International Summer School

Lecce, Italy, 9-13 July 2018.  The International Summer School on “Data Management in Environmental and Earth Science Infrastructures: theory and practice” is organised by the ENVRIplus project in collaboration with LifeWatch ERIC. The school is mainly addressed at staff working in relevant international research infrastructures. The school is also open to Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers, and Master students about to start a doctorate will also be accepted.

In recent years, one of the major challenges in the Environmental and Earth Science has been managing and searching ever larger volumes of data, collected across multiple disciplines. The ENVRIplus project investigated a collection of more than 20 representative environmental research infrastructures (RIs) from different areas. By examining these research infrastructures and their characteristics, a common data lifecycle was identified. The data lifecycle is structured in five phases: Data Acquisition, Data Curation, Data Publishing, Data Processing and Data Use. Many different standards, approaches, and tools have been developed to support the Data Lifecycle. In particular, modern semantic technologies provide a promising way to properly describe and interrelate different data sources in ways that reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity and ecosystem resources and researchers.

The course is built as a five-day summer school providing a unique insight into the contemporary debate on Data Management in the environmental and earth sciences.  Leading scientists and experienced technical specialists will address this topic from different angles, attempting to gather what we consider the most interesting perspectives of our time. We offer a cutting edge and high-quality programme, aimed at fostering a rich and lively intellectual exchange.

53rd European Marine Biology Symposium

European Marine Biology Symposium

Ostend, Belgium, 17-21 September 2018. The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) and LifeWatch Belgium will organise the 53rd edition of the European Marine Biology Symposium (EMBS53) in Ostend, Belgium. EMBS53 aims at linking the history, the present and the future of (European) marine biology. 

Be there since this will be a special edition with – on top of a general session – a focus on ‘Marine Biology research from a Historical Perspective’, ‘Science in a Modern Era’, ‘Marine and Coastal Citizen Science’ and ‘Science in the North Sea’. We warmly welcome participation from European as well as non-European countries.

At present we are developing a program of inspirational speakers and will announce more details in due course. Registration and abstract submission will be opened from 15 January 2018 onwards.

More information: www.embs53.org

Metadata, Controlled Vocabularies and Ontologies Working Meeting

Controlled Vocabularies and Ontologies

Lecce, Italy, 12-13 November 2018. The LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre is organising the first working meeting on “Metadata, Controlled Vocabularies and Ontologies” in November. It will set a roadmap for a common strategy to adopt within the infrastructure’s community, in accordance with FAIR principles.

Presentations will outline previous work and establish the current landscape of models, tools and technologies that are available. Additionally, they will provide material for discussions, in order to consider major technical and scientific approaches to semantic issues in Research Infrastructures and adopt a common strategy. Click here for the agenda.

Transfiere 2019

Transfiere 2019

Málaga, Spain, 13-14 February 2019. Come and visit LifeWatch ERIC at our stand at the “8th Transfiere Forum for Sciences, Technology and Innovation” in Málaga!

Participation in Transfiere 2019 is essential to create interesting contacts with companies, promote collaboration and exchange information in the field of innovation, research and transfer in the different sectors of the economy.   

Fora include Public administration, Aeronautical and aerospace, Innovative business groups, Agri-food, Energy, Industry, Infrastructures and transport, Environment, Spanish technology platforms, Health, and ICT.

LifeWatch ERIC Scientific Community Meeting

Rome, Italy, 27–29 May 2019. LifeWatch ERIC will hold its first Scientific Community Meeting Event, aiming at gathering the scientific Community of scientists and developers to boost discussion on the most promising lines of scientific development. The three key themes are: a) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Theory; b) Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning and Services; c) Data Analysis, Modelling and Disruptive Technologies.

Moreover, LifeWatch ERIC wants to identify the major scientific gaps to be addressed over the next decade. It will highlight key societal challenges that biodiversity and ecosystem science must address, proposing nature-based approaches for natural resource managers and decision-makers.

Working sessions will follow the Plenaries, with the aim of promoting user community involvement. In turn, LifeWatch can understand their needs in terms of services and VRE developments, to facilitate and support their research.

More information is available on our minisite: www.lifewatch.eu/scientific-community-meeting

International Summer School Data FAIRness

Lecce, Italy, 1–5 July 2019. The International Summer School Data FAIRness in Environmental and Earth science infrastructures: theory and practice is offered in conjunction with ENVRIPlus and focuses on modern semantic approaches to properly describing and interrelating different data sources in ways that reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity and ecosystem resources and researchers.

In recent years, one of the major challenges in Environmental and Earth Science has been managing and searching larger volumes of data, collected across multiple disciplines. Many different standards, approaches, and tools have been developed to support the phases of the Data Lifecycle (Data Acquisition, Data Curation, Data Publishing, Data Processing and Data Use). This five-day summer school concentrates on the specific Data FAIRness phase in Environmental and Earth sciences.

The course gathers together what are considered to be the most interesting perspectives of our time, to offer a cutting edge and high-quality programme, aimed at fostering a rich and lively intellectual exchange.

European Marine Biology Symposium

Dublin, Ireland, 25-29 August, 2019.  This year’s EMBS will be hosted by University College Dublin, in the state-of-the-art O’Brien Centre for Science.

The social programme will provide opportunities to sample the the city’s famous cultural life and explore the UNESCO Dublin Bay Biosphere.

2019 is the International Year of the Salmon, a fish that has a special place in the mythology of Ireland. Look out for salmon throughout the scientific and social programme.

The symposium themes are Blue growth, Rapid change, Movement and redistribution of species, and Fundamental biological traits. For more information click here.

ISEM 2019

alzburg, Austria, 1-5 October 2019. The 22nd biennial global conference of the International Society for Ecological Modelling (ISEM), will take place in the Salzburg Congress Centre the first week in October.

Under the theme of eco:model:spaces,  this international gathering will bring together scientists from all professions and applications that deal with the use of ecological models and systems ecology. 

First Dahlem-type Workshop

Seville, Spain, 14-18 October, 2019.

The LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative starts with its 1st Dahlem-type Workshop on current and future challenges of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species (NIS)  in Europe,

LifeWatch ERIC needs to boost its construction and to engage users in developing their research activities into the Virtual Research Environments of the e-Science Infrastructures, by clearly demonstrating and documenting the added value these new technologies bring to address challenging hot topics.

LifeWatch ERIC has started an Internal Joint Initiative with the exact aim of addressing these needs and reinforcing the positioning of LifeWatch ERIC within the biodiversity and ecosystem scientific community. Non-indigenous and Invasive Species has been selected as the subject for the demonstration cases.

Biodiversity_Next

Leiden, The Netherlands, 21-25 October, 2019, Biodiversity_Next is a conference that brings together, for the first time at this scale, major international organisations, research scientists, and policy makers to jointly identify socio-technical bottlenecks and horizon-scan opportunities around data-intensive biodiversity and geodiversity research.

Biodiversity_Next aims at:

  • Promoting innovation in biodiversity & geodiversity information science and applications;
  • Sharing and enhancing community data standards and information management practices;
  • Improving domain reach to new audiences (incl. scientific, policy and industry);
  • Inspiring new generations to more enthusiastically embark on data-intensive science around bio- and geo-diversity;
  • Building community consensus on pivotal technical and sociocultural aspects of the community practices.

More information on https://biodiversitynext.org/