NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is the national oceanographic institute, and is the largest of the NWO family of research institutes. It principally performs academically excellent multidisciplinary fundamental and frontierapplied marine research addressing important scientific and societal questions pertinent to the functioning of oceans and seas. Second, NIOZ serves as national marine research facilitator (NMF) for The Netherlands scientific community. Third, NIOZ stimulates and supports multidisciplinary fundamental and frontier-applied marine research, education and marine policy development in the national and international context.