Data delivery

BODC encourages the use of its data holdings for science and education, and by the wider public. Data are made available under a licence agreement governing the acceptable use of the data. In the case of NERC-funded data the conditions are in line with the NERC Data Policy.

Publicly accessible data

We are committed to improving access to our data holdings via our web site and have a policy of continual improvement. Many data sets are accessible to download online from the data section of our web site.

BODC works with other oceanographic data centres across Europe to improve access to data. We are the UK partner in the SeaDataNet network and the EuroGOOS tide gauge task team. We act as the coordinating centre for the

• European Directory of the Ocean-Observing System (EDIOS) — a online tool for searching for information on observing systems operating repeatedly, regularly and routinely in European waters.

• European Directory of Marine Environmental Data (EDMED) — a European standard for indexing and searching data sets relating to the marine environment.

We also manage the catalogue of the UK research vessel activities prepared from Cruise Summary Reports. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) maintains a database of research vessel activities from other countries, including entries from the UK submitted by BODC.

Further help

Should you be unable to find the data you require or are interested in accessing a restricted data set please contact Louis Byrne who will be happy to assist you.

Restricted data

Initially, access to data is often restricted for a while to allow data originators sufficient time to prepare their publications. Whilst data are restricted from the public domain, no data will be transferred to parties without the explicit agreement of the originator.