| Abstract | The Sea Search initiative was the follow-up to the previous EURONODIM project, that was started in the EC-MAST programme. In Sea-Search the number of national partners expanded to include coverage of all European seas and further developments are undertaken at metadata level to improve the overview, the availability and quality of marine and ocean data and information of European sources. Sea-Search was undertaken as an EC Concerted Action and comprised the organization of a Pan-European cooperative network for oceanographic data & information management. This network will operate in a coherent and operational mode to strengthen the quality, service and overall performance of ocean and marine data & information management in Europe, both on a national and international level. The Sea Search website, services and infrastructure are developed and operated by a partnership of 33 institutes/centres from 30 different European coastal states. The Sea Search partners are highly skilled in management and added-value services on a wide range of oceanographic and marine data & information. Each of these centres is operating in their country as national data centre or focal point for oceanographic and marine data & information. They are representative nodes in their countries with links to other organisations, active in marine research and marine environmental management, thus monitoring and overseeing national marine research activities and marine data flows. The partnership has working relations with and is supported by EuroGOOS and MedGOOS, active in operational oceanography, and European Space Agency, active in promoting access and further use of marine remote sensing data and information. The Sea-Search project has been succeeded from 2006 onwards by the SeaDataNet project, which builds upon the Sea-Search achievements and services, but will have a strong focus on providing online access to data itself. |
