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The Process
On an annual basis, the calendar of RAP activities is set for the coming year. However, RAP flexible
to in-year demands that are not forecast.
The RAP consists of three consecutive phases:
Issues are identified by the RAP Coordinator in consultation with the Coordination Committee, line
management, and stakeholders. For each issue, a remit is drafted which provides a clear statement of the
points to be addressed and the expected products of the RAP. This should include recommendations made by
RAP at its last consideration of the issue. There may be follow-up consultations with stakeholders to
ensure that the issues are clearly defined and the products of RAP understood. A chair and meeting date
are then defined and the remit used to direct the deliberations of the meeting.
Line managers are encouraged to have scientific staff conduct meetings with the industry at an early
stage in the scientific review to ensure industry input is an integral part of the scientific review
process.
Line management provides the RAP meeting chair with the working papers and draft status reports in
advance of the RAP peer review meeting to facilitate prior distribution to participants and reviewers.
Line management is strongly encouraged to involve a team of experts in the preparation of these documents.
If the documents are not available prior to the meeting, the chair has the prerogative to remove the issue
from the meeting agenda.
The chair can involve external experts in the peer review. The RAP Secretariat maintains a small budget
to facilitate this participation. The working papers and draft status reports are tabled at a peer review
meeting. This review identifies any major problems with the analytical approaches and the basis of the
status report. Regarding stock assessments, Stock Status Reports are produced for most stocks every year.
However, many assessments will be updates using current fishery and survey information which are not
formally reviewed in RAP. The majority of time at the peer review meeting will be devoted to the review of
comprehensive assessments of a limited number of stocks and time is to be available at the meeting to
review the status reports.
The working papers are not citable but can be upgraded to the CSAS Research Document series. Documents
that become Research Documents, must include any additional technical analyses adopted at a meeting and
referenced in the status reports.
The status reports are modified to reflect the consensus of the meeting. Proceedings of the meetings
provide documentation of the discussions and itemize research recommendations for consideration by the
Coordination Committee. The Proceedings also document any minority opinions that meeting participants
may have.
Upon completion of the peer review meeting, the chair prepares a briefing note for DFO line management,
summarizing the main conclusions of the meeting. This is based on the bullets in the Summary section of the
Status Report.
The RAP meeting chair is the final approval authority of status reports. The intent is to finalize the
documents at the meeting. However, experience has shown that post-meeting editorials are often required to
improve readership and format, without changing the scientific content of the document. The documents are
therefore provided by the meeting chair to the RAP Coordinator, who arranges an Editorial Board meeting,
with attendance as described earlier. If substantive comments are made at the board meeting, the meeting
chair may wish to reconvene the meeting to review the comments. Otherwise, the comments are incorporated
into the status report by the author(s). The status report is then returned to the meeting chair, who
approves the final product, and sends the document to the RAP Secretariat, which arranges for the
translation, transmittal, and distribution of the document.
If it becomes clear during an Editorial Board review that there was no agreement on the status report,
the RAP Coordinator is to bring the matter to the attention of the RAP Coordination Committee for
resolution.
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