SEA-SEARCH = Marine Environmental Research Projects Database

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Currently, EDMERP describes more than 1.250 Research Projects, from a wide range of disciplines, from over 300 Research Institutes from 30 countries across Europe. Recently a brand new search interface has been implemented.

European Directory of Marine Environmental Research Projects - EDMERP

EDMERP is a European directory of research projects relating to the marine environment. It covers a wide range of disciplines including marine meteorology; physical, chemical and biological oceanography; sedimentology; marine biology and fisheries; environmental quality; coastal and estuarine studies; marine geology and geophysics etc. Research projects are catalogued in EDMERP as factsheets or abstracts with their most relevant aspects. The primary objective of EDMERP is to support users in identifying interesting research activities and in connecting them to involved research managers and project results like data, models, publications, etc. across Europe. Useful features of the database are e.g. that also coastal and estuarine research projects are identified, including their data collection activities, and that grey literature is identified.

Maintenance of EDMERP and formats

Institutes can create their EDMERP entries following the format and basic guidelines in the documents:
How to prepare entries for EDMERP — August 2000
Download documents: EDMERP1.doc (60 KB) and EDMERP2.doc (166 KB).

The compilation and maintenance of entries for EDMERP is coordinated by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs) of the Sea-Search – SeaDataNet network, who contact and communicate with institutes in their countries to gather and to ensure up-to-date information and inclusion of important marine research projects. Entries are prepared by using an offline MS-Access entry software program and alternatively by an online Content Management System, whereby each NODC manages its national account. The EDMERP format is supported by a number of fixed lists for keywords, geographic coverage, and others, to structure a systematic description, and later querying, of the research project entries. An important element of each entry is a free text summary of the objectives and approach of the research project. The overall EDMERP coordination and quality control is done by MARIS, Netherlands. In SeaDataNet this will be continued by MARIS in cooperation with EurOcean.

Querying EDMERP

The EDMERP directory can be queried and browsed by users via the Sea-Search web portal. Users can choose between a simple and an advanced query interface to specify a combination of search criteria. The resulting entries, matching the query, are presented in a browse list, which indicates the number selected and allows for browsing between the listed results. This browse list can be sorted by a number of key fields. Additional details per entry can be viewed and the user can skip from one entry to another. The names of the involved organisation and the national collator are listed with hyperlinks, which present the full address and profile description of the specific organisation. A user can also use the Project Centres query interface in EDMERP to find Research Institutes and their involvement in Research Projects.

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Central Organisations database – EDMO

The EDMERP metadirectory is maintained together with the European Directory of Marine Environmental Data (EDMED), the Cruise Summary Report (CSR) database, the European Directory of the Ocean-observing System (EDIOS) and the Common Data Index (CDI) metadirectory. Each of these includes relations to organisations. A Central Organisations database has been set-up to streamline and to manage these addresses and organisation profiles efficiently and in a consistent way. This is kept up-to-date by the NODCs of the Sea-Search – SeaDataNet network, using an online Content Management System. This European Directory of Marine Organisations – EDMO already lists more than 1.000 Research Institutes, Data Holding Centres, Monitoring Agencies, Governmental and private organisations, that are in one way or another engaged in oceanographic and marine research activities and/or data & information management or support services.

EC Marine Research Projects database

A special edition of EDMERP is the meta-directory, that is maintained in cooperation with the EC of the marine research projects funded by EC within the EC-MAST and ENVIRONMENT programmes, the 5th and the present 6th framework programmes.