The Transnational Access (TNA) program of the ASSEMBLE Plus project (Association of European Marine Biological Laboratories Expanded) offers research and technical staff from public and private institutions the use of the facilities and services of the Toralla Marine Science Station (ECIMAT) and other 30 marine stations integrated into the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC) to carry out part of their projects in the field of marine research.
The European Program covers access to a wide variety of marine ecosystems and biological resources and the use of the facilities, technological platforms and services offered by each of the infrastructures included in the project, as well as the costs of travel, accommodation and subsistence.
At ECIMAT, the main infrastructure of the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo, researchers can have access to experimental facilities, such as aquariums and tanks, wet and dry laboratories and mesocosms, use technological platforms (cryopreservation, bioassays, image analysis software, etc.), carry out fieldwork on coastal research vessels, or use diving equipment to access subtidal ecosystems. Although most researchers prefer to develop their experiments under the in situ access modality, the Assemble Plus TNA program also allows remote access to some of ECIMAT’s services, such as the collection of marine organisms in the Galician estuaries, the shipment of organisms from the collection, or the supply of marine organisms cultured at the station, without the need to travel to ECIMAT.
Fifth call open until October 11
The transnational access program has a total of seven calls and, of the four approved so far, ECIMAT has hosted fourteen projects: three in the first two calls, six in the third and two in the fourth. The fifth call is currently open until October 11. Among the projects approved so far, ECIMAT has hosted more than 20 researchers from different institutions in the United Kingdom, Italy and Portugal, covering topics as varied as climate change, ecotoxicology, the study of seabirds, the cryopreservation of marine organisms or the speciation processes in marine snails.
In the following links you can consult the opinions of some of the researchers who have previously enjoyed this program and the videoconference presented by Fiz da Costa, head of the Assemble Plus project at CIM-UVigo.
