The workshop is organized in collaboration between three networks:



1) Marine Genomics for Users (home). Marine genomics has enormous potential to improve our lifestyles and prosperity, and to assist with governance and sustainable management of the marine environment. However, many legislators and policy makers are not yet aware of how marine genomics hold great potential for cost-efficient problem solving and societal advantage. Such valuable knowledge is made accessible and disseminated in a user-friendly contexts in the EU coordination action Marine Genomics for Users (MG4U), grant no. 266055.

2) The 14th Genomics Standards Consortium (home) will meet at Oxford University 17-19 September 2012. The main theme of this conference is genomics enabled long-term place-based research, and there will be six sessions that aim to define the formation and future work of the Genomics Observatories (GOs) Network, including: 1. Standards, 2. Sites, 3. Partners, 4. Governance, 5. Science & Informatics, and 6. Stakeholders workshop.



3) Genomics Observatories Network (home). The Genomics Observatories Network was officially proposed in the January 2012 issue of Nature and will be formally launched at the Oxford conference. A Genomic Observatory (GO) is a geographic site with a rich history of environmental/ecological data collection and a long-term commitment to future studies. GOs are leading sites where biodiversity is digitized into its most fundamental layer for streaming to global repositories (INSDC, GBIF, etc.) and major analytical centers (museums, government research laboratories, universities, and international organizations).

The Genomic observatory Network initiative will build a global network of premier research sites working to generate genomic observations that are well contextualized and compliant with global data standards. To coordinate a set of long-term, place-based, DNA-centric programs that quantify biotic interactions in an ecosystem and develop models of biodiversity to predict the quality and distribution of ecosystem services.