WG Open Research Technology

The Working Group set its goal in developing technologies that enable low-threshold access and broader participation to marine observation from society. The aim is to enable not only scientists, but also fishermen, sailors and many other committed persons to carry out simple and reliable marine observations and to actively participate in ocean observing networks.

Schaubild, welches Bürogebäude und verschiedene Schiffe zeigt, welche widerum durch Linien miteinander verbunden sind


Together with the German marine and coastal research institutes, Geomar and Hereon, we are setting up the Helmholtz innovation platform SOOP - Shaping an Ocean of Possibilities for science-industry cooperation. With SOOP, we want to create a technology platform that aims to bring the knowledge and tools of good measurement practice in ocean observation into broad application through user-friendly, cost-effective and scalable technologies from the field of science.


We are working on setting up the Ocean Observation Innovation Laboratory, build to make an important contribution. The Ocean Observation Innovation Laboratory utilizes the advantages of coastal locations. Experimental infrastructures such as Repon and Mesocosms will be equipped with new technologies and supported in their expansion. They are to form the local foothold of a field laboratory infrastructure in which users, science and companies cooperate in the development of demand- and user-oriented ocean observation technologies. The field laboratory infrastructure is to find its ocean-wide foothold in a global network of committed users, which we are working to connect.

With national and international partners, solutions are currently being developed to meet the great demand from users for affordable, easy-to-use and reliable measurement systems for specific marine observations. The international partner network includes alumni of the NF-POGO Centre of Excellence, a capacity development program that has been running at the Alfred Wegener Institute at the island sites since 2013.

Our work is closely interlinked with the groups at AWI involved in the development of SOOP (Technology Transfer, Data, WGs of div. Sections) and the partner institutes.