In order to support and assist research in the universe and earth sciences, the status of OSU thus confers an observation mission which is declined on several axes:

• Sustain and ensure the continuity of national observation and experimentation systems
• Link the teams responsible for these services and, if necessary, define priorities
• Promote the pooling of resources and services
• At the regional level, play a leading, unifying or even inter-agency coordinating role.

In parallel with these dedicated missions within the status of OSU, observations over the duration, on a more regional scale, have continued or developed in emblematic areas of IUEM (ecology, maritime economy, societal uses and impacts, vulnerability…), in response to specific scientific questions and societal challenges. IUEM is also part of a dynamic that is applied both regionally and nationally by playing an incubator role for emerging and/or innovative devices: according to technical/methodological advances and as scientific questions evolve, existing devices are adapted and new ones are necessary.

The IUEM has the particularity of being the only OSU thematically focused in the Ocean domain, on a single object, which is also a societal issue: the Sea, understood in its entirety, including its interfaces. The observation component of the OSU derives its synthetic name of Marine Observatory from it. This observatory is by nature extremely coherent. This great coherence is accompanied by a very multidisciplinary vision since the Sea object is approached from all its angles, from the Natural Sciences to the Human and Social Sciences: the ocean, its coastline and its interfaces.

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