Science Research Groups

The Max Planck Society is Germany's most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications in the relevant field.

The OSU Marine Mammal Institute is a multi-disciplinary facility incorporating the work of academics from engineering, genetics, agriculture, aquatics, ecology, veterinary medicine, biology, and communications. As the only institute of its kind, the Marine Mammal Institute combines the efforts of top researchers from around the world to continue the legacy of discovery and preservation of critical habitats of target species and to understand how those species interact with their environment and human activities.

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is a multi-mission operations center for NASA’s flagship observatories and a world-class astronomical research center. Established in 1981, the Institute has developed and executed the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) since its launch in 1990. Today, STScI is developing new technologies for the science and flight operations center for NASA’s next Great Observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in 2018. STScI is also developing major science operations for NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), set to launch in the mid 2020s, and studying Advanced Space Telescope Concepts for future large missions in the 2030s and beyond.

We are a group of researchers dedicated to understanding, protecting, and harnessing the world’s least explored and most vital frontier—the ocean. We represent diverse fields, departments, and perspectives, but through interdisciplinary research and education programs, we are making important progress in understanding the roles that the oceans play in supporting life on Earth. Oceans at MIT is part of the MIT Global Environmental Initiative, which is developing sustainable solutions for the planet’s growing population.

ESONET stands for European Seas Observatory NETwork, networking institutions, persons, tools and know-how on deep sea observatories. It aims to promote the implementation and the management of a network of long-term multidisciplinary ocean observatories in deep waters around Europe. It wishes to define an organization – with the necessary critical mass – capable of gathering the resources of the participating institutes. The ultimate goal is to define durable solutions through a joint programme of activities.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” The U.S. Global Change Research Program comprises 13 Federal agencies that conduct or use research on global change and its impacts on society, in support of the Nation's response to global change.

Climate Central is an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American public. Climate Central surveys and conducts scientific research on climate change and informs the public of key findings. Our scientists publish and our journalists report on climate science, energy, sea level rise, wildfires, drought, and related topics. Climate Central is not an advocacy organization. We do not lobby, and we do not support any specific legislation, policy or bill. Climate Central is a qualified 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.

EarthCube is a quickly growing community of scientists across all geoscience domains, as well as geoinformatics researchers and data scientists. EarthCube is a joint effort between the NSF Directorate for Geosciences and the Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.

EarthCube was initiated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to transform geoscience research by developing cyberinfrastructure to improve access, sharing, visualization, and analysis of all forms of geosciences data and related resources. As a community-governed effort, EarthCube's goal is to enable geoscientists to tackle the challenges of understanding and predicting a complex and evolving solid Earth, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and space environment systems. The NSF's Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and the Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) partnered to sponsor EarthCube, which NSF anticipates supporting through 2022.

The Center for Astrophysics combines the resources and research facilities of the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under a single director to pursue studies of those basic physical processes that determine the nature and evolution of the universe. Today, some 300 Smithsonian and Harvard scientists cooperate in broad programs of astrophysical research supported by Federal appropriations and University funds as well as contracts and grants from government agencies. These scientific investigations touch on almost all major topics in astronomy.

The CfA-Arizona Space Telescope Lens Survey (CASTLeS) is a collaboration between scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Arizona. We intend to carry out a complete survey of all known galaxy-mass gravitational lens systems (those with image separations of less than 10 arcseconds). We plan to use the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain deep, high-resolution images in the optical and near infrared, using NICMOS/NIC2 for H band observations and WFPC2/PC1 for V and I band images where they do not yet exist. This information can be used to address a number of problems in modern cosmology and galaxy evolution.

Born of the extraordinary accomplishments of 20th century physics, astronomy, geology, and biology, the Origins program takes up the challenge of answering questions as old as our species. When Galileo first turned his tiny telescope to the night sky, he saw the Milky Way resolved into millions of stars, in one stroke expanding our grasp of the universe to a scale that had not been imagined from the sight of eyes alone. The growth of scientific culture and tools over the next three centuries revealed a vast realm, each at-first-incomprehensible discovery assimilated into an increasingly uncomfortable reality. The eruptive growth of 20th century astronomy has brought us an appreciation of how vast, old, and unearthly the universe is, and has left humanity struggling for a sense of our own significance consistent with the reality of who and what we are. But science has also given us something that will help, by promising answers to our ancient questions: Where did we come from? Are we alone? When the answers to these questions are known, our civilizations will evolve new visions of who we are and what our futures might be. Already we have learned enough to appreciate that the universe is enormous and ancient, but lifetiny and transientis its precious jewel.

New Horizons, launched Jan. 19, 2006, is designed to help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a "double planet" and the last of the traditional planets to be visited by spacecraft. Then, as part of an extended mission, New Horizons could visit one or more objects in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune.

The Deep Carbon Observatory is a global research program to transform our understanding of carbon in Earth. At its heart, DCO is a community of scientists, from biologists to physicists, geoscientists to chemists, and many others whose work crosses these disciplinary lines, forging a new, integrative field of deep carbon science. To complement this groundbreaking research, the DCO’s infrastructure includes public engagement and education, online and offline community support, innovative data management, and novel instrumentation.

The Institute’s research focuses on advancing ecosystem-based fisheries management, a strategy which recognizes that the oceans’ problems are interconnected and that species and habitats cannot be successfully managed in isolation; as well as on advancing knowledge about vulnerable and ecologically important marine animals that are understudied. We are dedicated to developing scientific approaches to sustainably manage forage fish, small schooling fish that are food for marine mammals and seabirds but are being depleted from our oceans.

Want to know when a spacecraft will be flying over your city? Check out a list of quick and easy sightings by city.

Microsoft has labs around the world, where researchers make breakthroughs on artificial intelligence, security, human-computer interaction, and more.

Geoscientists from American and Canadian universities are installing a series of seismometers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario in the context of SPREE (Superior Province Rifting EarthScope Experiment).These seismometers will record earthquakes that occur locally,regionally, and throughout the world. Scientists use the seismic waves from these earthquakes to produce high-resolution images of the Earth’s interior.

PERICLES is a four-year Integrated Project (2013-2017) funded by the European Union under its Seventh Framework Programme (ICT Call 9).

The project aims to address the challenge of ensuring that digital content remains accessible in an environment that is subject to continual change. This can encompass not only technological change, but also changes in semantics, academic or professional practice, or society itself, which can affect the attitudes and interests of the various stakeholders that interact with the content.

The ROE story began when the first Chair of Astronomy within the University was established in 1786, astronomy having been taught in Edinburgh since the opening of the town’s college in 1583. The ROE continues to develop as a leading force in UK and world astronomy. Its potent mix of activities on Blackford Hill - research, astronomical instrumentation and public understanding of science via a Visitor Centre - continue to thrive.

EPCC is a leading European centre of excellence in advanced research, technology transfer and the provision of high-performance computing services to academia and industry. Based at The University of Edinburgh, we are one of Europe's leading supercomputing centres.