Abstract Significant past effort has gone into understanding the complicated flow–structure interaction problem of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of long flexible cylindrical structures (e.g., risers, mooring lines, tendons, conductors) in the ocean environment. However, major challenges persist with regard to riser VIV modeling and response prediction. The existing prediction schemes are based on a number of hypotheses, experimental facts and data like strip theory, energy balance, correlation length and, most importantly, the use of lift force coefficient databases. Recent advances in observing the VIV motions on experimental risers with high confidence shows that some of these assumptions may not be valid. One important source of the discrepancies between theoretical estimates and experimental observations arise from the use of experimentally obtained lift coefficient databases. These databases were obtained under the laboratory conditions of limited Reynolds number, and under the assumption that the cross-flow motions are not influenced by restraining the in-line motions. In this paper we develop a method to improve the modeling capability of riser VIV by extracting empirical lift coefficient databases from field riser VIV measurements. The existing laboratory-based lift coefficient databases are represented in a flexible parameterized form using a set of carefully chosen parameters. Extraction of the lift coefficient parameters is posed as an optimization problem, where the objective is to minimize the error between the prediction using a theoretical model and the experimental data. Application of the method to data from the Norwegian Deepwater Programme experiments shows that the new optimal databases significantly reduce the error in estimating the riser VIV cross-flow response.