ILICO, a French Research Infrastructure (RI) for Coastal Ocean and Nearshore Observations is a notable example of national and pan-institutional efforts to expand knowledge of the complex processes at work within the critical coastal zone in line with the European Ocean Observing System perspective. Providing a forum for its community to work together on priority issues is a challenge, and ILICO’s organizational structure and governance is designed accordingly. Future challenges for this RI include the question of whether France’s original model of combining both land and nearshore in its study of the coastal domain is transferable to the pan-European context and how far we can go in integrating overseas and ultramarine issues.