Press release 2016-02-16 at 9:15
A consortium assembled by the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE has been granted a significant amount of EU funding for the development of Arctic oil spill response methods and the evaluation of their environmental effects. Set to launch in March, the 3.5-year project will involve a total of 13 research institutes and companies from nine different countries. The project will be coordinated by SYKE.
Oil on ice. © Jouko Pirttijärvi, SYKE
The project was granted a total of EUR 5.28 million in funding as part of the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. In addition to this, SYKE also received funding from Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for the preparation of the project. The coordinator of the project, titled GRACE, is Leading Researcher Kirsten Jørgensen from the SYKE Marine Research Centre.
"The project will focus on developing, comparing and evaluating the effectiveness and environmental effects of different oil spill response methods in a cold climate. In addition to this we will be developing a system for the real-time observation of underwater oil spills and a strategic tool for choosing oil spill response methods," says Kirsten Jørgensen.
The results of the project will be made available for use to international organisations that plan and carry out cross-border oil spill response cooperation in Arctic sea areas. The full name of the project is ”Integrated oil spill response actions and environmental effects – GRACE.”
The aim of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme is to drive economic growth and the creation of new jobs in Europe, and improve the global competitiveness of European companies.
The project consortium includes two Finnish companies, Lamor Corporation Ab and Meritaito Oy. The other members of the consortium are Aarhus University from Denmark, the University of Tartu and the Tallinn University of Technology from Estonia, RWTH Aachen University from Germany, the University of the Basque Country from Spain, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norut Narvik from Norway, Greenland Oil Spill Response A/S from Greenland, SSPA Sweden AB from Sweden and the University of Manitoba from Canada.
More information
Leading Research Scientist. Kirsten S. Jørgensen
Finnish Environment Institute, Marine Research Center
Tel. +358 295 251 245
The Web Pages of the Project: