Northern Franklin, formerly RV Franklin, is an oceanographic and hydrographic research vessel built by NQEA in Cairns, Australia for the CSIRO in 1984. She was operated by CSIRO as Australia's first Marine National Facility research vessel and undertook 180 voyages in the "Australian region and in the Southern Ocean between 1985 and 2002. Data about and from these surveys is stored at the CSIRO NCMI (National Collections and Marine Infrastructure) Information and Data Centre in Hobart.
In 2003, Franklin was replaced as the Marine National Facility by the Southern Surveyor and sold to a group of northern hemisphere private investors, who sold it in 2005 to European marine survey operator MMT, based in Sweden. MMT subsequently became part of Ocean Infinity.
As at 2025, the vessel continues to operate in the northern hemisphere for marine survey work, under the name Northern Franklin; its operations are run via the company Northern Survey by arrangement with MMT, sailing under the flag of Denmark.