Queen’s Marine Laboratory is approaching its 80th anniversary as part of Queen’s University Belfast. Formerly home to a bank and an RAF station during the Second World War, our large white building with the blue doors is the first sight many people see when stepping off the Strangford Ferry and arriving in Portaferry, Co Down, on the beautiful shores of Strangford Lough.

It’s the perfect site – made ideal for marine research due to the strong tidal flow of the Strangford Lough Narrows, and the lough itself, the site of Northern Ireland’s first Marine Nature Reserve. The close proximity to Exploris Aquarium allows us to take advantage of a unique constant flow of fresh running seawater for our research.

Promoting research collaboration across disciplines

Many are surprised at our existence at all, having had no idea that Queen’s had such an asset. And what an asset it is: a place where people from across faculties – often working in quite different disciples – can converge, and, consequently, we now have students whose research crosses between these disciplines: How do seaweeds affect the impacts of waves? How do animals interact with renewable energy devices?

We may be small but our strengths are in our collaborative approach, and a great example of that is our staff and students giving their time to our annual Open Day.

Public outreach

When I tell people that I work in a Marine Lab the reaction is normally something along the lines of: “That’s really interesting… what is it exactly that you do?!”

Being somewhat of an outpost of Queen’s University Belfast, public outreach is an incredibly important part of what we do: engaging with our local community, making ourselves visible, and making the community feel welcome to visit and ask us questions about our work.

We’ve welcomed many guests through our doors over the years, including Queen’s staff, researchers from all over the world, politicians, and even King Charles (back when he was the Prince of Wales). The overwhelming response to the lab is always an element of surprise that we have such a diverse range of research taking place.

I have been a technician at the Marine Lab for approaching 15 years, and for almost all of that time we have hosted our annual Open Day to try to demystify some of our research to the people of Portaferry and beyond. We invite the general public to meet with our researchers, carry out science experiments, see our wave tank in action and meet some of our local marine species. It captures the imagination of visitors of all ages – an average of 400 of them every year attend our small event.

Technicians make it happen

Engaging with the general public is also a great way for Queen’s University Belfast technicians to diversify their roles. I’ve taken on the responsibility of running the Open Day for the past 10 years, as well as engaging with local school groups to carry out beach cleans and careers talks, representing the lab at the Balmoral Show and participating in media opportunities on the TV and radio.

This helps to ground our research and puts it into a real-world context where people can ask how it affects them or how they see themselves fitting in to this type of work in the future. For children, in particular, it captures the imagination and shows them the beauty of the amazing biodiversity they can find right on their doorstep.

Showcasing the diverse range of career opportunities in the Marine sector in Northern Ireland

The Marine Lab houses researchers studying seaweed (for applications in industry and conservation); marine renewable energy in the forms of wave and tidal power; invasive species that are threatening our shores; taxonomy and species DNA barcoding; underwater cameras, robotics and computing; and even land-based species, such as mosquitoes and spiders.

Becoming a marine biologist seemed like a somewhat fanciful job when I was growing up, but here we now are in a position where graduates in all forms of Marine Science will be a major part of our future workforce, and engaging with people at a young age to show them the diverse range of work that can be found in the Marine sector in Northern Ireland and beyond is a huge part of our outreach work.

Our annual Open Day event has expanded over time and we now welcome our collaborators from organisations such as Ulster Wildlife and AFBI to share in the work and show the increasing diversity of career options in the Marine sector.