The Plentzia Marine Station (PiE-UPV/EHU) is the marine station of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the only public University in the Basque Autonomous Region. It was created initially to provide research services and facilities to the research groups in the departments of the university that investigate the functions, resources and health status of marine ecosystems (over 45 staff researchers and academics). Born in July 2012, it soon (2014) became involved in the implementation of of EMBRC Spain and part of the EMBRC European landscape. This brought a realignment of the mission of the marine station towards also offering research services to researchers outside the University, and not solely through collaborations. Special focus has been put on addressing the research needs of the regional blue bioeconomy sector in the European space of marine biological research.
PiE-UPV/EHU offers
PiE-UPV/EHU offers access to unique marine ecosystems, marine biological resources, and research platforms to a wide-range of stakeholders. It also offers the knowledge and experience provided by its in-house senior researchers and university departments with more than 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals per year.
Within its broad portfolio of services, PiE-UPV/EHU offers access to pristine and anthropogenised estuarine and littoral ecosystems (sandy beaches, mud flats, rocky shores, commercial harbours) that can be sampled in situ to further conduct studies at its research platforms (wet and dry labs) specially designed to conduct ecotoxicological research in regard to exposure to chemical pollutants. This is accompanied by modern biobanking services and collections providing retrospective health assessment possibilities though the Biscay “Bay Environmental Biospecimen Bank”.
Besides access to state-of-the-art laboratories and research platforms, with all the equipment necessary to conduct advanced microscopic, biochemical, molecular and analytical chemistry research, the main campus of UPV/EHU is just 15 km away and its research services are fully accessible to users.
PiE-UPV/EHU provides research and training services in a fully international environment made possible by the over 60 international students form the 5 continents that populate the 3 International Erasmus Mundus Master and PhD programmes taught and coordinated from the marine station.