Someone once said that “Portugal is sea”. Portugal has the 5th largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) within Europe, 3rd largest of the EU and the 20th largest EEZ in the world. Having this enormous resource in mind, the Portuguese National Sea Strategy (2021-2030) “aims to enhance the contribution of the sea to the country’s economy, the prosperity and well-being of all Portuguese, to respond to the great challenges of the decade and to strengthen Portugal’s position and visibility in the world as an eminently maritime nation.” This is only possible through science and innovation-based solutions and international cooperation.
State-of-the-art research facilities underpin cutting edge research and innovation, by bringing together human and material resources to tackle ever increasingly complex problems across all scientific fields. The ocean is no exception.
As part of its mission, FCT supports research infrastructures of strategic interest that sustain scientific and technological advancements and strengthen the scientific R&D&I community in Portugal, thus stimulating their active participation in European and international projects. The Portuguese Research Infrastructures dedicated to marine and maritime issues are a very useful instrument to pursue the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation ambition, at the national but also European and Atlantic levels.
Among the current 56 National Research Infrastructures in all fields of knowledge, FCT supports 6 marine related research infrastructures: TEC4SEA – dedicated to support research, development, and test of marine robotics, telecommunications, and sensing technologies for monitoring and operating in the ocean environment, EMSO_PT – dedicated to generate continuous scientific data on marine environmental processes related to the interaction between the geosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere; EMBRC.PT – dedicated to provide researchers and companies with access to marine organisms and the facilities to study them, including experimental facilities and technological platforms, COASTNET – dedicated to improve the understanding of Portuguese coastal ecosystems’ functioning through the development of a coastal monitoring system, C4G – dedicated to promote the networking of researchers and the sharing of equipment, data, collections and tools in Solid Earth Sciences, including the seabed and AIR Centre – dedicated to promote an integrative approach to space, climate, ocean and energy in the Atlantic.
Following the All-Atlantic Ocean Research & Innovation Alliance motto, CONNECT, ACT and COOPERATE we invite you to download the below leaflets to know more about the 6 above mentioned Portuguese Research Infrastructures and how they can contribute to the cooperative research and innovation in the Atlantic geographical space: TEC4SEA , EMSO_PT, EMBRC.PT, COASTNET, C4G and AIR Centre.
