SINCEM research activities focus on the development of numerical models for the understanding and the forecasting of the ocean general circulation from the short to the climatic time scales for the physical and biogeochemical components of the marine ecosystem.

The main research themes are:

• Ocean predictions and data assimilation.
• Numerical modeling of the Mediterranean Sea circulation from the open ocean to the coastal scales.
• Numerical modeling of the marine ecosystem dynamics.
• Numerical modeling of transport and fate of pollutants in the sea.
• General development of relocatable numerical models
• Marine Rapid Environmental Assessment

SINCEM co-operates with the EuroMediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) and its operational oceanography and data assimilation divisions and the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV), in particular with the Operational Oceanography Group for the development of ocean forecasting in the Mediterranean Sea.
At the international level Pinardi is the Co-President of the Joint Committee for Oceanography and Meteorology. Pinardi is responsible for different projects at different collaborating Institutes, in particular she now coordinates the EMODnet Checkpoint.