The NOAA Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) Program is a NOAA-wide initiative that oversees the direction and execution of Integrated Ecosystem Assessments within the United States ocean and coastal ecosystems. NOAA IEA is an approach that integrates all components of an ecosystem, including humans, into the decision-making process so that managers can balance trade-offs and determine what is more likely to achieve their desired goals. This approach provides the science necessary to carry out Ecosystem-Based Management and is a key part of NOAA’s ecosystem science enterprise. The program has a commitment to ensure the best available science is used to inform management decisions. The program does this by implementing an iterative multi-step approach that provides a framework to support ecosystem-based management - leveraging and integrating existing science and research activities and programs in NOAA and also building additional capacity within the IEA program to assess a marine ecosystem as a whole to provide natural resource managers with a broader understanding of the ecosystem and make fully informed decisions. The program strives to be inclusive, building a constantly growing interdisciplinary network of science and management partners both internal and external to NOAA.