The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of the country will fund the implementation of the Service Unit for Marine and Coastal Research Centers operating in the Center for Marine Research (CIIMAR).
The one million dollar funding arises from the Science-Technology Facilitation Program (FCT) promoted by the Andean Development Bank, from which the Ministry seeks to expand infrastructure and equipment for the scientific community.
Daniel Antenucci is the director of CIIMAR and spoke to REVISTA PUERTO about the battery of four containers that will be used at the Nagera Coastal Station property located at Km 542 of Route 11 in an area near Sabathmalal.
„The center will have four experimental and development units (functional units) and two service units. It will be the same in Argentina. Among the services provided by these functional units are the monitoring and control of temperature, salinity, oxygen, pH, alkalinity, light, sound, nutrients and contaminants. „This ability for continuous monitoring and control allows us to create not only scenarios of current conditions, but also simulations of possible future or specific environmental scenarios,” Antenucci explained.
These experimental and operational units will act as a support center for the organizations that make up CIIMAR, namely the Center for the Study of the Sea and its Coasts, the Institute of Marine and Coastal Research, which has undertaken the project for the Ministry. Finance it.
„We see the infrastructure at CIMAR, which is done around the lighthouse. When there is a candidate in the runoff who proposes to close CONICET, it is very much a message to restore what has been a preventive center for developing science and technology. It is a program of inter-institutional centers on strategic issues developed across the country. part,” said the author.
In that regard, the director of CIIMAR explained, “San Antonio Oeste, Tierra del Fuego and Mar del Plata were chosen to cover the entire spectrum of the Argentine sea. 95 percent of the production capacity of biologically active molecules that can be used for the pharmaceutical industry, synthesis of new substances, unknown… We have great potential. „Obviously it’s not immediate returns, but medium and long-term returns,” he admitted.
CIIMAR was the first of the centers to sign the agreement last year, and by the end of the year, three years of work on the lighthouse had been completed. It is still in full progress and restoring the concrete structure of the building.
„The Ministry of Science has invested a lot of money in Mar del Plata,” Antenucci highlights. „The tender was opened for the scientific interpretation center, which will be in another section of the lighthouse, some barracks belonging to the Marine Corps Non-Commissioned Officer School, but it will become a kind of mini technopolis, a program center three-dimensional, a kind of planetarium, a budget of two million dollars,” he said. said.
The scientific community that unites CIIMAR consists of about 450 researchers, including scientists and fellows. The main axes of research are related to biology and geography. „The idea is to expand this to other areas such as law of the sea, renewable energies, etc. INTEMA, the National Institute of Materials Technology, already has people interested in building a nucleus to study wave energy and marine corrosion,” reveals Antenucci.
The teacher and the researcher show his concern about the result of the ballot. “It has been announced that Miley will withdraw all these plans if she wins. He talked about closing down CONICET, not investing in public works and let the private sector take care of it. These efforts by the Ministry of Science and Technology and all efforts to move south of Mar del Plata will no longer be supported. A disused 6,000 square meter former ESIM property, a secret detention center, is being converted into a science and technology center for community service. Because it is basically the use of projects that solve problems in the Argentine sea, pollution or new technologies. „This will result in the loss of reclaimed space for Mar del Plata.”
Finally, Antenucci emphasized all that is at stake with next Sunday’s election. „In 2003 the scientific and technical staff at CONICET was 3 thousand researchers, now we are 13,500, and those people did not come out of the Aladdin’s lamp. It takes fourteen years to comprehensively train a researcher for bachelor’s, doctoral and master’s degrees. This is very much a paradigm shift in investments in science and technology. A breakdown of robustness would in the short term displace all the precious human resources trained here. Many of the projects they work on have no immediate economic returns but long-term returns that are none other than applied technology and science.
