Message from the Executive Director

It is a great challenge to participate in the leadership of AD AIRCentre. The scope is large – the whole Atlantic Basin – and the ambition is high: promote the voice of the Atlantic by the fair cooperation between national and regional organizations that share a common commitment to the Ocean and to their communities.

Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are threatening the health of the Ocean and only a coordinated and co-designed, science-based citizen action can achieve objective and measurable results for the benefit of society.

Fortunately, AIR Centre community is large and committed: some of the most representative organizations of the Atlantic are already cooperating, promoting mobility, and sharing their experiences and knowledge. Nevertheless, we must increase the effort because the time is short compared with the magnitude of the problems.

Let’s be persistent and keep the direction.

Miguel Miranda, September 2023

The AIR Centre

The Atlantic International Research Centre is an international collaborative framework to address global challenges and local priorities in the Atlantic Ocean. It promotes an integrative approach to climate and ocean issues in the Atlantic, supported by emerging technological innovations and advances in space, renewable energy and data science, and through international cooperation.

Mission and Vision

We want to act as a framework for scientific and technological collaboration and development of ideas, policies, research programmes and projects within the context of the Atlantic Ocean, aligning national priorities and global challenges through co-design and co-implementation of joint actions and mobility of researchers. Our activities are oriented to attract the youngsters and to foster local skilled job creation through “user-driven and open innovation platforms” that test new solutions and facilitate social appropriation of scientific knowledge, incorporating also traditional, local and indigenous knowledge in the process.

Impact in Global, Regional and Local Agendas

AIR Centre is actively contributing to strengthen the Atlantic Community at Global and Regional levels. The strengthening of the community by the share of knowledge and means is the best approach to protect and restore marine ecosystems and the promotion of nature-based solutions. In addition, the AIR Centre is expanding the use of satellite data for ocean monitoring through the development of meaningful applications and the use of geoinformation as a planning tool. AIR Centre is promoting capacity building on the Atlantic Basin by increasing the community of Copernicus users and sharing experiences from a large community of partners. In the future all systems able to provide meaningful information on the ocean will be welcomed and promoted.

Regarding local agendas, AIR Centre activities are designed to impact the conservation and restoration of marine ecosystems and sustainable fishing. On-going projects coordinated by the secretariat or Azores team are listed at this “website” but a much larger number of initiatives are developed by our partners and deserve your attention.

Historical development

The 1^st Atlantic Interactions International Workshop (New York City, USA, June 2016) was driven by the Portuguese Government and initiated a systematic process of scientific diplomacy. This was followed by five High-Level Industry-Science-Government-Dialogues and other scientific and policy workshops under the title of “Atlantic Interactions”. The establishment of the AIR Centre was achieved as a conclusion of the 2^nd High-Level Dialogue on Atlantic Interactions (Florianopolis, Brazil, November 2017). It was acknowledged that the AIR Centre would become a multilateral networked organization, in association with national and international scientific and research infrastructures. The Association for the Development of the AIR Centre was legally formed in April 2018 as a non-profit association under the Portuguese law, with headquarters in Terceira Island, Azores, and facilities in Lisbon (Portugal).