National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
The National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) describes the integrated collaboration between the Southampton-based part of the Natural Environment Research Council’s National Oceanography Centre, and University of Southampton Ocean and Earth Science. The waterfront campus, on Southampton's Empress Dock, was opened in 1996 as the Southampton Oceanography Centre by Prince Philip (he also renamed it the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, in 2005), The Campus is located near the Ocean Village development in the dock area of Southampton, close to where the liner Titanic set sail on her doomed maiden voyage.
NOC's waterfront headquarters 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 HRH 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 NOCS comprises the University of Southampton’s Ocean and Earth Science academic unit which operates alongside five NERC research divisions and the NERC's National Marine Facilities Sea Systems . In addition to housing some 520 research scientists and staff, over 700 undergraduate and postgraduate students call the NOCS home. The NOCS's on-site resources include the UK National Oceanographic Library, the nationally important Discovery Collections and the British Ocean Sediment Core Repository. The NOCS is also the base for the purpose-built research vessels RRS Discovery and RRS James Cook (and formerly RRS Charles Darwin).
On 1st February 2010 the merger of NOCS and the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool was announced. The combined institute is known as the National Oceanography Centre. The new combined centre brings together a full range of deep ocean and coastal oceanographic expertise.
