ICES Program Overview

The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) coordinates and promotes marine research and good management practices in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas such as the Baltic Sea and North Sea. This provides a meeting point for more than 1600 marine scientists from 20 countries around the North Atlantic as well as providing unbiased management advice for the member countries.

Program Management

ICES is managed by the ICES Council which is the decision and policy body. The Council is supported by the Bureau (executive body) and the Consultative Committee (oversees all scientific work). There are also 3 advisory committees, 8 science committees, and of the order of 100 working/study groups.

For more information on the structure and purpose of ICES see the ICES home page.

Users

ICES is an important source of advice on marine ecosystems to governments and regulatory bodies managing the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas.

ICES also provides a focus for scientists to cooperate in data collection and interpretation to document the state of the oceans and fill gaps in present knowledge.

Data and Information Aspects

Scientists working through ICES gather information about the marine ecosystem including fisheries data, oceanographic data, biological data, and chemical contaminant data. The ICES Secretariat includes a large data center operation that does quality control, processes, archives, and distributes the data on request according to their data sharing policy. This center has some of the largest databases in the world on these subjects

Other

ICES has a sister organization the North Pacific Marine Science Organization which performs a similar coordinating function among its members for the North Pacific Ocean. Members presently include Canada, People's Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, and the USA.

PICES does not operate a data center as does ICES. For more information see the PICES program overview page.