Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

ESIP (Earth Science Information Partners) is a nonprofit collaboration network that helps scientists, data managers, government agencies, and technology organizations work together to make Earth and environmental data easier to share, use, and preserve.

In practice, ESIP functions as a hub for improving the systems behind climate, weather, ocean, and land data by:

—Convening partnerships across NASA, NOAA, USGS, universities, nonprofits, and private-sector groups

—Developing best practices and standards for managing and interoperating scientific data

—Supporting working groups (“clusters”) that tackle problems like data stewardship, metadata, sustainability, and open science

—Advancing tools and infrastructure that make environmental information more actionable for research and policy

—Building community capacity through meetings, training, and cross-sector coordination

Rather than operating as an archive itself, ESIP strengthens the broader Earth science data ecosystem—helping ensure that critical climate and environmental datasets remain accessible, reliable, and usable over the long term.

Created by NASA in 1998, ESIP was formed in response to a National Research Council recommendation calling for the involvement of community stakeholders in the development of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) as a critical element of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Since its inception, ESIP has continually grown and attracted a diverse group of partners, which now includes 170+ partner organizations.