The Institute of Marine Research shall be a leading centre of marine research that is highly trusted and which delivers high quality, significant and relevant knowledge, advice and data services. Our core areas are fisheries, aquaculture, seafood and ecosystem impacts.
The Institute of Marine Research (IMR) will celebrate its 125th anniversary half-way through the new strategic planning period. The fact that we have been doing marine research for well over a century gives us a strong foundation. We need that, now that change is becoming faster, leaving us less and less time to adapt. Being willing and able to change is a recurring theme in our new strategy.
As a knowledge institution, we have all of the prerequisites for success: creative, wise employees who are motivated not just by the work they do, but also by the IMR’s societal mission.
The IMR has undergone an incredible transformation, and it is today one of Europe’s biggest centres of marine research. At the same time, society is dealing with increasingly complex challenges, which means that far more tasks need to be undertaken, with the same resources as before, or even fewer. Our new strategy will help us to navigate our way forward. It sets a course for how to fulfil our societal mission with the funding we have at our disposal at any given time – as well as seize any opportunities that arise.
We shall strive to reduce climate and environmental footprints, including in our own operations. Innovation and technology will become even more important tools, both in our day-to-day operations and as we chart a course towards the ocean of the future.
Streamlining our operations and becoming more focused in our strategy will allow us to free up some resources. They will be ploughed into forward-looking development. That includes innovation, pilot studies and curiosity-driven research. Having ambitious goals, maintaining high scientific standards in all aspects of our work and regularly publishing scientific articles are important to our success. These projects will also play a vital role in achieving our goal of increasing our external research portfolio.
We can only ensure clean and productive seas and coastal areas if we truly acknowledge nature’s intrinsic value. Our work on integrated fisheries management reflects this and provides Norway with a good springboard for meeting its obligations under the Global Biodiversity Framework. We shall continue to evolve our scientific support for global development in accordance with the IMR’s other activities on integrated ecosystem management.
The biggest challenges need to be solved across sectors, national borders and and across the ocean. We have chosen to call this community of stakeholders the ecosystem. The traditional meaning of the term is both familiar and dear to us. Figuratively, the term ecosystem encompasses a broader understanding of all of the interrelationships, levels and connections that exist in the modern world. We shall use these dynamic interdependencies to develop our organisation and search for new partners and opportunities for collaboration.
We are also very conscious of our responsibility to find the right balance between the IMR’s core activities and the demands that the ocean of the future will put on us. And – equally importantly – what the coming generations would want of us.
