Training Through Research Programme (TTR)

The Program

Since it became operational in 1991, the Training Through Research (TTR) program has pursued a double purpose: to train young marine scientists in the field and to conduct marine scientific research. Specifically, the TTR program focuses on marine geosciences, however theses are integrated with benthic biology, physical oceanography and geosphere-biosphere coupling on the continental margins and the high seas. The primary mechanism of the TTR program is a cruise, or a series of cruises, on large marine geoscience research vessels where undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students as well as young scientists from universitiies and institutions around the world collect primary data from the oceans. The geographic areas of concentration of the TTR program have been the North-East Atlantic Ocean, teh Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. The scientific arean of concentration have been: mud volcanism/clay diapirism and related gas and gas hydrate occurrances, sand on the continental margins, giant cold water carbonate mounds, slope stability and geohazards and neotectonics of the continental margin.

Outcomes of TTR

The benefits of the TTR program extend beyond the achievement of its double purpose of training young marine scientists in the field and conducting marine scientific research. The TTR program enhances the capacity of the scientific community by bringing people from diverse backgrounds and geographically far universities into contact with each other in a collaborative effort. The data and knowledge gathered during the cruises are analyzed in multiple laboratories around the globe, their consequences are discussed in each respective lab, as well as at annual TTR research conferences, and its conlusions drafted in scientific journals and papers. Over 50 peer-reviewed research papers have been published on TTR research.

TTR Contributors

The TTR program is sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, and is coordinated through its Executive Committee (Co-ordinator: Dr neil H. Kenyon, Southampton Oceanography Centre). The success of the TTR program is owed, in part, by the support of UNESCO member states who have made TTR-specific contributions to it, such as the use of research vessels on loan from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation and the suspension of port and transit tariffs by Turkey, Monaco and some other countries.

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