First Paragraph
In 1997, our present agency was formed from a merger of two pre-existing research Divisions of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Australia, CSIRO Fisheries and CSIRO Oceanography. Following the creation of this new enlarged Division, named CSIRO Marine Research (CMR), a “critical mass” of staff concerned with processing and managing research data, in particular those collected by our research vessels, were gathered to form the nucleus of a new Divisional Data Center.