News

By EurOBIS, the European section of the International Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the European marine species distribution data are made freely available. To give the system more visibility and its own identity, a new EurOBIS website was launched recently: www.eurobis.org.

The Catalogue of Life (CoL) has the ambitious objective to list all species that occur worldwide, on land and at sea. There was already a contribution to this initiative from the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), but recently Leen Vandepitte and Wim Decock– both working in the VLIZ data centre for the WoRMS data management team – became member of the ' CoL Global Team ' and the ' CoL...

The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) & HYDRO vzw organize the Prize Dr Edouard Delcroix 2013. This international scientific prize, with a value of 25 000 EUR, will be awarded to a researcher or a research team for an original scientific study on the links between "the marine environment and human health".

During the past 4 years THESEUS combined findings from 8 study sites - including the Scheldt estuary - and developed a Decision Support System (DSS) for sustainable decision making, specifically applied to these sites. On the final conference, on 18 October 2013 in Brussels, the coastal engineers, ecologists, sociologists and economists share their findings. Interested scientists and policymakers...

On 31 August 2013 it happened. The former Flemish research vessel RV Zeeleeuw, renamed RV Mtafiti, departed from the harbour of Ostend for its 7 week journey to Mombasa, Kenya. There the ship will be used by the Kenyan Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) to carry out marine studies of benefit to the local population and to several regional tasks in the West Indian Ocean.

Did you recently graduate at a Flemish university or technical college? Then you have to apply for the VLIZ Thesis Awards for Marine Sciences 2013! Subscription before the 30th of November 2013.

Will you be the next laureate of the ‘VLIZ North Sea Award’? Individual scientists or research groups can submit their subscription file until the 30th of November 2013. Mostly Ph.D. theses are submitted, but a (series of) peer-reviewed papers are also permissible.

The Navigating the Future series provides regular pan-European summaries of the current status of marine research, priority recommendations and future scientific challenges in the context of European societal needs. Navigating the Future IV has been launched in Brussels on 20 June in the presence of EU Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.

In the framework of the Flemish contributions to the LifeWatch infrastructure, the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Ghent University and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) installed a high-tech sensor network to monitor the habitat use and migration patterns of large birds in Flanders. The first data received from several nesting gulls gave already very surprising first results.

KBIN-OD Natuurlijk Milieu (MUMM) and VLIZ co-ordinate the operations of the research vessels BELGICA and SIMON STEVIN in order to maximise their availability to the marine science community. Therefore MUMM and VLIZ each year launch a common call for ship time for the following year.

With the 'Super Integration Call' and the 'Embarked equipment Call' the EU FP7 project offers ship-time on board of EUROFLEETS-research vessels and the use of large marine equipment. The RV Simon Stevin is operational within EUROFLEETS2.

In 2012, the VLIZ Annual Report was thoroughly redesigned: next to a printed report, in which a selection of the most striking new initiatives and highlights are shown, the more detailed figures and extensive information on the numerous internal and external projects are made available in a digital annex. We hope you enjoy reading the first Annual report 'new style'!

On the 3rd of May, 2013, the handover of the RV Zeeleeuw to the Republic of Kenya became a fact. The oceanographic research vessel of the Flemish Government will now sail under the Kenyan flag and will be named RV Mtafiti, Swahili for ‘researcher’. An appropriate name, since RV Zeeleeuw has served Belgian and international marine researchers in the southern bight of the North Sea, for thirteen...

This expo - from 15 May till 9 June in Fort Napoleon, Oostende - shows a selection of the art works created by the students of the Visual Arts Academy in Ghent after having followed workshops given by marine scientists from the University of Ghent and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). In the week before the World Ocean Day we organise several ocean science ateliers (for schools) and evening...

The introduction of non-indigenous animals and plants are a hot topic for policy makers. Intentionally or unintentionally imported foreign organisms can have a big impact on the ecosystem and its functioning. Around this theme and with a focus on the North East Atlantic Ocean, ILVO, VLIZ, MUMM and UGent organize a conference on 20-22 november 2013 in Ostend. Not to be missed!

MARID stands for 'Marine and River Dune Dynamics', a series of international conferences on the research and expertise exchange on seabed form structures, geomorphology, sedimentology and hydrodynamics in the marine environment and rivers. The 4 th editions of the conference is held the medieval city of Bruges (Belgium), on Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 April 2013, with a field trip on Wednesday 17...

With 303 participants this thirtheenth edition of the VLIZ Young Marine Scientists Day - held on Friday 15 February in KHBO, Bruges - was a top event! The floor was given to near a hundred young researchers to show their scientific results, covering the full range of marine disciplines. The public voted the best speaker and poster. The prizes of the VLIZ Thesis Awards and the North Sea Award were...

For assistance in the implementation of the SPINCAM project, aiming to establish an Integrated Coastal Area Management indicator framework in each country of the Southeast Pacific region (Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru). The assistent is based in the Paris office of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.