Research centres
The research at VLIZ will be serviced by multidisciplinary research centres, or Centres of Excellence. Centres of Excellence are or will be (further) developed to become world-level knowledge and infrastructure hubs, with the involvement of multiple VLIZ divisions.
Such research centres create visibility for VLIZ, Flanders and its marine research community in the international marine research context and are assets in collaborative research. They will be instrumental in various research themes and will also generate research through continuous improvement of their services and technologies.
- The VLIZ Marine Data Centre is well established and internationally renowned. Through its data systems and infrastructures, the further valorisation of the growing amount of marine data will be pursued using the latest data analysis techniques and data mining technologies.
- The Marine Robotics Centre is currently being expanded. Its presently available Remotely Operated Vehicle ‘Genesis’ will be complemented with other marine robotics and associated equipment, workspace, development and testing facilities.
- Within the Marine Observation Centre (MOC) VLIZ builds on the activities that were started within the LifeWatch ESFRI project. This centre performs essential and long-term multidisciplinary observations in the marine environment in order to improve our understanding of the dynamics and changes of marine and coastal ecosystems. This is done by developing, deploying and optimizing cost-effective, innovative and integrated observation systems. These consist of a network of bio-sensors at sea and in the coastal area in combination with monthly and seasonal multi-disciplinary measurement campaigns with the RV Simon Stevin on the Belgian part of the North Sea.