Great Opportunity for Irish Marine Scientists

Irish marine researchers can now apply for fully funded ship time in 2011 on a range of 18 ocean going and inshore research vessels under a new project called EUROFLEETS which has been launched and funded by the European Union. Expressions of interest need to be received by the 15th January 2010, with the call for full proposals opening on 1st March 2010.  

EUROFLEETS offers scientists 66 fully funded days of ship time on 5 global/ocean class research vessels and 110 days of ship time on 13 regional class ships including the use of large equipment such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles.  

Mr Aodhan Fitzgerald, of the Marine Institute’s Ocean Science Services Team, said, “This provides a fantastic opportunity for Irish researchers to access a wide variety of vessel and equipment  across Europe. The Marine Institute is proud and pleased to offer ship time on the national research vessels RV Celtic Explorer and RV Celtic Voyager as well as access to the ROV “Holland 1”as part of this project.”  

 

The EU project EUROFLEETS “Towards an alliance of European research fleets” was launched on the first of September 2009, bringing together 24 partners, from 16 member states of the European Union or associated countries forming the EUROFLEETS consortium, whose main objective is to develop the coordination within European research fleets. This project fosters the shared use of European research vessels and associated equipment to enhance their efficiency and help reducing costs, also by providing scientists on land with real time data from cruises. It entails the development of environmental standards for new research vessels, the development of new cruise planning tools and hardware for underwater vehicles.  

A central aim of EUROFLEETS is to provide access to research vessels for all European scientists and their partners on the sole condition of scientific excellence covering all fields of marine science from environmental and biodiversity protection, to coastal zone management, geodynamics and climate change research.

 

To pursue this aim, fully funded ship time on various European research vessels will be available between 2011 and 2013 to support outstanding research projects.  

 

The EUROFLEETS research vessels

The EUROFLEETS project provides ship time on 5 global/ocean research vessels, as well as on 13 regional vessels operating around Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea. A detailed description of the research vessels participating in the EUROFLEETS project, their technical capabilities, available scientific instrumentation and equipment, completed by a brief description of the obtainable ship time and area of operation can be found at www.eurofleets.eu.

This information should be used as a basis for the selection of the most suitable platform for your scientific project.  

Application procedure/Proposal submission

The application procedure involves two stages. In order to estimate the demand for ship time, scientists are invited to submit an “Expression of Interest” (EOI) until the 15th of January 2010.

The opening of calls for a full proposal submission is expected to be on the 1st of March 2010.

The submission of an EOI is not compulsory for the subsequent submission of a full proposal.

Taking into account the evaluation and approval processes, the successful projects are expected to start their cruises in Spring 2011, at the earliest.  

Proposals are only eligible, if they fulfil the following criteria:

• The Principle Investigator (PI) should be from a university or public research institute within the European Union or an associated state
• The PI of a project can not apply for ship time on a research vessel from its own country
• Proposals must involve at least two partners from two different countries.  

If you are interested in applying for ship time in the frame of the EUROFLEETS project, please submit an Expression of Interest by filling out the application template provided on the project website at www.eurofleets.eu .

Please send your Expression of Interest via email to eurofleets@awi.de.