Fourteen organizations across Europe started a new EU HORIZON 2020 Project under the Developing New World-Class Research Infrastructures Programme.
Gliders for Research, Ocean Observation and Management Infrastructure and Innovation (GROOM II) is a three-year long project led by theAssociation pour la Recherche et le Développement des Méthodes et Processus Industriels of France (ARMINES), with PLOCAN as a partner together with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Toulon Var Technologies (TVT) from France, Helmholtz Zentrum Fur Ozeanforschung Kiel (GEOMAR) from Germany, Cyprus Subsea Consulting and service Limited (CSCS) from Cyprus, the University of Bergen (UiB), Ilmatieteen Laitos (FMI) and the University of Gothenburg (UGOT) from Scandinavia, the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the Marine Institute (MI) from the British Islands, the University of Porto (UPORTO) from Portugal, Ecorys Nederland BV (ECORYS) from Holland and the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) from Greece.
The GROOM II project will build on previous efforts to develop a EU glider-infrastructure.
In particular, the project will define the overall organization of the infrastructure to focus on ocean research and innovation. The project is involved in a number of fields of science including: Natural Sciences, Computer & Information Sciences, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Big Data, among others.
Research is becoming increasingly important to the Blue Economy strategy. As a result, surface and underwater drone technologies have gained prominence. In particular, ocean gliders are essential vehicles equipped with a scientific observing system for activities that support the Blue Economy. Gliders facilitate environmental observations from the surface down to deep waters.
Ocean gliders have great advantages over traditional observation, such as being mobile, steerable, persistent and operable as a fleet. Glider operations involve relatively lower costs than traditional monitoring methods. However, the distributed infrastructure required to exploit these assets must be able to meet various demands from different users. Building on its predecessor, GROOM II will deliver the decision basis for an advanced Marine Research Infrastructure (MRI).
PLOCAN is partner of GROOM II with direct commitments on WP2 – European Research Infrastructure landscape; WP3 – Governance and Financial Sustainability; WP4 – Glider European Research Infrastructure (GERI) Integration and contribution to sustained observing efforts; WP5 – Services for Public policies, Market & Innovation; WP6 – Technical benefits of a Glider European Research Infrastructure.
GROOM II project has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Grant Agreement Nr. 951842.
