ESIP is a community drawn from agencies and individuals who provide handling for Earth and environmental science data and information.

Beginning with 24 NASA-funded partners, ESIP's purpose was to evolve methods to make Earth science data easy to preserve, locate, access and use by research, education, and commercial interests.

These prototype projects were joined by nine NASA data archive centers to form the core of the early ESIP Federation and were responsible for creating its governing structures and the collaborative community it is today.

Beginning in July 2007 in Madison, Wisconsin, a Strategic Planning Working Group was formed to develop a new vision of the ESIP Federation in its second decade.

ESIP is made up of more than 170 partner organizations that span NASA, NOAA, EPA, USGS and DOE research-funded groups.