EU scientists offered Danish research opportunities
Scientists from European Community and associate member states are being offered the opportunity to carry out research in Denmark using one of Europe's largest and best organised collections of biological specimens. The Copenhagen Biosystematics Centre (COBICE) is a facility based at the University of Copenhagen, incorporating the museums of zoology, geology and botany, the botanical laboratory of molecular systematics, the department of evolutionary biology and the department of zoomorphology. Overall, the centre has about 20 million specimens including the world's largest collection of birds including 15,000 samples from 3,000 species, and the most comprehensive database on African terrestrial vertebrates, with more than 8,000 specimens. The centre also has scientifically important collections of animals, plants and fossils from Denmark, Greenland and the Arctic region, fossils of extinct South American mammals and flowering plants from North Africa and south east Asia. There is also a comprehensive range of scientific equipment including light, fluorescence and both scanning and transmission electron microscopes, together with DNA sequencing, radiography and image analysis systems. Access to the facilities is available through the European Commission's Fifth Framework programme. Visits of up to three months are available during which travel and living costs will be covered under the programme. The contract between COBICE and the Commission runs for a total of three years. The deadline for visits scheduled to begin in 2001 is October 15, 2000.
Countries
Denmark