The Preparatory Phase for a pan-European MARINE BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE CENTRE(EMBRC) research Infrastructure. This application focuses on the technical, legal, governance, and financial issues to prepare a memorandum of understanding to begin to construct EMBRC. It will build on existing Marine Biological Institutes and Research Centres which will be complemented with innovative components and properly embedded into European scientific, ethical, legal and societal frameworks. The preparative phase of EMBRC will provide the proof of concepts for a key resource to increase excellence and efficacy in Marine Biological Research and secure competitiveness of European research and industry in a global context.This distributed pan-European infrastructure will provide access to model marine organisms and related genomic resources. It will promote access for both research and training. The main costal marine laboratories will be embedded within this RI to provide access to model marine organisms and their ecosystems together with modern technology and ’omic’ platforms.