Introduction

Welcome to the Institut de Ciències del Mar (Institute of Marine Sciences) de Barcelona. This CSIC’s Natural Resources Area Institute was established in 1951 as the Instituto de Investigaciones Pesqueras (Fisheries Research Institute), and located on the Sant Sebastià beach in Barcelona’s Barceloneta District since 1959. Through its more than 50 years of existence, the ICM has never ceased to expand and advance. At the same time it has undergone a series of changes, such as the inclusion of a Marine Geology Section, the name change to ICM in 1987 and the recent transfer to its new headquarters building as part of the CMIMA. The Institute’s protracted experience and its human resources, with a staff of more than 150 members, which covers most of the fields of oceanographic research (physical and chemical oceanography, geology and biology), give it a global vision of marine ecosystems and the ability to assess the impact of man on the environment and seek appropriate solutions. The goal of the ICM consists on furthering and expanding our scientific understanding of the seas and oceans and on discovering their role in the context of our planet.

The ICM, one of the leading marine research centres in Spain and in the Mediterranean region, is formed by four Departments, Technical Services and Marine Station.

Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography

Department of Marine Geology

Department of Physical Oceanography

Department of Renewable Resources

The ICM makes available a number of different services to the oceanographic research community: a specialized public library containing around 7.000 specialized volumes and 1.400 periodicals dealing with the marine sciences, one of the largest collections in its field in the Mediterranean; an experimental aquarium and chamber facility (ZAE) that is one of the best of its kind in Spain and in the Mediterranean; an experimentation and calibration tank for oceanographic instruments; an ARGUS video imaging coastal observation laboratory; and a satellite data receiving station. The ICM also keeps valuable reference collections. These include a biological reference collection containing fish and crustaceans from all over the world and from the Mediterranean in particular; a marine sediment core collection housing over 1.000 cores; and a collection of seismic reflection profiles from the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and the Antarctic compiled over more than 20 years. In addition, during the course of its operations, the ICM has collected a large body of varied oceanographic data, stored in a database. With a new marine station that encompasses some of these services, CMIMA plans to become a venue for meetings, congresses and courses and a pole of attraction where researchers from all over the world will come to work and study. A focus on co-operation with other public and private institutions and entities aims at promoting interdisciplinary research, and access to the Centre’s marine research facilities is open to researchers from other centres.