near-Term Objectives. These are followed by longer-term objectives termed Frontiers. Generally the former involve the continuation of important work presently underway, along with follow-on projects that build upon and expand the scope and capabilities of current work. The Frontiers describe new, exciting research projects that have a longer-term horizon and are still in the formative or planning stage. Though they may involve refocusing of current work and budgets, they more often involve strong elements of program development, building of new collaborations, and interactions with potential sponsors.