CASPINFO aims at strengthening the regional capacity and performance of marine environmental data & information management, and adoption of international meta-data standards and data-management practices, involving stakeholders from management, research, and industry. The objectives are: • To initiate and maintain a Caspian Sea network of leading environmental and socio-economic research institutes, governmental departments, oil & gas industries, and international bodies, jointly working on the definition, development and operation of the CASPINFO service. • Development and establishment of an Internet based CASPINFO Data & Information Service to facilitate the access to socio-economic and legal information, metadata and distributed datasets, managed by the regional partners, and to support marine environmental management. • To explore and to develop a sustainable operation model for the CASPINFO service, thereby taking into account that the partners are coming from different backgrounds (public and private sectors) and possibly will deal with a mix of public and commercial data & information. Improved access to high quality, up-to-date environmental, economic, social and industrial (meta-) data and information, is a key issue. The CASPINFO data & information service will serve as a repository for relevant, available marine environmental and industrial (meta-) data and serve as an important instrument for marine environmental scientists, oil & gas industry and other marine industries, governmental decision makers and managers and the general public. Interoperability and harmonisation with other European systems are key conditions. CASPINFO will zoom in on the environment, but moreover on supporting assessments of impacts and effectiveness of measures concerning oil & gas industry activities, which are of great economic importance to the region. CASPINFO will also be promoted to other marine industries, that might benefit from the service.