Europe and its surroundings operate an impressive number of seismometers and accelerometers, accommodating high and lower quality sensors, permanent and mobile stations, land-based and ocean bottom systems. The equipment and observatories are largely funded by national resources and priorities. Recently a number of initiatives, among them NERIES, have accomplished a significant step towards integrating this diverse network into a homogeneous real-time network, data archival and data access facility, thus providing a powerful research tool for
future earth science research and hazard assessment.