The ProMeteo project launched by Seville City Council, which will classify and name heat waves according to their impact, and provide a network of climate shelters to protect people from excessive temperatures, will be made possible by the involvement of LifeWatch ERIC and other strategic partners. The mayor of Seville, Antonio Muñoz, and the director of the Adrienne Arsht Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, Kathy Baughman McLeod, the organisation promoting the initiative, thanked partners of the project at a launch on 21 June 2022. Seville's pioneering strategy recognises the serious consequences that extended periods of extreme heat can have on people's health,...

The 14th General Assembly of LifeWatch ERIC, 21-22 June 2022, was organised in Vairão, Vila do Conde, Porto under the stewardship of CIBIO-BIOPOLIS, the leading institution of LifeWatch Portugal. Chaired by Inmaculada Figueroa, this was the first General Assembly held as a physical meeting after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessed the participation of the delegates of the eight Member States composing LifeWatch ERIC. At the heart of the 14th General Assembly was the final approval of the New Strategic Working Plan, which builds upon the work achieved in the last five years and will set the direction...

LifeWatch ERIC CTO Dr Juan Miguel González-Aranda has been featured in the Tribuna de Andalucía to present six of theprojects in which the Research Infrastructure is involved in the heartland of its ICT-Core and Statutory Seat offices. The title of the article is “United in Biodiversity: Advancing Andalusia's Green Revolution through Digitisation”, and the ERDF projects presented demonstrate how LifeWatch ERIC uses state-of-the-art technology such as AI, Deep Learning and Virtual Research Environments to protect biodiversity, in collaboration with other important figures in the research sector, such as CSIC, the University of Malaga, the University of Granada, the Junta de Andalucía, and many more. Additionally, by following a participatory approach...

This week, along with 22 other partners, LifeWatch ERIC took part in the kick-off meeting of a new Horizon Europe project which will help protect and restore biodiversity through the development of a digital twin prototype, in Espoo, Finland. Biodiversity Digital Twin (BioDT) BioDT will provide a crucial infrastructure to drive long-term biodiversity research and facilitate science-driven policy and rapid-response actions to enforce current commitments to protecting biodiversity in the long term. In the context of recent efforts supported by the European Commission for the development of digital twins to address multidisciplinary environmental and societal challenges, the consortium, led by...

Last week, the Agricultural University of Plovdiv hosted the first two-day working meeting of the LifeWatch Bulgaria consortium, Bulgaria being the newest member state of LifeWatch ERIC, the e-Science Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research. The meeting was also attended by Dr Christos Arvanitidis, LifeWatch ERIC’s CEO, who travelled to Plovdiv to conduct a two-day training course for the Bulgarian partners of LifeWatch ERIC, introducing them to the Research Infrastructure’s goals, objectives, activities, functioning, vision and mission. The rights and obligations of the Bulgarian consortium, as a full member of LifeWatch ERIC, and the respective benefits, advantages and commitments in projects led by LifeWatch ERIC were also discussed. At the same time, Dr Arvanitidis focused on the challenges of emerging on a global scale as a...

On 2 June, Eng. Antonio López-Martínez, Project Manager and Coordinator of EU-SOLARIS, visited the LifeWatch ERIC ICT-Core premises in Seville. EU-SOLARIS is the European SOLAR Research Infrastructure for Concentrated Solar Power based in Almeria (Spain), which entered the ESFRI roadmap in 2010, becoming a landmark in 2018, and which will be established as an ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) in October 2022. EU-SOLARIS ERIC will be hosted by CIEMAT, the Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas) at the PSA, the Almeria Solar Platform (Plataforma Solar de Almería) premises. The EU-SOLARIS vision is...

On Wednesday 1 June, Dr Jesús Marco de Lucas (Vice-President for Science and Technology of the National Spanish Research Council – CSIC), and Dr Margarita Peneque Sosa (Institutional Coordinator for Andalusia – CSIC) did LifeWatch ERIC the honour of visiting its ICT-Core premises. CSIC is in fact one of the main stakeholders of LifeWatch ERIC in Spain, and the two organisation are tightly working together in the framework of the SUMHAL project.This project implements a strategy for the conservation of biodiversity in sustainable natural systems of the western Mediterranean area. Its main objective is to combine the results of the...

In the run-up to the ENVRI Community International Summer School in July, LifeWatch ERIC and ENVRI-FAIR will be organising two webinars on "Designing and Developing Data Services for End Users". Participation in the webinars can be in preparation for the School or as stand-alone sessions, for those who cannot attend the School, or those who are still considering registering. For more information on the ENVRI Community International Summer School "Road to a FAIR ENVRI-Hub: Designing and Developing Data Services for End Users", please visit the dedicated minisite. The webinars are particularly aimed at IT architects, Research Infrastructure (RI) service developers...

Gender (SDG 5) is a game-changer to accelerate progress towards achieving biodiversity objectives.[1] The stakes are high, and it is therefore critical to ensure that women also have the opportunity to contribute to supporting biodiversity goals. In many parts of the world, specific daily roles for women and men mean that they have specialised knowledge in different areas of biodiversity, and also different priorities. This means both women and men have a lot to contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem management.  However, women’s perspectives are often not taken into account, even though they are often more vulnerable than men to the ecological crises that arise from issues such...

Citizen science can play a major role in data collection and processing. LifeWatch Belgium always champions greater collaboration between scientists and citizens because it enhances research and strengthens support among the wider public. The LifeWatch VLIZ initiatives 'SeaWatch-B' and the annual 'Big Seashell Survey' are good examples of this invaluable citizen-scientists cross-fertilisation. In order to give people a taste of this kind of initiative, on Sunday 8 May 2022, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) organised, with many other partners, the first citizen science festival on the Belgian coastline: ZEEKERWETEN (which translates as “knowing for sure/shore”). Under the watchful eye of...

To celebrate International Biodiversity Day 2022, LifeWatch Portugal and partners are organising a 4-day BioBlitz, from 19–22 May, in collaboration with Vila do Conde – Ciência Viva Center – and the Serras do Porto Natural Park (Parque das Serras do Porto). The first two days will be dedicated to school groups and the weekend will be open to families and adults. Researchers from the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) and the Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (BIOPOLIS/CIBIO-InBIO) are inviting everyone to step out into the wild and unravel the beautiful biodiversity of some...

Three members of the LifeWatch ERIC Executive Board, alongside collaborator Professor Angel Pérez-Ruzafa, attended the Life Transfer Summit in Murcia today, to mark the opening of an observatory in the Mar Menor, an initiative in which the research infrastructure will actively collaborate. CEO Dr Christos Arvanitidis, CTO Dr Juan Miguel González-Aranda, Service Centre Director Professor Alberto Basset and Professor Ruzafa all made presentations at the meeting, which was attended by Mr Antonio Luengo, Environmental Minister of the Murcia region, to bring his support of the infrastructure on the occasion. The Life Transfer project, Seagrass Transplantation for Transitional Ecosystem Recovery, aims...

This morning, LifeWatch ERIC CTO, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, went live on Andalusian TV to discuss the ecological crises we are facing and to explain the role, the structure, and the ambition of the research infrastructure. He spoke on the programme ‘Despierta Andalucía’ of Canal Sur, noting that the region home to the LifeWatch ERIC Statutory Seat and ICT-Core is known for its excellence in the fields of open software and sustainability research. During his interview, Dr González-Aranda explained how LifeWatch ERIC makes use of vast amounts of data and cutting-edge technology, such as remote sensing, to monitor and predict changes...

We are delighted to announce the 2022 edition of the ENVRI Community International Summer School. And this summer, we are back in person!  The Summer School, now at its fifth edition, is organised by ENVRI-FAIR and LifeWatch ERIC and will take place in Lecce, Italy, from 10–15 July. This edition's title is “Road to a FAIR ENVRI-Hub: Designing and Developing Data Services for End Users”, and it will cover topics such as user interfaces, packaging of services, reusability and validation of services, and building and supporting networks through the lens of the ENVRI-Hub approach.  This School is therefore mainly aimed...

On behalf of the infrastructure, LifeWatch ERIC CEO, Christos Arvanitidis, would like to congratulate Gender Equity Consultant, Africa Zanella, for her appointment as Gender Initiatives Focal Point for the Climate Investment Fund (CIF) at the World Bank. “This is not only a fantastic achievement for Africa, but also an important honour for LifeWatch ERIC as an organisation,” said the CEO – “This is a crucial role at the Climate Investment Fund, with great responsibility – one that we know she is well-equipped to carry out, not only due to her specialisation in social science and her experience in themes of...