Why shall we focus research efforts on marine biodiversity?
Marine life provides the richest and most diverse source of organisms on earth. Exploration of marine biodiversity, enabled by the knowledge of marine genomes and by novel molecular and imaging technologies, can be pursued with integrated molecular, cellular and organismal approaches.
Marine organisms are becoming increasingly important both as biological models for researchers and as a source of innovative products and services for society. Marine species possess unique features, which through fundamental and applied research, technological development and innovation, can be translated into industrial applications and novel products.
Marine biological knowledge is also urgently needed to allow policy makers to grasp possible effects of global warming and ocean acidification on marine ecosystem functioning.
Last but not least, stocks of many marine organisms are becoming seriously depleted, increasing the need for mariculture alternatives. EMBRC will provide the research infrastructure needed to address all these issues.
EMBRC wil be a distributed Research Infrastructure of state-of-the-art research and training facilities at leading marine research stations across Europe. This RI will provide End-Users from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Academia and Industry with access to marine biodiversity, its associated meta-data and extractable products. The RI’s services will include access to marine species, biobanks, dedicated ‘omics’ platforms, structural biology facilities and microscopy.
Our Mission:- Access to European coastal marine biota and their ecosystems,
- An integrated supply of marine model species, for multidisciplinary research,
- State-of-the-art research services,
- Interdisciplinary training in marine biological sciences and marine genomics,
- Outreach to stakeholders, users and the public at large,
- Support to Technology Transfer, promotion of new products and services and policy development for the creation of growth and jobs,
- Promoting synergies among and between its End-Users and beneficiaries (academia and industry) across the life-sciences within the European Research Area (ERA).
EMBRC will contribute to finding coherent solutions for exploiting the full economic potential of the seas in a sustainable way, whilst minimizing the impact on the marine environment following the EU2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and the MARINE KNOWLEDGE 2020 objectives (EC communication on marine data and observation for smart and sustainable growth).
