The National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS) is a centre for research, teaching, and technology development in Ocean and Earth science. NOCS was created in 1995 jointly between the University of Southampton and the UK Natural Environment Research Council and is located within the port of Southampton at a purpose-built dockside campus with modern facilities. In 2010 the university and NERC components demerged, and the NERC-managed component became the National Oceanography Centre (NOC – with the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool). The two components of NOCS continue close collaboration through the jointly run Graduate School, shared research facilities and laboratories, complementary research groups, and many joint research grants and publications. The university component “Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton” (OES) is part of the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, (FELS). It was ranked 46th in the world for Earth and Marine Sciences by the QS World University Rankings in 2019. In November 2019, NOC became formally independent from the NERC and now operates as a company limited by guarantee with charitable status. History The centre can trace its origins back to the years immediately after Second World War, when the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) was founded. The plan to create National Oceanography Centre Southampton as a centre of excellence in marine and earth science was formulated in the late 1980s to early 1990s by the Natural Environment Research Council in coordination with the University of Southampton. According to that plan a research and teaching complex was erected on the new Waterfront Campus dock-side location within the Port of Southampton to become the new home for the former National Institute of Oceanographic Science (from Wormley, Surrey), the Research Vessel Service (from Barry, Wales) and the former University of Southampton departments of Geology and Oceanography. NOCS was officially opened in 1996 as the Southampton Oceanography Centre by Prince Philip. He also performed the renaming ceremony when it became the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, in 2005. The centre's inaugural director from 1994 to 1999 was John Shepherd, a former deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and an Earth system scientist. Research Research at NOCS listed by groups affiliated with the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) and the Southampton branch office of the National Oceanography Centre: OES (University of Southampton) Geochemistry Geology and Geophysics (G&G) Marine Biology and Ecology (MBE) Marine Biogeochemistry