Anyone can submit data to ICES which is the Data Centre for the EEA, HELCOM and OSPAR Commissions. Data for Commissions are requested to be submitted via national "data coordinators". Submissions of older data can be made at any time, but the following are the deadlines for yearly submissions from the Commissions:

Submission Procedures

Data should be sent to the ICES Data Centre (accessions@ices.dk). All institutes receive a lab code which is used to ensure traceability and links between analytical laboratories and QA data. Before contacting ICES, check laboratory codes for your code.

All data submissions will receive an "accession" number where the progress of the submission can be tracked at www.ices.dk/datacentre/accessions. Once accepted into the database, files can be found on DOME. Overview of data can be found on EcoSystemData.

Data Types and Data Exchange Formats

The Data Centre currently accepts data on contaminants and biological effects (including fish disease) in biota (CF), seawater (CW), and sediment (CS), and biological community data (ZP, ZB, PP, PP). Environmental Reporting Format version 3.2 (ERF3.2) is recommended for submission of all chemical and biological community data. Data submitted in other versions, i.e., ERF2.2 and ERF3.1, will continue to be accepted but with limited code, data checking and QA support. These files can be converted at www.ices.dk/Datacentre/legacydata/login.aspx. Contact accessions@ices.dk for the password and instructions.

Codes

Codes can be found in RECO. If you need help, see instructions. If you need a new code, send in documentation such as the CAS number for chemicals (PARAM), the published report for intercalibrations (ICCOD), the reference sheet for certified reference materials (CRMCO), the full address and web site for laboratories (RLABO) etc.

Mandatory fields

Some fields in the reporting formats are designated as "mandatory" fields. These are mandatory fields for entry into DOME. Mandatory fields ensure that:

1) data can be entered into the database (for example, the year and coordinates are essential)
2) related data can be retrieved (link field information is essential).

For information on mandatory information for Commissions and Working Group assessments, see Monitoring programme information "MPROGinfo" in the reference code database "RECO".

Data coordinators

The data coordinator should be notified by the Commission HOD that he/she is responsible for submitting data to ICES. Duties of the data coordinator are as follows: request codes (by 1 May); screen the data for errors before submission; coordinate all submissions of data for a certain data type for the Commission(s) and submit one file/year/(lab)/country/data type; check the submission status and answer questions concerning all analytical laboratory data.

Submission status

Status of data previously submitted to ICES can be found in the submission status tables: accessions. 

Checking the submission

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ICES
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