A meeting of the joint IOC-ICES Study Group on Nutrient Standards (SGONS) was held in Paris, France on 23-24 March 2010. It focused on the ongoing activities of the SGONS and plans for extended international collaborations to establish global comparability of the nutrient data from the world’s ocean. Thirty two scientists and experts from 11 countries and 2 delegates from IOC attended the meeting. The discussions followed the Terms of References of SGONS established in July 2009. Development of the reference materials for nutrients in seawater (RMNS) were also discussed in collaboration with the producers. The background and history of SGONS and an international nutrients scale system INSS and the progress with the production of RMNS materials and their current availability were reported. The production of RMNS and the latest status of the RMNS production facility, current status on the certification of RMNS for nitrate, nitrite, phosphate and silicate at the National Metrology Institute of Japan were also reported. The revised nutrients analysis manual which is being undertaken by the SGONS hopefully would be completed by 1 August 2010, and it will be published on line at the Go-Ship website. Results obtained with RMNS solutions used on the P6 reoccupation cruise in 2009-2010 by SIO (Scripps Institute of Oceanography, USA) showed that considerable improvement could be made in the internal comparability of the data by referencing it to the RMNS results and related good comparability with the previous P6 cruise in 2003 by JAMSTEC when RMNS were also used. The meeting strongly endorsed the idea of a ship board workshop in 2013/14 during which major groups would carry out a full inter-comparison of all procedures including analytical methods on board a research ship. The global stability test of RMNS by ten core laboratories of SGONS which started in 2009 will continue for more two years. It also was agreed to set up an international steering committee to plan the next inter-laboratory comparison study which will extend the study to about 70 laboratories working globally on deep sea hydrography. This will happen in early 2011. Future arrangements were considered for the collection of more batches of seawater for the preparation of RMNS waters suitable for use in all major water masses, and a list of candidate cruises in 2010/2011 was prepared. The related point of the extension of the use of RMNS for work in shelf sea water was also discussed, this followed on from discussions at the ICES Marine Chemistry Working Group (MCWG) meeting in 2010. The ICES MCWG considered that the use of suitable RMNS solutions would be valuable for improving the inter comparability of shelf sea data and be a valuable complement to work with the existing QUASIMEME proficiency testing scheme.