Advancing Earth Sciences: Highlights from the 2024 EGU General Assembly

From April 14 to 19, the 2024 General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) – a non-profit international union of scientists focused on planetary and space science research in Europe – occurred in Vienna, Austria. With around 19,500 members worldwide, the EGU24 General Assembly counted 20,979 registered attendees, with 18,388 present in Vienna from 116 countries and 2,591 people joining online from 109 countries.

In a session with ICOS-ERIC and the EGI Foundation, LifeWatch-ERIC presented how to use the NaaVRE Virtual Research Environment (VRE), focusing on teaching participants the essential technologies for notebook containerisation, workflow composition and cloud automation in a Jupyter notebook-based VRE. Bringing together environmental researchers, data developers, scientists and engineers, the session aimed to deepen participants’ understanding of data integration, VREs, web services and their central role in environmental science. The session focused on discovering data and tools in a cloud-based environment to promote open and fair data management and research results. During this training session, speakers discussed the difficulties of dealing with complex and time-consuming processes when customising and executing data workflows in the cloud using Jupyter Notebooks. It also provided tips and techniques for research using Jupyter notebooks and Virtual Research Environments (VREs) workflows.

LifeWatch ERIC also hosted a scientific session at the EGU24 General Assembly, during which use cases were presented on the successful use of Research Infrastructure in scientific research, and a Town Hall meeting about Open Science, Open Data, and Open Access.

Why does it matter

Environmental science requires expertise in data integration, virtual research environments, web services and open science practices. Researchers face complex challenges and must collaborate with scientists and developers to solve them. Interdisciplinary collaborations extend beyond scientific domains, and improving machine-to-machine interactions is crucial. By enabling findability and interoperability of data and services across different technologies and environmental scientific domains, researchers can stay ahead in the rapidly evolving landscape of data science and technology. To learn more about NaaVRE, please visit this page: https://naavre.lifewatch.dev/vreapp

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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