The International Ocean Network (ION) committee was established in June 1993 with the goal to facilitate international cooperation in the development of ocean-bottom observatories. Originally created as an affiliate of IASPEI for the purposes of the seismological community, in 1995 its participation was enlarged to include the geoscience community, and again in 2001 to include the oceanographic community. In 2004 ION was awarded Inter-Association Committee status by IUGG, and since 2005 has been hosted by IASPEI (International Association for Seismology and the Physics of the Earth's Interior), IAPSO (International Association of the Physical Sciences of the Ocean) and IAGA (International Association of Geodesy and Aeronomy).