  Recent experimental work on the photorecombination and the photoionization of
astrophysically relevant atomic ions employing the merged-beams technique at
heavy-ion storage-rings and synchrotron-light sources, respectively, is
summarized. The resulting absolute photoionization cross sections and
recombination rate coefficients benchmark corresponding theoretical
calculations and are needed for the accurate determination of ionization
equilibria in astrophysical plasmas.
