Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3)

The IODP3 programme supports participation in international scientific ocean drilling and coring. It explores Earth’s history and dynamics using ocean-going vessels to recover data recorded in seafloor sediments and rocks, and to monitor subseafloor environments.

Budget:: £2.4 million
Duration:: 2025 to 2028
Partners involved:: Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

The scope and what we're doing

The IODP3 programme supports UK scientists to take advantage of the research opportunities arising from NERC’s funding of the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD), which unites 14 European countries and Canada.

The programme will:

contribute toward participation costs for science party members of IODP3 Mission Specific Platform (MSP) expeditions and Scientific Projects using Ocean Drilling Archives (SPARCs)
build community awareness of opportunities and benefits arising from ECORD, and the results of scientific ocean drilling-related research
support the development of high-quality IODP3 drill and coring funding applications via the award of Site Survey Investigations grants, for fieldwork and virtual research

Why we're doing it

As a member of the ECORD consortium, NERC has been a partner in IODP since 2001. The IODP3 partnership has provided an opportunity for scientific collaboration by bringing diverse drilling and coring platforms together with international teams of scientists to implement ocean drilling and coring expeditions. The expeditions increase understanding of:

climate and ocean change
deep biosphere and evolution of ecosystems
connections between Earth’s deep processes and surface manifestations, including geologically induced hazards

IODP3 is a community-led collaboration in marine research. Like each of the previous scientific ocean drilling programmes, it is steered scientifically by a science plan produced by the international scientific community. The 2050 Science Framework: Exploring Earth by Scientific Drilling has a 25-year outlook and will guide scientists in developing proposals for IODP3.

The framework is continually updated, guiding scientists on the important research frontiers that scientific ocean drilling should pursue. These frontiers can often only be achieved through scientific ocean drilling.

The framework focuses on the many ways that scientific ocean drilling will increase our understanding of the connections between the main components of the Earth system, and of the natural and human-caused environmental challenges facing society.

Past projects, outcomes and impact

A range of research projects are funded under the IODP investment (listed in NERC Grants on the Web):

Who to contact

Ask a question about grant funding and finance for this programme

Jessica Surma, Senior Programme Manager, NERC

Email: iodp@nerc.ukri.org

Ask a general question about this programme

Dr Jude Coggon, UK IODP Knowledge Exchange Coordinator, University of Southampton

Email: jude.coggon@soton.ac.uk

Last updated: 2 May 2025