ALLIANCE at EuroOcean conference in Sopot
On 15th November 2016 at the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IO PAN) an open EurOcean conference took place entitled “Facilitating Transnational Usage of Europe´s Marine Research Infrastructure”. The event was a part of the 16th Steering Committee Meeting of the European Centre for Information on Marine Science.
The objective of the event was to present the current state and future trends of activities promoting improved knowledge of and transnational access to Europe´s marine infrastructure. Moreover, it was an opportunity to look at regional initiatives, including those taking place in the Baltic Sea Basin. The conference was also a forum to present EurOcean´s activity in relation to marine research infrastructure.
The audience included the representatives of EurOcean members namely: VLIZ (Belgium), IFREMER (France), NAUSICAA (France), MI (Ireland), CNR (Italy), IMR (Norway), IOPAN (Poland), FCT (Portugal), FRCT (Portugal), GeoEcoMar (Romania), IEO (Spain), IOI (Malta), SUBMARINER (Baltic region), as well as representatives from research, technology and marine support organisations from the Baltic sea basin region and beyond.
The presentations covered such topics as the BONUS experience of joint use of marine and maritime infrastructure, European Research Vessels Operators ( ERVO) Group – Coordinating access to research vessels, EurOcean´s Integrated Research Infrastructures Database (RID) as well as JERICO and JERICO-NEXT Trans-national Infrastructures.
Among the conference speakers there was also a representative of the University of Gdańsk - dr Anna Kaczorowska from the Faculty of Biology, who talked about the SUBMARINER Network and the Baltic Blue Biotechnology ALLIANCE project. The project brings together blue biotechnology actors from across the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) to develop innovative marine biotechnology based products and services and the University of Gdańsk is one of its partners. Dr Kaczorowska presented the main objectives and activities of the project. The audience had also the opportunity to see the examples of research works that already are or will be conducted by the actors selected and supported by ALLIANCE. The University of Gdansk has become a mentor of two cases in the project. The video from the presentation is available tu.
Next call for ideas will start early next year! More information will be available soon at www.balticbluebioalliance.eu and the websites of the University of Gdańsk.
The ALLIANCE project, funded from the INTERREG BSR Programme, started in March 2016. The project will integrate partners from the Baltic Sea Region who are interested in blue biotechnology. At the University of Gdańsk the project is implemented by the Faculty of Oceanography and Geography, the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG & MUG, BRC Gdańsk and the Technology Transfer Office. ALLIANCE project leader at UG is prof. Katarzyna Palińska (katarzyna.palinska@ug.edu.pl).