Hellenic Center for Marine Research

Description

The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) is the Greek national agency in charge of the study and the monitoring of the marine and freshwaters (physical oceanography and marine biology). The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), was established as a new research organization in the year 2001, by merging of the former Institute of Marine Biology of Crete (IMBC), established 1987 and the former National Centre of Marine Research (NCMR). It consists of three institutes: the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture (IMBBC), the Institute of Oceanography (IO) and the Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters (IMBRIW) and is established in several sites near Athens, in Crete and Rhodes Islands. Since its inception, a team was created in Crete to monitor marine biodiversity, and to develop databases for marine biodiversity. HCMR became the Regional OBIS Node for the Mediterranean and the Black Sea in 2006, providing about 140 datasets and 34017 occurrence records. Later, the datasets from the Black Sea were removed and managed by a dedicated Regional OBIS Node. In 2013, supported by the ministry of research, HCMR joined the European LifeWatch network (soon to be an official consortium of several European countries) that aims at developing a distributed research e-infrastructure for biodiversity data and data observatories under the ESFRI programme. LifeWatchGreece has constituted a large network of almost all institutions in Greece working on biodiversity including terrestrial ecosystems. Among other tasks, it has in charge to continue to maintain and develop the MedOBIS node, and also to establish the National GBIF node (in progress). In addition to the existing marine datasets, data managers from all around Greece have been trained to digitize data from old and recent literature. LifeWatchGreece has also initiated discussions to create a working group about natural history collections in order to help museums, universities and research centers to computerize their specimen collections.

Contacts

ADMINISTRATIVE_POINT_OF_CONTACT
Eva Chatzinikolaou
Telephone: +30-2810337740
email: evachatz@hcmr.gr

TECHNICAL_POINT_OF_CONTACT
Dimitra Mavraki
Telephone: +30-2810337740
email: dmavraki@hcmr.gr

POINT_OF_CONTACT
Dimitra Mavraki
Telephone: +30-2810337740
email: dmavraki@hcmr.gr

Hellenic Center for Marine Research
46,7 km, 19013, Anavisso, GR
Athens
19013
Attica
GR