IMOS is designed to be a fully-integrated, national system, observing at ocean-basin and regional scales, and covering physical, chemical and biological variables.

IMOS Facilities, operated by ten different institutions within the National Innovation System, are funded to deploy equipment and deliver data streams for use by the entire Australian marine and climate science community and its international collaborators. 

The IMOS Ocean Portal allows marine and climate scientists and other users to discover and explore data streams coming from the Facilities.  The Ocean Portal has been operational since June 2009, with data streams now available from all Facilities - some in near-real time, and all as delayed-mode, quality-controlled data.  These data streams, long time-series that are 'under construction', represent the actual research infrastructure being created and developed by IMOS.