Adelino Canário appointed president of the GA of the European Marine Biological Resources Laboratory

Adelino Canário, director of the Center for Marine Sciences (CCMAR) and professor at the University of Algarve (UAlg), was appointed president of the General Assembly of the European Laboratory for Marine Biological Resources (EMBRC), the body that makes decisions regarding strategy, management and scientific development.

The EMBRC is a European research infrastructure, based in Paris, which offers the academic community, researchers and companies access to marine resources, services, equipment and facilities. To fulfill this objective, the EMBRC brings together more than 45 marine stations and research centers from ten countries: Portugal, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Through the EMBRC, the state-of-the-art facilities and instruments that integrate these marine stations and research centers are accessible to the entire scientific community.

For Adelino Canário, research infrastructures such as the EMBRC «are essential for science, because by making state-of-the-art facilities and equipment accessible, they are facilitating high-level research».

Furthermore, «they result from associations from several countries, so there is a wide range of opportunities for Portuguese researchers to be able to carry out research in other countries. They are also a tool for companies to develop or improve their products”.

According to the new president, «Portugal has played an important role in the creation and implementation of the EMBRC. The election to chair the EMBRC is a recognition of this role and a commitment to the continuous development of that infrastructure in which CCMAR-Algarve coordinates the national node with the participation of the Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), Instituto do Mar (IMAR) and Algoteca de Coimbra (ACOI)».

The EMBRC was officially launched in 2018, the year in which Adelino Canário was appointed vice-president of the General Assembly. Currently, the vice presidents are Simon Berkowicz, from Israel, and Koen Lefever, from Belgium.