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The Trieste Section of the National Research Counsil Marine Science Institute is one of the oldest national bodies engaged in marine research.

Its origins go back to December 30th 1840, when systematic meteorological observation began in Trieste at the Maritime Observatory of the Royal Imperial Commercial and Nautical Academy, an institution of the Austro-Hungarian government.

After Trieste was annexed to Italy following the First World War, the above-mentioned institution was assigned first to the Italian Royal Thalassographic Committee, then to the National Research Council (CNR), next to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, to return in 1985 under the CNR, of which it is the only official representative body in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Its research has always been involved in marine chemistry and physics. In this context, the Institute runs three detection stations (two meteorological and one oceanographic), the data from which have since the 19th century gone to make up one of the oldest historical archives of the Adriatic.

The Institute also has a large, up-to-date, highly specialised library and a small but interesting collection of meteorological and marine instruments of historical interest. The work of the Institute’s Chemistry Group concerns bio-geo-chemical cycles and the distribution of dissolved gases, stocks of organic and inorganic nutrients and organic carbon dissolved in the Mediterranean basins and the polar seas.

The Physics Group carries out research in oceanography, air-sea interactions, marine model-building (analytical and numerical) and climatological data analysis on a local and Mediterranean scale involving the combined use of satellite and field-gathered data. It has also made a number of significant contributions to the general theory of oceanic circulation..
Among the Institute’s most recent avenues of research is the construction of the PALOMA elastic beacon (the acronym stands for Adriatic Sea Oceanographic Laboratory Advanced Platform), designed to further the study of the physical and chemical features of the marine environment in the Gulf of Trieste.