EUROFLEETS+ “An alliance of European marine research infrastructure” – calls for ship-time proposals

The EU funded project EUROFLEETS+ aims at access provision, optimised use, and improvement of services offered by research infrastructures, to establish a world-class integrated marine research infrastructure. Furthermore, shared research infrastructures offered by EUROFLEETS+ represent a unique opportunity for education and training (e.g. onboard practical courses, Co-Principal Investigator (PI) programme) in marine sciences, attract new users and preparing the next generation of researchers.

To pursue this aim, fully funded ship-time on 27 international research vessels and 13 pieces of marine equipment will be made available between 2020 and 2022 to support outstanding research projects. Through competitive calls, EUROFLEETS+ is granting access for researchers and industrial partners based on the sole condition of scientific excellence covering all fields of marine science, with priority to research on sustainable, clean and healthy oceans.

The project EUROFLEETS+ launches three access programmes in 2019, all of them with an obligatory public outreach component:

1) Ship-time and Marine Equipment Application (SEA) Programme for access to the vessels and marine equipment through a full ship-time application. This access programme comprises a mandatory training or educational programme for scientists, students or technicians.

2) The Co-Principal Investigator (PI) programme is specifically aimed at researchers with no experience in leading a research cruise, to implement their own research together with experienced scientists in EUROFLEETS+ scheduled cruises. It is open for applications in a continuous running call until 2022.

3) The Remote Transnational Access (RTA programme) to provide researchers with remote access to samples or data from an EUROFLEETS+ vessels via a running call open until 2022.

EUROFLEETS+ particularly invites young, early career and female researchers, scientists from nations with limited, or no, access to research vessels and other marine infrastructure, to apply via one of the access programmes. This presentation focuses on the funding and education opportunities within the three EUROFLEETS+ access programmes, as well as first call outcomes.