National Marine Fisheries Research Institute

The Institute’s beginnings date back to June 1921 when the Sea Fisheries Laboratory was established in Hel for the purpose of conducting research in hydrology and marine biology. This institution was closed in 1931 and then reopened in 1932 as the Marine Station. It was moved to its new headquarters, the present building of the NMFRI Gdynia Aquarium, in Gdynia at the end of 1938. After the Second World War, the Marine Station in Gdynia was reactivated under its original name of the Sea Fisheries Laboratory. In 1947, the SFL was incorporated into the Sea Fisheries Institute, which had been in operation since 1928. Beginning in 1949, the SFI was a departmental institution supervised by the Ministry of Navigation. Until 1991 it operated from its headquarters at the end of the South Pier in Gdynia when it moved to its new location on ul. Kołłątaja. Since 2000, the Sea Fisheries Institute has been supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). According to the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of June 2011, the Institute has been awarded National Research Institute (NRI) status. Upon attaining the status of NRI, the National Marine Fisheries Research Institute has joined the elite ranks of Polish national research institutes. The NMFRI mission is to advance the capacity of science to provide advice on human activities affecting and affected by marine ecosystems.

Key Personnel

Dr. Piotr Margonski, senior scientist and Head of Department of Fisheries Oceanography and Marine Ecology. Employed at SFI since 1988. Education: M.Sc. in biological oceanography, Ph.D. in fisheries. Main scientific interests: ecological status of the Vistula Lagoon in the EU Water Framework Directive context, recruitment processes of Baltic commercial fish species, trophic interactions between zooplankton and ichthyoplankton, environmental drivers of stock-recruitment relationships, and impact of climate change on zooplankton and fisheries. Member of numerous ICES working groups: e.g. Working Group on Zooplankton Ecology (WGZE), ICES/HELCOM Working Group on Integrated Assessments of the Baltic Sea (WGIAB); co-chair of three ICES workshops focused on recruitment processes in small pelagics of the Baltic Sea. In 2002 – 2007 ICES Advisory Committee on Ecosystems (ACE) member; since 2008 an ICES ACOM alternate member, since 2008 Polish Delegate to ICES Council. He participated in several EU FP projects: CORE, STORE, MANTRA-East, PROTECT, INEXFISH.