European Research Infrastructures for a smarter future

When the ‘European Research Infrastructures for a smarter future’ conference, originally planned for 19–20 March in Zagreb by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education, had to be cancelled because of public health concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, a digital conference sprang up to take its place. Held online on Friday 15 May, 2020, the international event attracted representatives of Research Infrastructures and policy makers from all over Europe.

LifeWatch ERIC CEO Christos Arvanitidis featured as the first contributor to the morning panel on ‘Research Infrastructures and the European strategic agendas – Green Deal and Energy Transition’. Research Infrastructures, he argued, are organically linked to the European Green Deal Roadmap objectives, as they are tools for science offering the ideal environment to boost integration, community de-fragmentation, and innovation and growth. This, together with cross-domain integration, is of a key relevance on the road towards cleaner energy, more sustainable industry and mobility, reducing pollution and preserving biodiversity. Disruptive technologies also play a pivotal role in addressing the above goals. LifeWatch ERIC, for instance, offers blockchain technology for linking and managing open access data (LifeBlock) and develops the technical layer for the composability of its web services (LifeWatch ERIC Tesseract) towards reproducible analytics. Both technologies play an instrumental role in advancing science and in breaking current barriers between disciplines.

“Research Infrastructures will be critical in assisting the European Union to deliver on commitments to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and deliver science based and nature based solutions to global challenges” he said. “The challenges we are facing are at the same time scientific, technical, societal, cultural, therefore further progress will depend on breaking through traditional barriers and effecting a change in our culture. Synergies at national and regional levels, with industry and business, will be better able to capitalise on this synthetic knowledge, as has been demonstrated in Andalusia, with the ERDF recources”.

The panel on The Green Deal and Energy Transition, was moderated by Inmaculada Figueroa, Vice Deputy Director General for the Internationalisation of Science and Innovation, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain and ESFRI Vice-Chair, and also featured interventions from Sverre Quale, Director of ECCSEL ERIC; Tonci Tadic, Head of the Croatian Fusion Unit at the Ruder Boškovič Institute; and Jana Kolar, Executive Director of CERIC-ERIC. Click here for details of the ESFRI White Paper ‘Making Science Happen’.

The conference continued touching other key topics for Research Infrastructures their contribution for Regional Development and in the fight against COVID-19, presenting ESFRI White Paper ‘Making Science Happen – a new ambition for Research Infrastructures in the European Research Area’, leading to the policy panel European Research Infrastructures for a smarter future.

Presentation: 

Christos Arvanitidis, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, Alberto Basset & Peter Van Tienderen – “Opportunities the European Green Deal and Energy Union provide for RIs”.

Policy Relevance and Uptake

  • End of May 2026 – Policy-brief to demonstrate the application of habitat-based mapping in supporting EU strategies (e.g., Biodiversity Strategy, Nature Restoration Law).

Mapping user requirements

  • End of January 2025 – Catalogue of services already available in LifeWatch ERIC or research lines addressing ecological responses to climate change;
  • February 2025 (TBD) – Online working table on setting priorities, timeline and milestones for the mapping service and model requirements by scientists and science stakeholders.
Greece

The Greek National Distributed Centre is funded by the Greek General Secretariat of Research and Technology and is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, in conjunction with 47 associated partner institutions.

To know more about how Greece contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Italy

The Italian National Distributed Centre is led and managed by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and is coordinated by a Joint Research Unit, currently comprising 35 members. Moreover, Italy hosts one of the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities, the Service Centre.

To know more about how Italy contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Netherlands

The Dutch National Distributed Centre is hosted by the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. Moreover, The Netherlands hosts one of the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities, the Virtual Laboratory and Innovation Centre.

To know more about how The Netherlands contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Portugal

The Portuguese National Distributed Centre is managed by PORBIOTA, the Portuguese e-Infrastructure for Information and Research on Biodiversity. Led by BIOPOLIS/CIBIO-InBIO – Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, PORBIOTA connects the principal Portuguese research institutions working in biodiversity.

To know more about how Portugal contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Slovenia

The Slovenian National Distributed Centre is led by the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). It focuses on the development of technological solutions in the field of biodiversity and socio-ecosystem research.

To know more about how Slovenia contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Spain

The Spanish National Distributed Centre is supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Guadalquivir River Basin Authority (Ministry for Ecological Transition-MITECO). Moreover, Spain is the hosting Member State of LifeWatch ERIC, the location of its Statutory Seat & ICT e-Infrastructure Technical Office (LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities). 

To know more about how Spain contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian National Distributed Centre is represented by the  Agricultural University-Plovdiv.

To know more about how Bulgaria contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Implementing services

  • End of January 2025 – Internal distribution of a questionnaire on the most used/relevant model resources in the WG member research activity;
  • February 2025 (TBD) – Online working table on setting priorities, timeline and milestones for the mapping service and model requirements by scientists and science stakeholders.

Knowledge Exchange and Capacity Building

  • End of December 2025 – Create a shared repository of guidance documents, tools, templates, and data resources accessible to WG members and broader communities.

Organising WG workshops and conferences

  • End of January 2025 – Setting priority research lines and contributions to the BEeS 2025 LifeWatch Conference for the session on the “Ecological responses to climate change”;
  • March/April 2025 (TBD) – Workshop ‘Ecological modelling and eco-informatics to address functional responses of biodiversity and ecosystems to climate change’ co-organised with the University of Salento;
  • 30 June – 3 July 2025 – Participation to LifeWatch 2025 BEeS Conference on “Addressing the Triple Planetary Crisis”.

Fund raising

  • End of January 2025 – Establishing a WG Committee on scouting project application opportunities and fundraising.

Meetings, Webinars, International Conferences & Networking (2025/2026)

  • Organising and participating at discussions on emerging technologies in biodiversity monitoring;
  • Organising webinars on machine learning, eDNA analysis, and automated data collection;
  • Fostering collaboration between researchers, technologists, and decision-makers.

Collaborative Research & Case Studies (2025/2026)

  • Conducting pilot projects to test new monitoring methods;
  • Publishing scientific and popular science papers and reports on advancements in biodiversity assessment.

Data Standardisation & FAIR Principles Implementation (2025/2026)

  • Developing best practices for data curation and sharing;
  • Ensuring that biodiversity data aligns with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) standards.

Development of VREs for Ecosystem Simulation (2026)

  • Creating virtual models of ecosystems to predict environmental changes;
  • Enhancing conservation strategies through AI-driven simulations.

Mapping Requirements and Gap Analysis

  • End of December 2025 – Catalogue of services already available in LifeWatch ERIC or research lines Ecosystem services mapping.

Methodological Alignment and Innovation

  • End of January 2026 – Online working table on mapping standards, classification systems, and indicators across members;
  • End of January 2026 – Catalogue of advanced techniques (e.g., remote sensing, GIS modelling, and machine learning) for scalable, habitat-based ecosystem service mapping;
  • End December 2026 – Methodological framework to support methodological innovation through joint development and testing of mapping approaches, especially linking ecosystem service supply and demand.
Belgium

The Belgian National Distributed Centre makes varied and complementary in-kind contributions to LifeWatch ERIC. These are implemented in the form of long-lasting projects by various research centres and universities distributed throughout the country and supported by each respective political authority.

To know more about how Belgium contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.