The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) is the world’s largest and most successful geoscience research and training program. Scientific ocean drilling samples geological materials from the deep subsurface, obtains continuous records of past events spanning millions of years of Earth’s history and monitors active geological processes with in-situ laboratories. Australia has been a member of the IODP (and its predecessors) since 1988 and a consortium leader (with New Zealand) since 2013. Australia’s participation in the 23-nation IODP is due for renewal from 2021.