The French Oceanographic cruises directory database lists all the scientific cruises which were carried out aboard French vessels or in cooperation with foreign vessels. This database currently contains the descriptions of more than 8,200 cruises (including mooring experiments, diving) made over the past century or so. Each year, about 200 new summaries from French organizations which operate the vessels IFREMER, IRD, CNRS/INSU, IPEV and chief scientists are added.

These metadata provide important information about the existing oceanographic data. They are freely disseminated on SISMER's website using tools developed by the ISI department. They are published in the annual French oceanographic cruises report, which is widely distributed in laboratories both in France and abroad.

Campaigns reports are used to search geophysical, physical and chemical marine data. They are regularly transmitted to the International SeaDataNet CSR catalog (Cruise Summary Report) (https://www.seadatanet.org/Metadata/CSR-Cruises).