The CIM scientific agenda for 2025–2028 defines its strategy around two major challenges: Blue Economy, focused on promoting the sustainable use of marine resources through innovation in sectors such as aquaculture and renewable energy, and Resilient Oceans and Ecosystems, aimed at understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss in the marine environment. Both challenges are reinforced by the cross-cutting challenge of the Digital Ocean, which integrates advanced capabilities such as observation, modelling, and artificial intelligence. This approach promotes interdisciplinary and impact-oriented research, connecting scientific knowledge with its application in ecosystem management, innovation, and decision-making, while also incorporating social knowledge transfer and a commitment to equality as fundamental principles.
The Center has 144 researchers who carry out their work within 16 research groups, structured to comprehensively address the main lines of interdisciplinary marine research in a coordinated manner, fostering scientific collaboration, knowledge transfer, and the generation of results with academic, social, and regional impact.
CIM’s membership in Campus do Mar and in the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC), through ECIMAT, constitutes the main axis of its strategic alliances. As coordinator of Campus do Mar, CIM actively participates in cross-border cooperation initiatives and in the articulation of a research community that integrates universities, technological centers, and stakeholders from the marine sector in Galicia and northern Portugal.
Its integration into EMBRC, the only European research infrastructure dedicated to marine biology and ecology, further strengthens access to marine organisms and ecosystems, experimental facilities, technological platforms, and advanced scientific services. EMBRC comprises more than 80 marine stations and research institutes across 10 European countries.
CIM staff actively participate in numerous international networks, including EMO-BON, EuBioNet, EBRN, WECANet COST Action, IAMRI, EuChemS-DAC, Alien Species Network, the European Ecological Federation, ECOMAR, and CIAC.
The Center is also part of highly relevant marine networks such as MARS and IAMRI, and contributes to European initiatives such as the European Marine Board and Euromarine. In recent months, CIM has joined the EU4Ocean Platform and integrated data from the EMO-BON initiative into EMODnet, strengthening its role in ocean observation and ocean literacy in Europe.
It is the annual internal assembly of the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo. This forum brings together all the Center’s research staff to present scientific advances, share experiences, discuss common challenges, and strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of marine research.
With the aim of sharing experiences and establishing new synergies in a relaxed environment, the We Are CIM meetings are organized. These gatherings provide spaces where staff from different areas come together to collaborate, sharing insights on funding dynamics, project conceptualization, and project development.
The Marine Research Center (CIM) of the University of Vigo launches the CIM-PosDou 2026 Research Projects Call, an opportunity designed to strengthen the research careers of the Center’s postdoctoral scientists. This initiative highlights CIM’s commitment to generating impactful knowledge, fostering innovation, and promoting multidisciplinarity in the field of marine research.
