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 “Marine 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

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 José, 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/