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Prime Minister opened the Hjort Centre for Marine Ecosystem Dynamics

The Hjort Centre for Marine Ecosystem Dynamics was opened by the Prime Minister this week. The Centre will provide the scientific foundation for increased harvest from the ocean.

Statsministeren åpner Hjortsenteret

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The small city of Bergen already produces so many peer-reviewed publications within marine science that it is on the top 10 list worldwide, but a challenge has been to convert mass into momentum. In an attempt to raise ambitions and put the big questions on the agenda, four institutions in Bergen have now agreed to collaborate in a Hjort Centre for Marine Ecosystem Dynamics: Institute of Marine Research, University of Bergen, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, and Uni Research. The centre's ambition is to become an international point of gravity in marine ecosystem research worldwide.

The Centre is named after Johan Hjort, often referred to as the founder of modern fisheries science due to his contributions and particularly the book Fluctuations in the great fisheries of Northern Europe (1914). Most of his groundbreaking research was done in Bergen, where Hjort became Norwegian Fisheries Director and simultaneously the first director of the Institute of Marine Research.

The Hjort Centre will had its official opening on Tuesday 18 February 2014, and there is currently hectic activity on developing the Science Plan with heavy involvement from the University of Bergen.