Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research
German research institution
The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (German: Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung) is located in Bremerhaven, Germany, and a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. It conducts research in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the high and mid latitude oceans. Additional research topics are: North Sea research, marine biological monitoring, and technical marine developments. The institute was founded in 1980 and is named after meteorologist, climatologist, and geologist Alfred Wegener.
AWI is the biggest institution for polar and ocean research and science in Germany. The annual budget is 140 Mio EUR (2018) and the institute has a staff of more than 1000 people.
History
The foundation of the AWI happened in a political environment that was characterized by system competition between East and West. The GDR had been conducting its own Antarctic research for decades. In the 1970s, it became clear that there would be one scarcity of biological- and mineral resources. Also due to the experience of the oil crisis of 1973, the Federal Republic of Germany decided to intensify its activities in polar research for geostrategic reasons and undertake larger research projects in the Antarctic Ocean and in Antarctica.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research” as german research institution. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as german research institution. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q536656. VIAF identifies the subject as 128510229. The Library of Congress control number is nr88011018. Authority coordinates are 53.533, 8.580. 5 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2018, 1000 and 1973.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research primary sources, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research archive and Alfred research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.