National Oceanography Centre

RRS James Cook returning to Southampton

The NOC provides the bulk of the UK’s capability to meet the needs of the country’s marine research community.

National marine capability provided by the NOC includes Royal Research Ships, RRS James Cook and RRS Discovery, deep submersibles, including the Autosub autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), advanced ocean sensors and other instruments.

Across its two sites, the National Oceanography Centre is responsible for the global mean sea level data archive, the UK’s sea level monitoring system for flood warning and climate change, the national archive of subsea sediment cores (British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility), the National Oceanographic Library, which houses the nationally important RRS Discovery and HMS Challenger archives, and the UK’s main facility for holding and distributing data concerning the marine environment.

NOC Southampton

NOC Liverpool

The National Oceanography Centre’s waterfront headquarters were opened in 1996 by the Duke of Edinburgh, as the Southampton Oceanography Centre. It brought together the University of Southampton's departments of oceanography and geology with the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, formerly based in Wormley, Surrey, and Research Vessel Services, formerly based in Barry Docks, South Wales.

It was renamed the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton in 2005, again by the Duke of Edinburgh, its new name reflecting its prominence in ocean and earth sciences within the UK.

Until April 2010, the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton was jointly owned by the University of Southampton and the Natural Environment Research Council. The term National Oceanography Centre, Southampton continues to be used to describe the collaborative relationship at the waterfront campus.

The National Oceanography Centre’s Liverpool site, on the University of Liverpool campus, was formerly the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory and specialises in tidal and sea level science. It hosts the National Tidal and Sea Level Facility, the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level and the British Oceanographic Data Centre. It was formerly housed at the Bidston Observatory on the Wirral before moving to the University of Liverpool campus in 2004.

On 1 November 2019 the NOC began operating as an independent self-governing organisation – a charitable company limited by guarantee.

The NOC is at the centre of a strategic network of partners and associates - at universities and research institutes - working collaboratively with the Centre in its support of world-class research, technology development and training the scientists of the future. Together, these organisations form the NOC Association, sharing in the delivery of the NERC’s marine science priorities.

The NOC’s partners include the University of Southampton, whose Ocean and Earth Science academic unit is co-located at the NOC’s dockside headquarters, home to around 520 research scientists, engineers and technicians, ship operations and support staff, as well as around 700 undergraduate and postgraduate students. The University of Liverpool is the NOC’s other hosting partner and postgraduate students are taught in a research-led environment in NOC's Joseph Proudman Building on the university's campus.

The NOC is responsible for managing UK marine science national capability. This includes provision of major facilities, programmes of sustained observing, survey, mapping, data management and other functions. The NOC also manages contracts placed by NERC with other organisations to provide some national capability functions. Such organisations are known as Delivery Partners and include:

• Plymouth Marine Laboratory
• Scottish Association for Marine Science
• British Antarctic Survey
• British Geological Survey
• Marine Biological Association
• Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (named after Alister Hardy)

The centre is committed to international engagement and has developed a range of international partnerships through the International and Strategic Partnerships Office, including an alliance of Europe’s three principal oceanographic research institutions with Ifremer of France and Geomar of Germany.

The NOC is a member of the European Global Ocean Observing System (EuroGOOS)[2]

• "History of National Institute of Oceanography". National Oceanography Centre. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.

• NOC Official Website
• British Oceanographic Data Centre
• National Oceanographic Library