The venue of the Symposium is National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Dona Paula, Goa.
The CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), an Institute of international repute, with its headquarters at Dona Paula, Goa, and regional centers at Kochi, Mumbai and Visakhapatnam, is one of the 37 constituent laboratories of the Council of Scienti?c & Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, and was established on 1 January 1966. The focus of research has been on observing and understanding the special oceanographic features that the North Indian basin offers. The results of this research have been reported in about 5000 research articles so far.
The institute has about 200 scientists and 100 technical support staff. The major research areas include biological, chemical, geological/geophysical, and physical besides some other areas such as marine instrumentation and archaeology. The institute has well equipped laboratories to conduct research in these areas. The institute has a library with 15,000 books and 20,000 back volumes of research journals, making it the best collection of printed literature on ocean sciences in the country. In addition to basic research, the institute also carries out applied research sponsored by the industry. These studies include oceanographic data collection, environmental impact assessment, and modeling to predict environmental impact. The institute also provides consultancy on a number of issues including marine environmental protection and coastal zone regulations.
The Institute had its ?rst research vessel in RV Gaveshani and coastal vessel in CRV Sagar Sukti. Currently the Institute operates ocean going vessels ORV Sindhu Sankalp and ORV Sindhu Sadhana for multidisciplinary oceanographic observations.
The Institute will celebrate the 50th year of its existence in 2015, which also coincides with the 50 years of the completion of the International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE), which led to the establishment of this Institute. This idea was expressed by Prof. R.B. Montgomery who stated, “…..IIOE program can be so designed as to aid directly the development of one or more oceanographic centers in the countries bordering the Indian Ocean..”.
The proposal to set up the National Institute of Oceanography was placed by Dr. D.N. Wadia, FRS, in the 52nd meeting of the Board of Scientific and Industrial Research (BSIR) in 1964, which was approved in 49th Governing Body meeting of CSIR in 1965. The initial plan outlined the organizational structure of the institute and the likely areas of research that it would take up. Interestingly, the need for a research vessel for the institute was also realized during the draft plan period itself. The plan also mentioned about the functional units (Indian Ocean Biological Centre (at Ernakulam, Cochin), Indian Ocean Physical Oceanography Centre (at National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad) and Indian Ocean Data Centre (at Delhi) to be part of the institute besides the need for creating additional units. While the institute administration started functioning at CSIR, New Delhi, the location of its Headquarters in Goa with the regional stations at Kochi (Cochin), Visakhapatnam (Waltair) and Kolkata (Calcutta) were decided in 1966 . The Regional station at Kolkata did not become a reality but the liaison of?ce set up to provide logistic support to IIOE participating organizations at Mumbai was transformed into the regional centre of the NIO. The regional centre at Kochi was established as planned, but that at Visakhapatnam was only established in 1976.
