Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center – NERSC (NORWAY)
The Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) was founded in 1986 as a non-profit research foundation affiliated with the University of Bergen.
NERSCs vision is to to serve the society through advancing knowledge on the behaviour of the marine environment and climate system in the spirit of Fridtjof Nansen.
Main research focus areas are:
- Climate understanding, variability and change
- Climate process research
- Ocean modelling, data assimilation and forecasting
- Marine and polar studies using satellite remote sensing and acoustic oceanography
- Socio-economic impact of global change
NERSC is organized in four main research units; the Mohn-Sverdrup Center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography, G.C. Rieber Climate Research Institute, Polar and Environmental Remote Sensing and the Nansen-Bjerknes Group. The main office is located at Marineholmen in Bergen, with a branch office in Svalbard Science Park, Longyearbyen. In addition NERSC is the founding mother institution of the Nansen Group – a network of Nansen research centers – consisting of about 200 scientists, including about 100 PhD and master students in Norway, Russia, China, India and South Africa.
NERSC is a project-based research centre with major funding from the Research Council of Norway, the research programs of the European Commission, space agencies, industry and other governmental and international agencies. By the end of 2009 the Center participates in 16 EC funded projects, of which four are coordinated by the Center, with several new projects under contract negotiations in 2010. The Nansen Center is an approved PI under several announcement of opportunity (AO) programs issued by the major space agencies, providing research and operational access to and use of several types of satellite Earth observation data.
By the end of 2009 the staff includes 64 persons from 14 countries, including 11 in adjunct positions. The staff comprises researchers and senior scientists, eight Post-docs, 13 Ph.D. students, two M.Sc. students and administrative/technical personnel. 36% of the employees were female in 2009. The scientific production of the Nansen Center in 2009 included 51 referee or book publications, 40 publications in conference proceedings, 12 technical and special reports for clients and five popular science articles – totally 111 publications, which is about the annual average number of publications. In 2009 one Master student completed his exam based on work done at the Center.
