National Marine Research Facilities
At the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), the National Marine Facilities (NMF) maintains a range of facilities and services, including research vessels and equipment for the seagoing marine science and maritime community in the Netherlands, which can be requested online via the Marine Facilities Planning tool. NMF also provide marine scientists from the Netherlands with access to a large part of the European research fleet via our partners in the Ocean Facilities Exchange Group (OFEG).
Sub-divisions
- NMF Office-Fleet manages the ships, makes the ship’s planning and organised all aspects of the research cruises.
- NMF Support is responsible for logistics support, technical support during cruises and for maintenance and repairs of equipment.
- NMF Development develops and builds specialized equipment for marine research, both seagoing and land-based. We build to order for scientists working at NIOZ as well as for external customers.
- NMF Data Management is responsible for on-board data acquisition, quality control on data collected on board and for the distribution of data to the scientists and to international data centres such as the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC).
Research vessels
- RV Pelagia – a 66m ocean-going vessel;
- RV Navicula – a 23m vessel for Wadden Sea, Delta, and coastal North Sea research;
- RV Stern – a 12m vessel for single-day research trips on the Wadden Sea.
Seagoing equipment
NMF maintains a diverse pool of seagoing equipment for use on both our own and third-party research vessels. Researchers in the Netherlands can use this equipment for a fee. Most of the NMF equipment is serviced in-house, guaranteeing optimum availability. Examples of total NMF equipment pool are:
- Equipment for sampling in the water column and on the seafloor;
- Equipment for moorings;
- Laboratory containers for experimental work on board;
- Testing facilities for seagoing equipment.
More information
If you want more information about our seagoing research facilities, please contact Thomas de Greef, or Dr. Erica Koning