OPEC will undertake research and development to develop Operational Ecology to augment the capabilities of the GMES Marine Service. Using the Marine Service as a framework, OPEC will OPEC will contribute ‘to the establishment of innovative new GMES products or applications by’ establishing the infrastructure for the performance of ecology in the European Regional Seas by implementing a prototype regional ecological Marine Forecast System in 4 European Regions (NE Atlantic Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Seas, which include hydrodynamics, lower (plankton) and higher trophic (e.g. fish) and biological data assimilation. OPEC will deliver ‘new products’ in terms of rapid environmental assessments as well as hindcasts for environmental management by providing regular ‘geo-spatially referenced’ error quantified information products (ECV’s and indicators of GES) for European Coastal Seas in both lower and higher trophic levels. By assessing the potential spatial and temporal scales of predictability of seasonal forecast appropriate to both lower and higher trophic levels OPEC will also lay the foundations for the next generation of operational ecological products. In doing so OPEC will provide high quality 3D ecosystem indicators covering a range of temporal and spatial scale appropriate for different policy needs as new service aimed at supporting policy, environmental management and other downstream services by providing error quantified hindcast estimates of the state of the environment in the recent past systems. OPEC will contribute directly to policy requirements such as the MSFD, CFP, the monitoring of climate change and to the assessment of mitigation and adaptation policies. Through engagement with SME’s, OPEC will implement new water quality related data products and delivery systems for implementation in downstream services. In addition OPEC will define and deliver the S&T Roadmap and make recommendations for future data requirements for Operational Ecology.