Hereon is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. Five of Hereon’s 15 associated research institutes conduct environmental and socioecological related studies of marine, coastal and polar systems, worldwide. Their focus is mainly on climate and biophysical modelling as well as the monitoring and assessment of a broad range of biogeochemical processes at the air-sea-land interfaces. The research is embedded in a science infrastructure that provides easy access to state-of-the-art technologies, including a high-performance computer cluster, the coastal observation platform COSYNA and various modern analytical instruments. As a result, Hereon has continuously developed its international research network for many years and cultivated a successful tradition in both the co-ordination of and participation in different types of EU projects. Since the year 2000, researchers have coordinated some 45, and have participated in more than 200 EU projects co-financed by the European Commission, mainly through FP5, FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020 framework programmes (e.g., ECOTIP, DANUBIUS, JERICO, IMMERSE, ERA-PLANET). Hereon expertise relevant to the MarinePlan project comprises the use of particle drift simulations as a means to model the long-range transport of water masses and to assess the connectivity of spatially distinct areas within different planning sites.

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