The National Oceanography Centre, NOC, is an independent self-governing organisation – a charitable company limited by guarantee. The NOC is funded by UK Research and Innovation to work on National Capability programmes, and manages on its behalf, the National Marine Equipment Pool – Europe’s largest fleet of autonomous and robotic vehicles, and two state of the art research ships RRS Discovery and RRS James Cook.
NOC has two sites, Southampton and Liverpool, and employs around 650 staff. NOC is co-located at both sites with leading UK Universities, giving NOC a unique position in UK marine research. A truly multi-disciplinary centre, the NOC research encompasses Marine Geoscience, Marine Physics and Ocean Climate, Marine Systems Modelling, Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems, and Ocean Technology and Engineering. NOC is home to the nation’s marine data assets; the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility (BOSCORF) and the Discovery Collections.
NOC works collaboratively with over 40 other UK marine institutions through the NOC Association for Marine Science National Capability Beneficiaries, and engage with users of the UK marine infrastructure through the Marine Facilities Advisory Board, and with the beneficiaries of our long term underpinning National capability Science programmes, through the CLASS Advisory Board.
Through their trading subsidiary, NOC Innovations Ltd, NOC provides a link between science and business, enabling technology and research to transfer to industry and for revenue to be generated to support our charitable purposes.
