Research staff from several institutions that make up the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC) have chosen the Toralla Marine Science Station, ECIMAT, to develop part of their projects on topics such as climate change, ecotoxicology, seabird studies, cryopreservation of marine organisms or speciation processes in marine snails. So far, ECIMAT, the main infrastructure of the Marine Research Centre of the University of Vigo, has hosted nine researchers, and another nine will arrive this month, from institutions in the United Kingdom, Italy and Portugal, under the umbrella of the Assemble Plus (Association of European Marine Biological Laboratories Expanded) transnational access programme (TNA), “a project that offers research and technical staff from public and private institutions of EMBRC-ERIC access to a wide variety of marine ecosystems, biological resources and first-level experimental and analytical facilities, distributed throughout Europe”, explains Fiz da Costa, head of the Assemble Plus project at the CIM-UVigo.
The European program covers the use of facilities and services in each of the infrastructures included in the project for a maximum of two researchers, as well as travel, accommodation and subsistence costs. “Although most researchers prefer to carry out their experiments in person, the Assemble Plus TNA program also allows remote access to some ECIMAT services, such as the collection of marine organisms in the Galician lowlands, the sending of organisms from culture collections or the supply of cultured organisms sent to researchers without the need to travel to the marine station,” explains Da Costa.
The transnational access program has a total of seven calls and of the three approved so far, ECIMAT has hosted a dozen projects: three in the first two calls and six in the third. The fourth call is currently open until June 21.
High degree of satisfaction among researchers with ECIMAT
The nine researchers who developed their work at ECIMAT under the first two calls of the transnational access programme expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the station’s services. Francesca Raffini and Roger Butlin from the University of Sheffield highlighted “the magnificent support and infrastructure provided by ECIMAT allowed us to carry out sampling and experiments on the rocky coasts of Galicia, generating new data of interest for our research into the processes of sea snail speciation”.
Algúns investigadores incluso repetiron experiencia na ECIMAT, despois que os seus proxectos fosen aceptados en dúas convocatorias. Así mesmo, todas e todos os participantes no programa de accesos transnacionais participan nas conferencias celebradas na ECIMAT, emitidas en streaming e dispoñibles de xeito permanente nas webs de UVigoTV e CIM-UVigo.
Source: DUVI
