Since 2006, the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) has been routinely operating a wide range of observing equipment throughout Australia’s coastal and open oceans, making all of its data accessible to the marine and climate science community, other stakeholders and users, and international collaborators. IMOS is one of the national research infrastructure capabilities currently supported under the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). It is operated by a consortium of institutions as an unincorporated joint venture, with the University of Tasmania as Lead Agent, in partnership with the CSIRO, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Bureau of Meteorology, Sydney Institute of Marine Science (encompassing the University of New South Wales, The University of Sydney, Macquarie University and University of Technology Sydney), University of Western Australia, Curtin University and the South Australian Research and Development Institute. IMOS is designed to be a fully-integrated, national system, observing at ocean-basin and regional scales, and covering physical, chemical and biological variables. IMOS Facilities, operated by eight different institutions within the National Innovation System, are funded to deploy equipment and deliver data streams for use by the entire Australian marine and climate science community and its international collaborators. IMOS observations are guided by science planning undertaken collaboratively across the Nodes of the Australian marine and climate science community with input from government, industry and other stakeholders.
