Moving towards Future Ocean Sustainability
New initiative of Kiel Marine Science invited to submit a full proposal to the German Excellence Strategy
29 September 2017/Kiel. After two successful applications in 2006 and 2012, Kiel marine researchers today (September 29) have cleared the first hurdle to submitting a new large-scale research proposal within the framework of the German Excellence Strategy. The new research project "Future Ocean Sustainability" is thus one of the positively assessed applications in the pre-selection. The researchers of Kiel University and partners now have time until February 21, 2018 to submit a full proposal. The decision about funding for a 7-year grant from 2019 onwards is expected to be announced on September 27, 2018.
"We are very pleased with the decision taken by the expert committee and are looking forward to the new orientation of our research activities. With our proposal, "Future Ocean Sustainability", we want to further expand Kiel's strong interdisciplinary research on ocean and climate change and for the first time directly link it with the sustainability goals of the UN Agenda 2030. The ocean system is suffering, and we need knowledge-based reflections and strategies for sustainable use, especially in the international context. We want to contribute to this in Kiel,” says Prof. Dr. Martin Visbeck, Speaker of the Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean" and Head of the Research Unit Physical Oceanography at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. "Today we are already expanding on our successful concepts, for example, in the promotion of young talents and the exchange of knowledge, and in the future we will also devote ourselves to major new topics such as interdisciplinary teaching and digitalization." In the new proposal, "Future Ocean Sustainability", all eight faculties of Kiel University will be involved in examining the various interfaces between the ocean and human beings in order to gain a better understanding of the complex human-ocean system. In order to strengthen the new research agenda, but above all also the Kiel Marine Science (KMS) research center, at the beginning of the year Kiel University had already appointed two new female professors dealing with social dynamics in coastal zones and island states, as well as international marine policy. In addition, "Future Ocean Sustainability" relates to the UN goals for the sustainable development of the oceans. In addition to Kiel University as the applying institution, the other partners in “Future Ocean Sustainability” will be the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel - one of the world's leading marine research institutes, the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the Central Library of Economics (ZBW) and the IPN (Leibniz Institute for the Pedagogy of Natural Sciences and Mathematics).
Contact
Prof. Dr. Martin Visbeck, Speaker of “The Future Ocean”, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, speaker(at)futureocean.org
Friederike Balzereit, Public Outreach “The Future Ocean”, fbalzereit(at)uv.uni-kiel.de, Telephone: 0431-880-3032
