Day 3 of the Staff Mobility Week has focused on the marine research carried out by the University of Bergen and the Institute for Marine Research. We left Bergen at 8.30 this morning by bus and travelled to the Espeland Marine Biological Station, the university’s marine research station, which is situated in the beautiful surroundings of the Raunefjord, 20 km south of Bergen and near to the airport. The coast of Norway, which is made unique by its combination of fjords, islands, and scurries, makes it the ideal place for investigating marine life.

The station has a small team of staff but welcomes large groups of visitors throughout the year to carry out research, which is the main focus of activity at the facility. Around 5,000 scientists visit the station each year from all over the world, mainly from countries in Northern Europe.
The mesocosm facility at the station is where most of the research activity takes place, mesocosms being large ‘enclosed water masses’ where the environment within can be manipulated during experiments, to see the effects of increased CO2 levels in seawater, for example. The Mesocosm Laboratory has been appointed as the National Mesocosm Centre by the Research Council of Norway. Espeland has been given Large Scale Facility status by the EU, which is why large groups of scientists are able to visit. The station is also part of an EU exchange programme which funds students’ visits to the facility.

After we had been shown the research station, we were taken by boat to the islands of Austovoll. The boat trip was great and gave us the chance to see the fjord up-close. At Austovoll, we were shown around the Institute for Marine Research (fourth photo above), which is a government funded facility. The institute at Austevoll has 45 staff members and, like Espeland, also welcomes visiting students and scientists and has a close working relationship with the University of Bergen.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Bekkjarvik in Austevoll (last photo above), which was very picturesque and had a small harbour and some shops.

The days are flying by and I cannot believe it will be Thursday tomorrow already! Tomorrow’s activities are focused on information literacy and user education, and include an open seminar where we each have to give a presentation on the information literacy programmes at our own institutions. Thank you Julia, Jackie and Moira for all your help and suggestions about IL teaching at our library.

(I apologise for the lack of website links in today's post - I received error messages each time I tried to add them so I will try again tomorrow).