Institute of Marine Biology of Crete

Crete is situated in the eastern Mediterranean, where the waters of the Aegean, Ionian and Libyan Seas and the Levantine Basin mingle. The Minoan civilisation was pre-eminent in maritime skills as long ago as 2000BC, leading the eastern Mediterranean from its unguarded palace at Knossos. For the thousands of years since then, these waters have been a major economic resource for the island's population, though this has now been overtaken by international tourism as a source of income. Coastal zone management and protection of the marine environment, ecosystem modelling, deepsea oceanographical studies, GIS, fisheries stock assessment and aquaculture mesocosm technology, all play their part in IMBC research.

Additional Information

The Institute of Marine Biology of Crete (IMBC) was founded in 1987 as a semi-independent research- organisation in marine biology. With a staffing complement of more than 100, IMBC carries out marine biological research at all levels: national, European and international. It has just moved into new installations equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories for research in aquaculture, fisheries, marine ecology, management of coastal resources, biological oceanography, remote sensing and biotechnology.. The 26 metre research vessel PHILIA is well-equipped to carry out both inshore and deepsea sampling work.

IMBC has many EU- and internationally-funded research projects, carried out in collaboration with many European universities. Some of these provide opportunities for short projects which can accommodate exchange students.IMBC also has active and continuous collaboration with the Department of Biology, University of Crete, including the carrying out of research projects for M.Sc. and Ph.D.theses.