Deep Learning and marine recovery: the DTO-BioFlow project releases new study

DTO BioFlow Press Release

What can 26 years of underwater video recordings tell us about climate change and human pressures on the sea?

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg’s TjĂ€rnö Marine Laboratory have analysed footage from Sweden’s Kosterhavet National Park, the first marine national park in Sweden, to get a clearer understanding of the rapid transformations that marine ecosystems are undergoing. Spanning over 26 years, this analysis has great potential to show us how human and climate influence are literally reshaping the sea floor.

The study, published in the Ecology and Evolution journal, has been funded by the DTO-BioFlow project. DTO-BioFlow is a Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action, that brings together 28 European partners to improve access to marine biodiversity data, apply artificial intelligence in ocean monitoring, and connect these resources to EMODnet and EDITO. As part of the project’s consortium, LifeWatch ERIC demonstrates with policy-relevant use cases the benefit of an end-to-end approach for biodiversity monitoring, as part of the project’s consortium.

This work offers a concrete illustration of how AI can contribute to ecosystem monitoring and management, by transforming “sleeping data” like archives of footage into ecological knowledge: it can tell us if protection measures are actually working, and show us the seabed’s responses to rising temperatures.

The results of the study showed that the restrictions introduced over the past 25 years in Sweden’s waters have contributed to the recovery of sensitive seabed communities, creating solid ground for the implementation of similar measures in other areas.

Read more on the DTO-BioFlow website: https://dto-bioflow.eu/news/using-deep-learning-unlock-decades-marine-biodiversity-data-and-plan-marine-recovering

LifeWatch ERIC at TICAL 2025: Sustainable Science and Strategic Alliances

TICAL 2025

LifeWatch ERIC took part in TICAL 2025, the annual conference of the RedCLARA organisation in San JosĂ©, Costa Rica (November 11–13, 2025), where leaders from digital research infrastructures, academia, and innovation networks from across Latin America and Europe exchange experiences of sustainable collaboration.

Maite IrazĂĄbal, Scientific Coordination Support, and Christos Arvanitidis, CEO, contributed with talks and panel discussions to this year’s conference theme “Innovation that Transforms”.

Maite Irazábal presented “FAIR Tools for Assessing the Environmental Impact of Energy Transition Policies”, in the framework of the EU–LAC EnergyTran project. These prototype tools support evidence-based policymaking in the context of the energy transition, by integrating FAIR data and workflow-based analytics from European and Latin American Research Infrastructures (RIs).

The presentation highlighted the importance of data interoperability and open collaboration in addressing sustainability challenges, and the role of infrastructures like LifeWatch ERIC in connecting science with policy.

Christos Arvanitidis offered a broader perspective on the role of RIs in tackling planetary challenges. He highlighted their potential to break barriers and promote innovation and sustainable science. In LifeWatch ERIC, this is made possible thanks to the RI’s multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach, which federates FAIR data, reproducible analytics, and mobilised research communities to accelerate scientific progress and produce synthetic knowledge.

He also presented LifeWatch ERIC’s technological developments such as its Virtual Research Environments (VREs) and Science Knowledge Graphs (SKG), digital ecosystems where researchers can co-develop workflows, access high-performance computing resources, and transform data into actionable insights.

One of the highlights of the conference was the panel on “Research Infrastructures that Transform: Connecting Knowledge and Collaboration between Latin America and Europe,” moderated by Paola Arellano (REUNA Chile). The discussions reiterated the importance of interoperability among research infrastructures and the need for joint work between Latin American and European scientific communities.

Key reflections that emerged from this discussion are that European RIs should open their resources and developments to Latin America to enable collaborative science, and that strengthened EU–LAC international cooperation, political dialogue, mutual understanding, and equitable access to research, could bring better results in science, technology, and innovation.

These interventions reinforced the importance of strategic and sustainable alliances between Europe and Latin America. LifeWatch ERIC and RedCLARA, bound by a Memorandum of Understanding, continue to strengthen cooperation in open science, FAIR data management, and the creation of shared digital tools.

For more information about TICAL, visit https://tical2025.redclara.net/en/programa.

The Crete Declaration published on RIO – Research Ideas and Outcomes Journal

the Crete Declaration illustration

The Crete Declaration (https://www.lifewatch.eu/crete-declaration) is a Declaration of Intent signed on 30 June 2025, on the occasion of the BEeS 2025 Conference, during the “Working Table on Life component of the Biosphere: Complementarities and Synergies”. The event gathered European Research Infrastructures (RIs), projects and organisations with the common goal of exploring shared solutions to today’s global challenges.

Coordinated by LifeWatch ERIC, the signing of the Crete Declaration followed the Working Table’s objective of defining a collaborative roadmap among the parties. Their shared ambition is to advance the One Health approach, a strategy to optimise the health of people, animals, and ecosystems, through collaboration, research product integration, and open science.

This is of vital importance since the challenges of our time (climate change, biodiversity degradation, emerging diseases and many others) are complex and deeply intertwined, and therefore demand a joint effort of complementary strengths.

The policy brief containing the Crete Declaration is now published on the RIO (Research Ideas and Outcomes) journal, as the latest contribution to the LifeWatch ERIC Strategic Working Plan Outcomes open-science collection (https://riojournal.com/topical_collection/243/), a one-stop access point to the most important deliverables by the research infrastructure consortium.

The Declaration focused the signatories’ commitment around four key strategic points:

  • Strengthening the strategic collaboration
  • Advancing data integration and FAIR principles
  • Supporting Open Science Ecosystems
  • Informing Policy and Practice

The parties welcome all European stakeholders committed to One Health to endorse this Declaration and contribute to its implementation.

Read more on EurekAlert, Pensoft and AlphaGalileo.