Glider Community
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The underwater glider community is primarily made up of universities,
national oceanographic institutes, and government agencies, supported by a
smaller group of private companies and nonprofit ocean-observing
organizations. Two useful starting points for seeing who is active in the
field are the `UG2 community members <https://underwatergliders.org/about/members/>`_
list, which is more U.S.-focused, and the `EuroGOOS public metrics
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G0s66-f_s3nnHHihpImCQkVxLTbQpuQu2XLMp0UrYag/edit?gid=1823602927#gid=1823602927>`_
sheet, which provides a more European view.

Community Networks
------------------

Efforts such as `OceanGliders <https://www.oceangliders.org/>`_ and the
`Underwater Glider User Group (UG2) <https://underwatergliders.org/>`_ aim to
coordinate the global and U.S. glider communities by standardizing operations
and data practices, improving collaboration, and strengthening the integration
of underwater glider observations into ocean science and forecasting systems.

The `UG2 Slack signup
<https://underwatergliders.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f25ae455efed42732eca363fd&id=3abcc2d061>`_,
`UG2 YouTube channel <https://www.youtube.com/@UG2media>`_, and
`OceanGlidersCommunity GitHub repositories
<https://github.com/OceanGlidersCommunity>`_ contain a lot of useful
information about gliders, operations, and shared resources.

The older `EGO <https://www.ego-network.org/dokuwiki/doku.php>`_ effort is now
represented by the `European Glider Community
<https://www.europeanglidercommunity.org/>`_, which continues to provide useful
resources, including access to many presentations from past glider
conferences.

Glider Infrastructure
-----------------------

`GROOM <https://www.groom-ri.eu/>`_ is an interesting European initiative aimed
at building a coordinated research infrastructure around gliders and other
marine autonomous systems. It focuses on connecting gliderports, data centers,
operators, researchers, industry, and ocean observing systems into one
interoperable network.

Its goals include standardizing operations and data management, improving
access to gliders and services, supporting climate and ocean monitoring,
enabling better integration with systems such as EOOS and GOOS, fostering
collaboration between research and industry, reducing operational costs and
carbon footprint through autonomy and AI, and making marine autonomous systems
a core part of long-term European ocean observation and blue economy
activities.

Maintenance
-----------

For maintenance support in the U.S., the obvious starting points are
`Teledyne Webb Research <https://www.teledynemarine.com/support/webb-research>`_
for Slocums and `IOP at APL-UW <https://iop.apl.washington.edu/seaglider.php>`_
for Seagliders.

In Europe, `NOC Innovations
<https://noc-innovations.com/services/autonomous-vehicles-and-testing-services/glider-service-centre/>`_
provides general maintenance support for both Seagliders and Slocums, along
with some sensor calibrations.

`Akvaplan-niva <https://akvaplan.no/en>`_ can also provide maintenance support,
including traveling to the customer's location and performing the work on site.