Atlantic Observatory
Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere ·Portugal
About this project
<p>The project “Atlantic Observatory – Data and Monitoring Infrastructure” aims to create an infrastructure for the acquisition, aggregation and dissemination of oceanographic data contributing to the improvement in the research and monitoring of the Atlantic Ocean, whilst supporting the sustainable management of marine resources. It will focus on: 1. Strengthening a digital infrastructure for data collection, 2. Aggregation and brokerage of entities operating in the Portuguese, continental and autonomous regions (including the integration of information made available by relevant datasets produced by international or regional initiatives relevant to the Atlantic environment), and 3. Strengthening of existing means for ocean monitoring in the Portuguese marine research community. The AO intends to easy the access to high quality marine environmental data covering the Atlantic Ocean basin, including deep ecosystems with critical scientific value, promoting the share of experimentation facilities and monitoring instruments and builds on top of previous and ongoing initiatives. This initiative shall also promote networking between national and international marine research groups, fostering synergies between a large diversity of scientific and technological communities and agendas, including marine robotics, marine biology, marine geosciences, renewable energies, biotechnology, climate research, business, economy and related social sciences. The project also has a bilateral objective –which means the promotion of the cooperation between partners from Norway, Iceland and Portugal focused on the Atlantic environment. This objective will be achieved through the involvement of all project partners in the planning and implementation of the project as well as their contribution to the work-packages according to their expertise. Four technical work packages were established being their work based on the best expertise of each partner.</p>
Bilateral cooperation results
The project greatly benefitted from having donor project partners throughout the entire process. The project proposal was written with all the partners, gaining from the Norwegian and Icelandic partners expertise and experience. As members of the Steering Committee, donor partners were kept up to date on project progress and took part in all decisions made. Most importantly, donor partners called on experts from their institutions to provide guidance and consultancy in more technical aspects, such as the definitions of the scientific equipment’s technical specifications, and the digital data platform solutions and best practices, in the scope of which IPMA was aided by the Head of Norwegian Marine Datacentre, one of the few National Oceanographic Data Centres accredited by IODE.
Project partners
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology Donor project partner· Norway
- Norwegian Institute of Marine Research Donor project partner· Norway
- Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research Donor project partner· Norway
- The Marine and Freshwater Research Institute Donor project partner· Iceland
- Fundo Regional para a Ciência e Tecnologia Project partner· Portugal
- Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation of Madeira Project partner· Portugal
- Oceanic Observatory of Madeira Project partner· Portugal