Over 300 participants from 35 countries met in Paris for the International Ocean Research Conference. The goals of the meeting were to reflect on how far oceanography has come and to help define the coming decade of international collaboration in science and education. The meeting had daily general plenary sessions focused on selected existing and proposed international research programs, as well as numerous contributed oral and poster sessions spanning polar ecosystems, mixing, and turbulence in the oceans; enabling technologies (autonomous underwater vehicles, sensors, remote sensing, data assimilative modeling); and science education and outreach.