PML signs joint Science Centre agreement with the Korea Ocean
Research and Development Institute (KORDI)
01 April 2011
The Korea Ocean Research
and Development Institute (KORDI), Korea’s main marine and
polar research institution, and the internationally renowned
Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) have today signed an agreement to
establish a KORDI-PML Joint Science Centre based at PML in the
UK.
The signing ceremony took
place at KORDI and was witnessed by Dominic McAllister, First
Secretary for Science & Innovation at the British Embassy in
Seoul. The PML delegation was led by Professor Stephen de Mora,
Chief Executive of PML, who expressed his commitment to the joint
research efforts stating “I will spare no effort in conducting the
joint use of research facilities and providing relevant information
to achieve the successful implementation of the KORDI-PML Science
Office.”
Already a number of areas have been identified where the two
institutes can work together, pooling expertise, experience and
equipment to make the best of their combined science.
Management of coastal waters, the search for biofuels and other
products from algae, and research into marine renewable energy are
all important areas where joining up should pay huge dividends. PML
has world-class expertise in satellite observations of the oceans,
and modelling to help project future scenarios of climate change
and ocean acidification, for example, and will be working alongside
Korean colleagues to make this expertise available more widely.
The establishment of the Joint Science Centre follows the
signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in June 2010 when a
senior delegation, including Dr Kang Jung-Keuk, President of KORDI,
visited PML.