Affirming URI’s decades-long leadership in oceanographic science, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a new ocean research vessel to the East Coast Oceanographic Consortium, which is led by URI.

The consortium will operate one of only three NSF Regional Class Research Vessels in the nation. The new ship, worth about $125 million, will be delivered to the Graduate School of Oceanography in 2021 and home-ported at Narragansett Bay Campus.

This ship will replace the R/V Endeavor, a 185-foot NSF research vessel that URI has operated for more than 40 years. The Endeavor has traveled more than one million nautical miles from the Arctic to the South Pacific and nearly everywhere in between while conducting more than 600 scientific expeditions.

Like the Endeavor, the new ship will conduct scientific expeditions with researchers from URI and partner institutions and will provide educational opportunities to students and teachers from high school through the graduate level, as well as public outreach and education. It will launch a new era of ocean exploration at URI that builds on the Endeavor’s impressive legacy.