The agreement, which formalises the research collaboration and clarifies the role sharing between the institutes, was signed in Bergen today and signals a more effective marine research environment.
The Institute of Marine Research's Director, Tore Nepstad, is optimistic.
"We will be able to work on far greater and more complex research problems that attend to both industrial and management interests," he says. "We will achieve this by getting the best out of the two research environments in the projects where it is natural to collaborate."
Nofima's CEO, Øyvind Fylling-Jensen, is also interested in what this agreement will imply for the research community in Bergen.
"A close collaboration with the Institute of Marine Research is totally decisive for what Nofima can achieve in Bergen," he says. "We have a small, but extremely competent research community here that is in demand and together with the Institute of Marine Research we can achieve very exciting business-oriented projects based here in Bergen."
Fylling-Jensen also points out the economic benefits of this collaboration.
"We are preoccupied with the fact that public authorities and the business community should get more research for every krone and at the same time that there should be as clear conditions as possible between the research that serves the public interests and the research that serves business interests. This collaboration makes favourable conditions for exactly that."
