Advance Marine Research Infrastructures Together (AMRIT)

Ocean Observing is essential to developing the scientific knowledge we need to assess ongoing changes in the ocean, their impact on climate, biodiversity and beyond and to take action. As the ocean is global, it requires a federated approach so that marine Research Infrastructures (MRI), organisations, researchers and stakeholders can work together to meet this major challenge. In Europe, the European Ocean Observing System (EOOS) framework aims to coordinate and integrate European communities and organisations operating, supporting and maintaining ocean observing infrastructures and activities, fostering collaboration and innovation. It brings Europe’s diverse ocean observing communities together to foster collaboration, strengthen coordination and integration, promote sustained ocean observing and understanding while attracting marine innovation and development.

Marine research infrastructures have been developed through European calls for tender and national funding over the last 20 years, but the lack of coordination and collaboration has resulted in a fragmented framework for effectively meeting EOOS objectives. To set the path towards a more unified and structured European Ocean Observing System, Horizon Europe has launched a series of call for the Consolidation of the RI landscape – development of complementarities, synergies and/or integration between a set of pan- European research infrastructures.

Horizon Europe has allocated more than €5 million to AMRIT - Advance Marine Research Infrastructure together - to strengthen operations at sea and support the development of the EOOS, drawing on the extensive experience and operational capabilities of Europe's established and project-based marine research infrastructures.

A functioning EOOS requires high-quality monitoring of activities, standardised tools to describe these activities (metadata) and support for the wide variety of operators. To do so, AMRIT will develop tools to support operators and facilitate the monitoring of their activities, maintained as part of AMRIT’s final product, the EOOS Technical Support Centre. It will centralise and harmonise metadata flows to provide a single, central access point for all ocean observation activities, improve data reliability, facilitate data use and optimise activities at sea.