Institute of the Biology of Southern Seas of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Institute of the Biology of Southern Seas of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Інститут біології південних морів ім. О.О. Ковалевського НАН України; Instytut biolohii pivdennykh moriv im. O.O. Kovalevskoho NAN Ukraїny). Scientific research institute founded in 1963 in Sevastopol on the basis of the Sevastopol, Kara-Dag (Teodosiia), and (in 1964) Odesa biological stations. With its branches in Odesa and Teodosiia (the Kara-Dag branch), it consisted in 1980 of 586 employees (159 scholars) in 11 departments, 21 laboratories, and it operated 3 exploration ships (in 1976). It was the largest research institute in the field of marine biology in the USSR. It conducted and published research in marine biology and ecology, the development and protection of marine resources, marine pollution, and the economic exploitation of the marine environment. In 2000, together with Maritime Hydrophysical Institute in Sevastopol and its Odesa branch, it formed the Oceanological Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Its collection of hydrobionts was recognized by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine as the country’s national heritage (2002). The institute’s scientists spent two winters doing research at the Vernadsky Ukrainian Antarctic station (2002–3 and 2005–6). The institute participated in the creation of many of Ukraine’s state research policies and programs, including the Conception of Ukraine’s National Maritime Policy; the Conception of the Development of Reserve Management in Ukraine until 2020; Ukraine’s State Program for the Study of the Antarctic; European Choice: Conceptual Measures for the Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Ukraine for 2002–11; and the Complex Program of the Expeditionary Study of Seas and Inner Water Basins and Rivers of Ukraine for 2006–10. It published the journal Morskoi ekologicheskii zhurnal (since 2015 published by the Institute of Marine Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine as Mors'kyi ekolohichnyi zhurnal, 15 vols, 2002–) and the collection of scientific works Ekologiia moria (81 vols, 1980–2010). The institute was headed by Volodymyr Vodianytsky (1963–68), Vladimir Greze (1968–77), Viktor Zaika (1977–82 and 1993–2000), Alla Morozova (1982–88), Stanislav Konovalov (1988–93), and Valerii Eremeev (2000–15).

Due to the annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was no longer able to manage the institute. The Russian occupying authorities practically hijacked the institute with all its property located in the Crimea and subordinated it to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Concurrently, the old institute’s Odesa branch became an independent research institution under the name Institute of Marine Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (est 2014), as a legal successor to the Institute of the Biology of Southern Seas of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Serhiy Bilenky

[This article was updated in 2022.]