Research Partnerships

Scripps Institution of Oceanography corporate partnerships offer member companies with opportunities to work directly with today’s leading scientific minds. Corporate partners expect a return-on-investment and academic partners expect to break new scientific ground. Both sides work closely together to set a research direction; then in return for their capital contributions, corporate partners interact directly with teams of earth, ocean, and atmospheric scientists throughout the entire scientific process. Corporate partners seek to enhance their risk management practices, investing strategies, product lines, product pipelines, and corporate governance practices by applying Scripps research findings.

Scripps has a proven track record linking corporate interest and basic research. For example, over two-dozen oil companies have been supporting the Seafloor Electromagnetic Methods Consortium (SEMC) at Scripps since 1996. A similar consortium, the Scripps Partnership for Hazards and Environmental Applied Resarch (SPHEAR) was launched in the summer of 2008.

An example of focused industry research was demonstrated through a link with the energy sector in the early 2000s. Scripps and other academic institutions partnered with SAIC and Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E) in a study to use weather and climate information to help SDG&E better forecast load management events and allow for improved decision-making for load control.

Active Partnership Consortiums

Scripps Partnership for Hazards and Environmental Applied Research (SPHEAR)

 A group of SPHEAR corporate partners teamed with Scripps researchers to launch a pilot project that has deliverered insights on weather extremes as applied to energy trading.  Scripps is proud to be working with energy and investment firms and recently completed our first project that focuses on cold weather outbreaks and their impact to the energy complex. The project: (1) uses a comprehensive definition to examine the variability of regional cold extremes; (2) uses powerful statistical tools to investigate causality and demonstrate skillful seasonal-to-interannual predictability of the seasonal probability and other features of regional cold outbreaks; (3) examines synoptic causes and precursors of individual regional cold events; and (4) expects to use this information to improve the lead-time and skill of their extended range weather forecasts by tapping into relevant precursor weather information and conditioning the weather forecast on contemporaneous large-scale climate information.  In addition to delivering a series of descriptive catalogs, SPHEAR developed a (patent pending) process that links precursor synoptic patterns to subsequent incidents of extreme temperature.  SPHEAR partners were pleased to discover certain atmospheric variables that can signal a severe cold outbreak at lead times up to 45-days. 

Seafloor Electromagnetic Methods Consortium (SEMC)

The Seafloor Electromagnetic Methods Consortium (SEMC) at Scripps develops electromagnetic methods for the purpose of offshore petroleum exploration.