LW ERIC Scientific Community Meeting

Scientific Community Meeting

Rome, 27-29 May 2019

LifeWatch ERIC is organising its first Scientific Community Meeting, aiming at gathering the scientific Community of scientists and developers to trigger and boost the discussion on the most promising lines of development of science on three key themes: a) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Theory; b) Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning and Services; c)Data Analysis, Modelling and Disruptive Technologies.

At the same time, LifeWatch ERIC wants to identify the major gaps in the scientific knowledge to be addressed in the next five to ten years, highlighting the key societal challenges that biodiversity and ecosystem science is required to address, proposing nature-based approaches to natural resource managers and decision makers.

Plenaries will be followed by Working sessions, with the more practical aim to promote the involvement of the user communities in LifeWatch ERIC; and collect from them clear indications of their needs, in terms of services and VRE developments, to facilitate and support their research activity. For more information, please find attached the programme of the meeting.

More information is available on the minisite: www.lifewatch.eu/scientific-community-meeting

International Summer School Data FAIRness

International Summer School for Environmental & Earth Science Infrastructures: Theory & Practice | Lecce, 01-05/07/2019

LifeWatch ERIC and the ENVRIplus H2020 project are organising their joint International Summer School “Data FAIRness in Environmental & Earth Science Infrastructures: Theory & Practice” which will take place in Lecce (Italy), from 1 – 5 July 2019.

The course will focus on the specific Data FAIRness phase in the Environmental and Earth sciences. It is built as a five-day summer school where leading scientists will address this topic from different perspectives. We offer a cutting edge and high-quality programme, aimed at fostering a rich and lively intellectual exchange.

The Summer School is mainly addressed to staff working in the relevant international research infrastructures. The school is also open to PhD students, Post-Docs and Master students about to start a Doctorate. LifeWatch ERIC and ENVRIplus financially support accommodation (30 June – 6 July inclusive), lunches, a welcome and a social dinner for maximum 20 participants. Travel expenses will not be covered by the organisers.

Big data, new media, new methods of management, analysis and interpretation: Achievements and Challenges

On 20 March 2019 (18.00-20.00) in the L.Zervas amphitheatre, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Christos Arvanitidis, at the time representative of of our Greek Node and currently CEO of LifeWatch ERIC, was invited to give his talk on ‘Big data, new media, new methods of management, analysis and interpretation: Achievements and Challenges’.

The whole talk is available online in English at this address http://helios-eie.ekt.gr/EIE/handle/10442/16159, and the the full presentation can be downloaded here.

During the talk, Christos Arvanitidis discussed key topics like management policy and data use, as well as the analytical applications of LifeWatchGreece, and presented three network applications:

(a) The MedOBIS Virtual Lab  (MedOBISvLab) which hosts, manages and shares marine biodiversity data, and features geo- and bio-annotation and references.
(b) The Microtomography Virtual Lab (micro_CT vLab) that hosts. manages, analyses and disseminates big data from the field of microtomography.
(c) The R Virtual Lab (R_yLab) which stores extensive environmental data and is widely used by scientists and researchers.

WoRMs: 10 new marine species from 2018

This year, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), a prominent component of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone, has released its list of the top-ten marine species of 2018 to coincide with World Taxonomist Appreciation day – 19 March! 

Every day in labs, museums, out on fieldwork, taxonomists are busy collecting, cataloguing, identifying, comparing, describing and naming species new to science. Some 300 taxonomists globally also contribute their valuable time to keeping the World Register of Marine Species up to date. Today, WoRMS thanks its taxonomic editors for this important task, celebrating the work of taxonomists now with the WoRMS list of the top-ten marine species described in 2018 as nominated and voted for by taxonomists!

This top-ten list is just a small highlight of almost 2,000 fascinating new marine species discovered every year. Check LifeWatch Belgium website for more info.

If you were unaware of this celebration of all the work that taxonomists do, you can find more here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/taxonomistappreciationday, and here https://smallpondscience.com/2014/03/19/today-is-taxonomist-appreciation-day/ and here https://cetaf.org/news/19th-march-taxonomist-appreciation-day.

LifeWatch ERIC @ ERIC Forum Project Kick Off

On 31st January and 1st February 2019, LifeWatch ERIC, together with other 22 European Research Infrastructures, gathered in Amsterdam for the kick off meeting of the ERIC Forum project. The initiative sees a strong commitment of our infrastructure, which hosted the 3rd ERIC Forum Meeting in Seville, 27-29 November 2018, on the invitation of LifeWatch ERIC Chief Technical Officer, Juan-Miguel González-Aranda, also past Chair of the ERIC Forum itself.

The meeting in Amsterdam marked the launch of this new project and was attended by both LifeWatch ERIC Chief Executive and Chief Technical Officers (Jesús Miguel Santamaría Ulecia and Juan-Miguel González-Aranda) who welcomed its official starting: “The ERIC Forum project and this meeting are a sign we are moving in the right direction, with the clear aim to empower the Forum becoming a common house and strong voice for all EU Research Infrastructures” says Juan-Miguel González-Aranda “LifeWatch ERIC is glad to be a promoter of this initiative and contribute to its success“.

LifeWatch ERIC is co-leading WP6, together with ECRIN, working for the definition of the role of ERICs within the European research ecosystem and science policy, particularly in relation to the European Open Science Cloud EOSC-ERIC engagement, and Research and Innovation Smart Specialisation Strategy RIS connection.

For more information on the ERIC Forum project and kick off meeting, please view the official press release.

We are hiring

LifeWatch ERIC has opened a vacancy for a position at its Service Centre, Lecce, Italy

Please note, that motivation letter and curriculum vitae are required, and they both shall be drafted in English.

  • SC Web Portal Officer – Please note that for this position only the deadline is extended to 23/03/2019