The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences (IUI) evolved from the Eilat H. Steinitz Marine Biology Laboratory, which was established by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968. A decade of intense activities in the Red Sea took place, during which pioneering surveys and research in all marine sciences disciplines were performed in the eastern Sinai shores and related deep sea. In 1984, the Israel Council for Higher Education established the IUI as a national facility, shared by all universities in the country. IUI provies ASSEMBLE Plus TA services, for which HUJI is the Israeli partner.
The IUI is the only interuniversity teaching and research facility in Israel and provides Israeli and foreign universities with research and teaching capabilities in all fields of marine science. The coral reefs and the open waters adjacent to the IUI are ecologically-unique ecosystems of outstanding importance. The IUI has strong expertise in studying corals, fish, zooplankton, phytoplankton and bacteria, as well as long-term monitoring of marine ecosystems and management of large databases. Research activities at the IUI span the whole spectrum of marine sciences, including ecology, chemical, physical and biological oceanography, microbiology, plankton biology and ecology, ichthyology, invertebrate and vertebrate biology, neurobiology, molecular biology and marine biogeochemistry.
Ecosystems
- Coral reefs
- Open water ecoststems