Highlights: ‘Marine SABRES in Fairs’ at the EU Researchers’ Night 2025

Marine SABRES in Fairs - ERN 2025

For one night, research and discovery took centre stage in Lecce at the European Researchers’ Night – ERN Apulia Med 2025. LifeWatch ERIC welcomed more than 80 visitors at its ‘Marine SABRES in Fairs’ stand, offering an immersive journey into marine biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, and the future of the blue economy.

Children, families, students, and curious citizens explored the results of Marine SABRES, a Horizon Europe project that is working across Europe to restore marine ecosystems and ensure sustainable use of ocean resources. Posters, brochures, videos and hands-on materials guided the audience through the project’s work and its mission to make ecosystem-based management more practical and achievable.

One of the highlights of the night was the preview of the Marine SABRES Serious Game. For the first time, young visitors could try out the interactive online game, ahead of the official School Competition scheduled for World Fisheries Day, 21 November 2025. The game is designed for students between 10 and 18 years old and helps them discover how human activities affect marine ecosystems, and why this matters for our own well-being.

The stand also featured the documentary trailers produced by the LifeWatch Italy Multimedia Production Centre, offering a glimpse into the project’s three marine regions: the Arctic Northeast Atlantic, the Tuscan Archipelago and Macaronesia. Additional filming is planned during the next Marine SABRES General Assembly in Pisa (21–23 October 2025).


See the full photo gallery to revisit the key moments of the event.

If you missed the event, you can still watch the documentary trailers on LifeWatching.tv and discover the Serious Game School Competition.

For more information, please visit Marine SABRES official website: www.marinesabres.eu

The psychological impact of marine sounds: meet Waves of Resonance

Waves of Resonance

In June 2025, the European Marine Board launched the sound project “Waves of Resonance”, with the artist Elise Guillaume and her scientific collaborators: Clea Parcerisas (LifeWatch Belgium) and Marine Severin (VLIZ). The Belgian artist works on the interactions between psychology, ecology and notions of care. With Waves of Resonance she explores the psychological impact of climate change and the therapeutic potential of ocean sounds.

The project started during the EMBracing the Ocean artist-in-residence programme under the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development: a unique idea combining a wide range of different sounds, such as singing whales and cracking sea ice, fish and crustaceans, human activities like ship engines and pile-driving, dolphins, seabirds and many others. It also includes sounds normally inaudible to the human ear, with the results of having multi-layered sound installations that aim to strengthen emotional connection to the ocean.

LifeWatch Belgium has played a key role in the project, providing the underwater sound data from its observatory in the Belgian part of the North Sea.

Waves of Resonance also addresses the critical issue of sound pollution and aims to inspire pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. Throughout the project, Elise also documented the coastal landscape and the scientific recording processes, developing her photographs with seaweed as a low-toxicity alternative.

Find out more on this project: https://www.lifewatch.be/news/waves-resonance-artistic-journey-lifewatch-belgiums-ocean-data

Picture: Acoustic equipment being retrieved with VLIZ acoustic team, North Sea, 2024 Š John Janssens & Elise Guillaume

Marine SABRES launches the 2nd Serious Game School Competition

Marine SABRES School Competition

After a successful 2024 edition with 10 classes playing from across Europe, Marine SABRES launches a new online serious game and School Competition to help students explore the links between human activities, changes in marine ecosystems and impacts on our well-being. Registration is now open for teachers.

Marine SABRES invites secondary school teachers across Europe to take part in the Marine SABRES School Competition 2025, an online learning experience built around a new serious game that brings pupils closer to the science of our seas.

The 2025 edition will take place on World Fisheries Day, Friday 21 November 2025, from 09:00 to 17:00 CET. Throughout the day, participating classes will be guided to find answers to questions designed by a community of researchers committed to marine biodiversity and sustainable ocean use.

This initiative is designed for teachers of natural and social sciences, English and CLIL, citizenship, and environmental or sustainability education, and supports both lower (10-13) and upper (14-18) secondary students. Only teachers can register and, on the day of the School Competition, they will mentor their students while they play the online serious game.

Through game-based challenges and classroom quizzes, teachers can help their classes discover how strong the link between people and the ocean is, improve awareness and attitudes toward the marine environment to which we all belong, and learn from one another with the support of a European network of researchers.

Registration is open and accepted until the day of the event: click here to sign up for the competition.

LifeWatch ERIC presents preliminary results of ENERGYTRAN at high-level meeting in Costa Rica

ENERGYTRAN Preliminary Results

San JosĂŠ, Costa Rica, 18 September 2025. LifeWatch ERIC participated in the High-Level Meeting on Energy Transition and Climate Sustainability, organised by the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) at the Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE). The event brought together regional and international leaders, as well as representatives from international organisations, embassies, universities, research centres, and civil society, to forge strategic alliances for accelerating the energy transition across Ibero-America and Europe.

Representing LifeWatch ERIC, Maite Irazabal delivered a presentation on the preliminary results of the EULAC ENERGYTRAN project, highlighting its contributions to strengthening collaboration between Europe and Latin America. Among the results presented were advances in open science practices, the use of digital research infrastructures, and the development of analytical tools that support evidence-based decision-making in climate and energy policies. These outcomes illustrate how European Research Infrastructures are fostering interoperability, data access, and collaborative workflows to address global sustainability challenges.

The project is currently piloting innovative approaches, including analytical workflows for the energy transition, e-learning courses, and virtual collaboration platforms, all designed to improve the accessibility, quality, and usability of large-scale environmental and energy data.

“By fostering collaboration across regions, we are building a more sustainable and resilient knowledge ecosystem,” said Maite Irazabal during her presentation. “The ENERGYTRAN project is not only advancing science and innovation but also creating the conditions for more inclusive and impactful solutions to today’s environmental challenges.”

The participation of LifeWatch ERIC in this meeting marked another step towards reinforcing its long-term engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean, positioning open science and research infrastructures at the core of international cooperation for sustainability.

Marine SABRES in Fairs at EU Researchers’ Night 2025

Marine SABRES inFairs - European Researchers Night 2025

On September 26, 2025, LifeWatch ERIC will participate in the European Researchers’ Night, contributing to its programme and engaging with participants, thanks to its research stand “Marine SABRES in Fairs”.

On this occasion, LifeWatch ERIC will present the project Marine SABRES, organising the initiative â€œMarine SABRES in Fairs: protecting and restoring biodiversity, sustainable blue economy, and ecotourism”.

Marine SABRES – Marine Systems Approaches for Biodiversity Resilience and Ecosystem Sustainability, is a research project funded by the European Union that aims to conserve and protect biodiversity by integrating healthy, sustainably-used ecosystems and a resilient blue economy. To make Ecosystem-based Management more achievable and implementable, Marine SABRES is comprehensively studying and analysing marine social-ecological systems to design a new, simpler framework for managing the many activities and pressures on the marine environment.

At the ‘Marine SABRES in Fairs’ stand, it will be possible to discover the project’s results and materials: thematic videos, the documentary trailer and, in preview, a demonstration of the scientific game dedicated to students (aged 10-18) to explore the links between human activities, changes in marine ecosystems and impacts on people’s well-being. The tour includes posters, brochures and best practices that have emerged from the Marine SABRES approach, with simple and replicable tools for administrations, operators and communities. There will be interactive sessions for questions, with areas dedicated to schools and families.

For more information, please visit the official European Researchers’ Night ERN Apulia Med 2025.

About the European Researchers’ Night

The European Researchers’ Night is a Europe-wide public event, which displays the diversity of science and its impact on citizens’ daily lives in fun, inspiring ways. The European Researchers’ Night aims to bring research and researchers closer to the public, promote excellent research projects across Europe and beyond, increase the interest of young people in science and research careers, showcase the impact of researchers’ work on people’s daily lives.

Children, young people, families and the general public at large will have the chance to meet researchers and discover research, science and innovation through a wide range of science shows, hands-on experiments, games, quizzes, competitions, exhibitions, digital activities, research stands, interactive workshops, debates and round tables, scientific-informative seminars, stories of researchers and discoveries, etc.

More information about the project

Biodiverse marine ecosystems provide flows of ecosystem services that lead to goods and benefits for society, support human well-being, and enable economic sustainability and resilience. Yet the intensification of human activities, both on land and at sea, is accelerating marine biodiversity loss globally and within Europe. The exploitation of natural resources, tourism, coastal development, trade and transport, aquaculture, fisheries, agriculture and waste management — all place pressures on marine and coastal ecosystems, undermining biodiversity and the many benefits that it provides. To mitigate these pressures, effective management of marine and coastal environments is essential, not only to achieve international biodiversity goals (such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy), but also in combating the threats of climate change (e.g. ocean warming, sea level rise, acidification, increased storminess) and environmental degradation (e.g. pollution and eutrophication).

Marine SABRES is an EU-funded research project that aims to restore marine biodiversity and support a sustainable blue economy by increasing the uptake of ecosystem-based management in Europe. To make ecosystem-based management more achievable and implementable, we need to comprehensively study and analyse marine social-ecological systems. Marine SABRES is therefore co-developing and testing a simple socio-ecological system in collaboration with local people in three European marine regions: the Arctic Northeast Atlantic, the Tuscan Archipelago, and Macaronesia.

For more information, please visit Marine SABRES official website: www.marinesabres.eu

LifeWatch ERIC on Austria’s joining DiSSCo RI via OSCA

Dissco - OSCA

A strategic boost to European collaboration: LifeWatch ERIC warmly welcomes Austria’s integration into DiSSCo via OSCA. This national-level mobilisation is a model of how local strengths can be federated into a European knowledge system for biodiversity and ecosystem research. Natural History Museums and Botanical Gardens form undoubtedly the largest Research Infrastructure in Europe. The added value their specimens and their research products they take from joining Research Infrastructure is huge and it provides a serious return to the countries and societies invested in them.

  • Complementary missions, shared vision: DiSSCo’s work in digitising and harmonising specimen-based collections can be used in combination with LifeWatch ERIC’s focus on ecosystem-level observations, Virtual Research Environments (VREs), and computational workflows. Together, the two Research Infrastructures can cover a large spectrum from specimen or individual to system.
  • Enhancing synthetic knowledge production: With DiSSCo offering curated, voucher-based data, the synergy with LifeWatch ERIC, which provides semantic interoperability, cross-domain analytics, and modular service composition, synthetic knowledge, that is, integrated, cross-scale, and policy-relevant is created. This alone is a big leap to shaping the science of the future and the training of younger generations becomes a must in order for the countries to receive the full benefits from such concerted research practices.
  • One Health and Environmental Intelligence: We echo DiSSCo’s focus on the UN’s One Health Framework. LifeWatch ERIC’s ecological observatories, data repositories and analytical services and DiSSCo’s curated collections form a powerful foundation for early warning systems on animal diseases, assessments of zoonotic risks, and biodiversity severe change.
  • Infrastructure alignment and EOSC integration: LifeWatch ERIC supports DiSSCo’s alignment with EOSC, open science principles, and digital twins. Our joint efforts enhance FAIR data flows, reduce fragmentation, and increase reuse of biodiversity knowledge for research and innovation. DiSSCo’s continuous support to FAIR Data Objects (FDOs) forms a good example for the remaining Research Infrastructures dedicated on the Biosphere of the ENVRI Science Cluster in EOSC ecosystem.
  • Pooling resources and building capacity: Like DiSSCo, LifeWatch ERIC believes in shared platforms, training pathways, and economies of scale across Europe. Our collaboration offers smaller institutions access to best-in-class tools, methods, and community practices.
  • Reinforcing the European Research Area: OSCA’s connection to DiSSCo and, by extension, to the ENVRI cluster strengthens Austria’s role in the ERA. Together, we foster a cohesive and agile infrastructure ecosystem serving science, policy, and society.

The cave-dwelling olm: a sentinel for environmental change – LifeWatch Slovenia on Nautilus Magazine

ProteusWatch_Gregor_Aljancic

ProteusWatch vLab’s Research, part of the LifeWatch Slovenia Consortium, has been featured on Nautilus Magazine.

Deep beneath Europe’s karst landscapes lives the olm (Proteus anguinus), a pale, blind amphibian once thought to be the offspring of dragons. Elusive and long-lived, it is exquisitely sensitive to changes in groundwater quality and temperature, making it a living gauge of ecosystem health in subterranean aquifers that supply drinking water to millions.

Since 1960, the Tular Cave Laboratory in Kranj, Slovenia, has advanced olm research and conservation from a unique underground facility. Building on innovations that ranged from early CCTV systems to digital infrared video, the team has  revealed the behaviour and ecology of olm, from its unique cave-related sensoric capabilities to reproduction. Yet caves are dangerous and difficult to access, and lab studies can only go so far.

To bridge this gap, the research team from the Tular Cave Laboratory together with their colleagues from Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU (both partners in LifeWatch Slovenia Consortium), and in partnership with LifeWatch ERIC Virtual Lab Innovation Center (the Netherlands), have mapped out plans for the ProteusWatch Virtual Lab: a virtual cave laboratory that brings long-term, in-situ monitoring to the karst underworld. Combining low-impact video analysis, machine learning, advanced sensors, imaging sonar and underwater drones, ProteusWatch aims to observe the olm’s behaviour – movement, foraging, interactions and breeding – in real time, without disturbing its fragile habitat. A second virtual lab, the Karst Groundwater Virtual Lab, will track groundwater dynamics to assess ecosystem stability and pressures of pollution.

“The main reason for building the cave laboratory 65 years ago was to circumvent the inaccessibility of Proteus’ natural habitat and allow long-term observations under more controlled conditions,” said Gregor and Magdalena Aljančič. “With advanced technologies, the idea of studying olms in the wild is becoming more and more realistic. The new approach would not only be more efficient but could also save lives.”

Christos Arvanitidis, CEO of LifeWatch ERIC, is backing the team’s efforts as a new leading example of accessible, multidisciplinary science. “You can show your data to other communities in [a] way they can take advantage of, prove to them that this type of research can be done, and they can perhaps use their own data, for the same kind of analysis,” he says. “That’s amazing, because it leads progressively to a kind of knowledge which is produced by as many data, from as many domains, as possible.”

Read the full article on Nautilus Magazine.

Photo credit: Gregor Aljančič.

LifeWatch ERIC in Costa Rica with ENERGYTRAN: advancing sustainability, innovation and open science

Energytran - LifeWatch in Costa Rica

In September 2025, LifeWatch ERIC will play an active role in two major events in San JosĂŠ, Costa Rica, reaffirming its commitment to advancing sustainability, innovation, and open science, while strengthening international cooperation between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean.

On September 18th, 2025, LifeWatch ERIC will participate in the High-Level Meeting on Energy Transition and Climate Sustainability, hosted at the Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE). International experts will be presenting the preliminary results of the ENERGYTRAN project, which seeks to foster collaboration between Europe and Latin America to address shared challenges in the fields of energy transition and climate action.

The meeting will gather a wide range of high-level participants, including representatives of international cooperation organizations, national institutions, and academia, strengthening dialogue between Europe and Latin America on the pressing issues of climate sustainability and energy transition.

The programme will cover a diverse set of themes, from international cooperation in energy transition and sustainability, to the role of public institutions and academia, concluding with the presentation of preliminary results of the ENERGYTRAN project. LifeWatch ERIC, through Maite Irazabal, will contribute to this final block, showcasing the preliminary results of the project.

Following the High-Level Meeting, from 22 to 26 September 2025, LifeWatch ERIC will also take part in the E-learning Course: “Environmental Challenges and Open Science – an Approach from Innovation and Technology.” The course, organised in a hybrid format (in-person in Costa Rica and virtually via Zoom), will bring together researchers, research infrastructures professionals, public administration, civil society, and private sector actors from Europe and Latin America.

The programme, featuring speakers representing a wide range of prestigious institutions, will explore how open science can accelerate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the development of sustainable solutions to pressing environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation.

From LifeWatch ERIC, Julio Paneque will lead a session focused on open and FAIR science tools and use cases, presenting innovative approaches developed within the ENERGYTRAN project and beyond.

The hybrid design of the course, combining on-site sessions in Costa Rica with online participation ensures broad accessibility and inclusivity across regions, offering a valuable platform for dialogue between Europe and Latin America on the role of open science in addressing today’s most urgent environmental and societal challenges.

Through its contributions, LifeWatch ERIC reaffirms its mission to advance research and innovation for biodiversity, sustainability, and climate resilience, while fostering stronger transatlantic cooperation and the integration of open science practices.

For more information about the ENERGYTRAN project, please visit the official website: https://energytran.oei.int/

LifeWatch ERIC Gender Equality Plan (2025-2027)

Gender Equality Plan

The adoption of a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) has become a key eligibility requirement for organisations participating in Horizon Europe projects, in line with the European Commission’s Gender Equality Strategy for 2020-2025. Accordingly, the LifeWatch ERIC Executive Board has mandated its People & Culture department to take the necessary steps to establish a GEP, in line with LifeWatch ERIC Culture Principles (Arvanitidis et al. 2024).

The GEP is part of a broader effort to ensure that Gender Diversity is recognised and valued (a necessity also underlined by the 2024 ESFRI Monitoring Report for LifeWatch ERIC), and that systemic barriers to participation and advancement for under-represented groups are actively removed within the organisation.

This plan is the initial step in promoting an inclusive, respectful and supportive environment for all individuals, with a clear roadmap for promoting gender equality and equity. As a continuation of the first plan published in 2022, this updated version introduces more focused and ambitious measures that aim to make gender aspects an integral part of our internal policies, decision-making, human resources and research activities.

Read the full document here: https://riojournal.com/article/167869/

Picture “Blue Sky Coyote” from Michael Ireland on Adobe Stock.

In Native American traditions, the coyote is a trickster, challenging norms and driving change. In nature, coyotes share parental duties, with males supporting females during pregnancy and nursing.