Persistent archival and user-friendly sharing of knowledge is one of the core components for good scientific practice. Over years, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has acquired a wealth of observational data by operating research vessels (Polarstern, Heincke and Uthorn), land-based stations (Neumayer, Kohnen, Koldewey and Dallmann), aircraft (Polar 2 and Polar 4), and, more recently, the ocean-based stations Hausgarten.To optimize mining of research platform related knowledge, a prototype for a vertical portal designed to serve the needs of science-, industry- and outreach-oriented users has been developed. It provides links to AWI publications related to a given expedition/campaign and to data sets extracted from onboard/in situ acquisition systems. Thus, we are taking the first step towards bridging the gap between AWI publications and data archives, f.e. PANGAEA and mass storage systems. In addition, various types of information about past and future expeditions/campaigns are available such as associated technology transfer material, project summary, cruise/campaigns reports, newsletters, press releases, multimedia material, webcam links etc. Knowledge query is made available according to research platform type, geographical location or coordinates, project title and discipline. We offer either a simple, user-friendly table-like interface or a fully graphical one using the OpenGIS MapServer systemThe discovery model presented is extensible and not limited to AWIs in-house data models. We believe that sharing of quality-controlled knowledge on research platforms fosters cross-discipline as well as cross-institutional cooperation and improves the scientific planning of future expeditions/campaigns and long-term observatory programs.We seek support from this community towards the development and consolidation of a web of service-oriented information systems archives and portals which provide a variety of views towards these - which allows for seamless access to distributed repositories worldwide. Such a federated system which would leave the stewardship of publications and data archives with their creators - could be accomplished based on the interoperability architecture of W3C Web Services protocols, combined with further, select standards for metadata, as for example the Dublin Core metadata element set [ANSI/NISO Z39.85-2001, ISSN: 1041-5653] and the richer ISO 19115/TC211 geospatial metadata scheme.