???aural:Bildanfang???Group photo at the signing ceremony. © DAAD???aural:Bildende???

Coastal Colombian Resources and Environmental Changes

Professor Stefan Hormuth, president of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and partners from Colombia have signed an agreement at the DAAD in Bonn to create a German-Colombian Centre of Excellence in Marine Sciences in Santa Marta on Colombia's Caribbean coastline.

The DAAD will fund the centre with financing provided by the Federal Foreign Office. The start-up grant for the first five years amounts to 1.5 million euros. The research centre will be established by the University of Giessen and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia together with the Colombian Marine Research Centre INVEMAR (Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas) and other partners.

Building on the Colombian-German doctoral programme in marine sciences, the new Centre of Excellence "Coastal Colombian Resources and Environmental Changes" will play a leading role in marine sciences in the region and will stand out with its international PhD programme. The University of Giessen has been collaborating with Colombia in marine biology since 1963. The planned PhD programme will be closely linked with Giessen's new Bachelor's and Master's programmes in Biology.

The project will focus on creating an efficient infrastructure for marine sciences research in Colombia as well as high-quality, practice-oriented, interdisciplinary doctoral training. Besides making the research findings clearly visible on the international stage, the Centre will also network the programmes that work to protect Colombia's rich coastal resources and will help train the next generation of leading economists and scientists in Colombia.

More information: http://www.invemar.org.co/