COPO is a portal for scientists to describe, store and retrieve data easily, using community standards and public repositories that enable the open sharing of results.

Notably, within both the Darwin Tree of Life (DTOL) and the Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics Project (ASG) communities, COPO supports both data managers and individual researchers.

COPO has been involved in the Sample Working Groups of DToL, ASG, and most recently ERGA, together with ENA, to provide an easy route for metadata collection and validation according to the specifications agreed.