News

On 30 June Flemish Minister of Economy, Innovation and Agriculture Hilde Crevits laid the symbolic foundation stone of the new InnovOcean Campus. By the end of 2022, this state-of-the-art and energy efficient building will be the new accommodation for the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) and its (inter)national partners, where we will co-house with the Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries...

The amount of plastic in rivers and the ocean is increasing all the time. Within the frame of the PLUXIN project, Flemish scientists, entrepreneurs and The Blue Cluster are joining forces to map the plastics transported to the sea via ports and rivers, using innovative and automatic detection methods. The ultimate goal is to provide solutions and to set up pioneering commercial initiatives in...

Plastic litter is a worldwide problem. Once in the environment, the plastic crumbles into smaller particles. Also through the use of synthetic clothing and cosmetics, abrasive paint layers and car tires, etc. small plastic particles are released. They end up in the air, water and soil. And ultimately also in the sea. Detection and quantification of the smallest fraction of plastics - the so-called...

The marine environment offers a wide variety of organisms. All of them can contain potentially interesting bioactive compounds. Under the motto “who does not seek, does not find”, the PROBIO project aims to intensively screen a selection of marine organisms from Belgian waters for potentially interesting bioactive molecules. The research consortium aims to provide an essential knowledge base for...

To contain the second corona wave, VLIZ is taking measures. Visitors are temporarily not allowed in the offices of VLIZ, including the library. The Marine Station Ostend is exceptionally accessible to third parties, but only by appointment. Most of our employees work from home, but they remain accessible. The VLIZ offices, including the library and the Marine Station Ostend, are currently only...

The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) is also experiencing the consequences of the Corona pandemic. But COVID-19 also created opportunities. In recent weeks, VLIZ has adjusted its activities to focus on social services and new research in the context of the current crisis. This resulted in a varied package of initiatives:

The 2019 annual report presents the highlights for VLIZ in 2019 and focuses on the services VLIZ offers to the marine scientific community, policymakers, the industry, educators and the general public. Performance indicators (KPIs), numbers and lists all together give a transparent overview of the organization and functioning of the institute.

With the preparation of a joint Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), the 13 countries located around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea (BANOS) are providing the basis for the future Research and Innovation Program that needs to generate new knowledge and innovation in support of the decision-making in the region. The three major strategic objectives of this new program have been...

Every year VLIZ awards several prizes to encourage innovative fundamental or applied research in all disciplines of marine sciences. Unfortunately, the 20th VLIZ Marine Science Day, on 18 March 2020, had to be cancelled due to measures to contain the Corona virus and the prizes could not publically presented. In this news item, we list all the winners of the VLIZ Awards 2019. We would like to...

Today 19 March we celebrate all taxonomists: those who are busy day-to-day with discovering and describing new species. Many creatures living in our ocean are still unknown to humankind! Every year, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) holds an election among its 500 contributing experts for their favorite newly discovered species. Check the list of their "darlings" and the story behind...

Each year VLIZ recruits several students working for us in the months of July, August or September. Interested student employees can submit their application via the online form until 30 April 2020. In the first half of May you will be contacted by the HR department.

Scientists use satellite data to gain better insight in algal blooms and sediment transport in coastal waters. Occasionally they have to check the accuracy of this data against measurements made at the spot - at the sea surface - and eventually correct for errors. Traditionally marine scientist undertake expeditions with a research vessel to measure the actual situation. Within the project...

The Think Thank North Sea is working on a widely supported long-term vision 2050 for the Belgian part of the North Sea. Two working groups set to work in 2019 on the themes 'Working with nature' and 'Living with climate change'. They now come up with recommendations and core principles that stakeholders can take into account in their operations today to guarantee a nice future for our part of the...

What once started as an investigation into an environmentally friendly and fuel-saving alternative to traditional beam trawling in the late 1970s, ends in July 2021 in a ban on pulse fishing in all waters of the European Union. In the Belgian and French 12-mile zone, this ban has been in place since August 14 2019. In this way, the competitive interactions between pulse fishing and other fisheries...

The newest 2020 edition of the culinary competition Olivier Roellinger calls on to work with sustainable fish and to provide a motivated explanation to customers. The competition is open to young chefs and students from European catering schools who personally want to contribute to the conservation of marine resources and the protection of the seas and ocean. New this year is the separate...

The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) exists for twenty years. And this has to be celebrated! On Thursday 28 November, the kick-off of the 2020 party year was given in the Versluys Arena in Ostend. A new VLIZ video and an audio expo with stories from 20 privileged witnesses were launched. In order to be able to celebrate the birthday with its extensive network, VLIZ organizes various activities...

Marine Regions – an open database of global maritime boundaries and names of underwater locations – launched a new version of its Maritime Boundaries component. This version 11 contains updates of downloadable polygons from the global Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), supplemented with new treaties where necessary, as well as all 12- and 24-nautical mile zones, internal and archipelagic waters of...

Established in 2004, EurOBIS aims at centralising and making available the largely scattered marine species biogeographic data in Europe. Today – 15 years later – it hosts no less than 24 million distribution records of 62.299 species. Thanks to EurOBIS and the effort of many scientists working on a voluntary basis, these valuable data have a second life.