Andalusian Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy visits LifeWatch ERIC

andalusia sustainability

The Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy of the Junta de AndalucĂ­a (Regional Government of Andalusia), RamĂłn FernĂĄndez-Pacheco, visited LifeWatch ERIC’s technological headquarters in Seville this week, in recognition of the Infrastructure as “a scientific and technological reference point” in the field of biodiversity, nature and climate change. He was accompanied by the deputy minister, Sergio Arjona, and the general secretary, MarĂ­a del Mar Plaza.

The purpose of the visit was for the representatives of the Junta de AndalucĂ­a to see first-hand the numerous projects LifeWatch ERIC is working on in the region to protect and restore biodiversity and combat the negative effects of climate change. One such example of this is the Indalo project, in collaboration with the Junta de AndalucĂ­a, aimed at creating a network of climate change monitoring observatories in the region, which sees the participation of Andalusian public universities, as well as government institutes IFAPA (Andalusian Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training) and INTA (National Institute of Aerospace Technology). It encompasses the study of biodiversity in Andalusian ecosystems, analysing emerging patterns from the impact of climate change, and possible consequences.

“The Junta de AndalucĂ­a is proud that an outstanding European scientific entity such as LifeWatch ERIC has its headquarters and management bodies, together with more than 20 scientists, many of them Andalusian, in Seville, which demonstrates the enormous potential of our region to face environmental challenges”, commented the Minister FernĂĄndez-Pacheco.

LifeWatch ERIC CTO, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, who gave the tour, made the following statement: “We are honoured to have welcomed the Minister to our office. His visit is symbolic of the long-lasting synergy that LifeWatch ERIC has with the Junta de Andalucía, as successful collaborative projects continue to produce positive benefits for the region and further afield. We are extremely grateful for the Junta’s ongoing support.”

Assessing marine biodiversity: MARBEFES project kick-off meeting

Marbefes project

MARBEFES (MARine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning leading to Ecosystem Services) is the latest of LifeWatch ERIC’s related projects to launch, with the kick-off meeting taking place from 4–6 October in Sopot, Poland. The ambitious Horizon Europe project aims to evaluate and characterise the links between marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services and the resulting societal goods and benefits in coastal communities. The results will be captured in easy-to-use tools to help practitioners and policy to maximise the ecological value and optimise a sustainable socio-economic use of the marine system for current and future generations.

Representatives from all the MARBEFES project partners gathered in Sopot for a three-day kick-off meeting, involving general presentations of the project goals and expected results, including an overview of all the project Work Packages (WPs). On the first day of the meeting, as part of the general presentation of the project, LifeWatch ERIC CEO Christos Arvanitidis and International Initiatives & Projects Manager Cristina Huertas-Olivares illustrated LifeWatch ERIC’s leading role in in WP5 “Integration & Scenario”. The KOM also involved working group sessions to detail project partners’ involvement and interrelations between WPs to smooth further activities.

You can follow the MARBEFES project on Facebook and Twitter.

To learn more about the projects in which LifeWatch ERIC is involved, please visit our Related Projects page. 

LifeWatch ERIC Receives Recognition from Agricultural Minister for its work in the Agroecology sector

Agroecology

LifeWatch ERIC’s participation in the Smart Agrifood Summit, Europe’s largest agrifood innovation and digitisation event, marked this year a cornerstone for the Infrastructure’s involvement in agroecology initiatives.

On Friday 30 September, LifeWatch ERIC CTO, Juan Miguel GonzĂĄlez-Aranda, alongside JosĂŠ Emilio Guerrero (professor at the University of Cordoba, member of Common Agricultural Policy Ministerial Advisory Committee, and LifeWatch ERIC collaborator) were delighted to welcome the Spanish Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, to the Infrastructure’s booth. A fruitful meeting focusing on the contribution that LifeWatch ERIC makes to the agroecology sector, during which the Minister appreciated how LifeWatch ERIC’s projects are paving the way and leading efforts towards the valorisation of ecosystem services and agriculture ecological sustainability, becoming a reference point for other Mediterranean countries and Europe as a whole.

Dr GonzĂĄlez-Aranda made the following comment: “I am honoured to have welcomed the Minister to our booth. This is an important acknowledgment of LifeWatch ERIC’s effort in this field, critical for human wellbeing, and it is an incentive to further advance our engagement in agroecology.”

For more information on the Smart Agrifood Summit, click here.

Semantic Synergies at the OntoPortal Alliance Workshop

OntoPortal Alliance Workshop

At the end of September, members of the team from LifeWatch ERIC and LifeWatch Italy were in Montpellier, France, for the OntoPortal Alliance Workshop. The OntoPortal Alliance is a consortium of research and infrastructure teams (and one SME) dedicated to promoting semantic and ontology services—in science and more—based on the open, collaboratively developed OntoPortal open-source software. Teams in the Alliance develop and maintain several openly accessible semantic resource repositories. This includes BioPortal, the primary and historical source of OntoPortal code, but also AgroPortal, EcoPortal, MedPortal and MatPortal.

The 2022 OntoPortal Alliance Workshop’s main goal was to consolidate the OntoPortal Alliance organisation and shared agenda. External parties interested in re-using and/or participating to the development of OntoPortal, or more generally interested in the management of ontologies and other types of semantic resources (terminologies, vocabularies, thesauri, etc.) were also welcome at the event, which included an open tutorial on “Setting up your appliance” (for condensed technical information on how to quickly deploy your own ontology repository). 

During the session, the representatives from the anthologies repositories discussed how they plan to use the ontology repositories provided by the alliance. Nicola Fiore, Xeni Kechagioglou (LifeWatch ERIC) and laria Rosati (LifeWatch Italy) presented EcoPortal, the repository of semantic resources developed by LifeWatch ERIC and co-managed with the Italian national node, to brainstorm its next evolution together with the alliance partners. Such synergies are fundamental to ensuring the coordination of the development of semantic resources for scientific research.

In Seville for the EOSC Future Consortium Meeting

eosc future consortium meeting

From 28­–30 September, LifeWatch ERIC hosted a Consortium Meeting of the Horizon2020 project, EOSC Future, at la Casa de la Ciencia, in Seville. At 18 months into the project, the meeting served to review its execution thus far, as well as the next steps to be followed. All the consortium partners were represented, with 71 people attending in person and about 30 online. On the first day, the morning was dedicated to “WP6: Integration of Community Services and Products into EOSC”, which is led by LifeWatch ERIC, and involves the demonstration of EOSC value through Cross-domain Research Science Projects (10 Science Projects are involved in this WP) which will mobilise the research communities for widespread the use of EOSC resources.

Read more about the project’s ambitions:

EOSC Future will build on the existing baseline for the European Open Science Cloud to deliver a platform with a durable set of user-friendly components that are designed for the long haul. It will adopt a system-of-systems approach to the EOSC platform, linking together other research portals, resources and services to respond to the data needs of a wide range of researchers.

One way to think about EOSC is as a fully operational web of data and related services founded on FAIR protocols, principles and standards for accessing interoperable datasets. In practice, EOSC Future will work with key stakeholders to ensure a smooth user experience, developing:

  • EOSC core, the set of enabling services needed to operate the EOSC
  • EOSC exchange registering resources and services from research infrastructures, other EOSC projects and science clusters to the EOSC and integrating them with the EOSC core functionalities
  • the EOSC interoperability framework will provide guidelines for providers that want to integrate services or data into EOSC

EOSC Future will engage with users throughout the different development stages to make sure the EOSC matches researchers’ needs and is intuitive. It will also provide support and training to make sure users can make the most of the EOSC platform.

To learn more about the projects in which LifeWatch ERIC is involved, please visit our Related Projects page.

Agroecology Initiatives Gain Traction at the Smart Agrifood Summit

Smart Agrifood Summit

As with every year, LifeWatch ERIC is taking part in the annual Smart Agrifood Summit, Europe’s largest agrifood innovation and digitisation event, which is taking place this year from 29 – 30 September in Malaga, Spain. Attended by 3000 participants, 300 speakers, 200 start-ups and with over 50 countries represented, LifeWatch ERIC is in the perfect place to find and consolidate synergies; dozens of corporations, companies and entities highly involved in agrifood innovation and sustainability, such as Cajamar ADNAgroFood, held productive meetings with the infrastructure at its stand.

Notably at the event, Juan Miguel GonzĂĄlez-Aranda, LifeWatch ERIC Chief Technology Officer, presented “SmartfoodLifeWatch”, alongside JosĂŠ Manuel Ávila-Castuera, RocĂ­o Moreno DomĂ­nguez and Daniel Caro GĂłmez. It is an initiative which measures the impact of agricultural, forestry and fishing activities on Andalusia’s biodiversity, powered in collaboration with the Andalusian Agrarian and Fisheries Management Agency (AGAPA) and researchers from the University of Cordoba.

The Indalo project was also presented at the Summit, which is coordinated with the Andalusian Institute for Research and Training in Agriculture, Food Fisheries and Ecological Production (IFAPA). This initiative studies Andalusian agricultural and fishing ecosystems through the creation of a network of observatories to monitor the impact of climate change and biodiversity. There are eight key focus ecosystems: olive groves, dried fruits, extensive herbaceous crops, intensive horticulture, red fruits, agriculture in the Lower Guadalquivir, dehesa and fishing reserves in the Guadalquivir. The network of observatories will be equipped with state-of-the-art measurement equipment, allowing real-time access to the information obtained by the sensors.

e-Science Research for the Provision of Green Medicines

Green Medicines

The UNGA77 Science Summit (SSUNGA77) is taking place from 13–30 September 2022 in New York and online, organised and moderated by ISC Intelligence in Science (advisory firm specialised in science, technology and policy). Following the successful Biodiversity Plenary which was hosted by LifeWatch ERIC and GBIF last Friday 16 September, LifeWatch ERIC CTO, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, was invited to participate yesterday, Tuesday 27 September, in an important SSUNGA77 session dedicated to Green Medicines: Plant Molecular Farming and a New Collaboration Model for Addressing Global Health Challenges.

Dr GonzĂĄlez-Aranda gave his presentation during the Moderated Panel Discussion: Policy Framework for Stimulating Cooperative Capacity Building for Better Access to Medicines and Vaccines, entitled LifeWatch ERIC: e-Science Research Collaborationon e-Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services to support the provision of Green Medicines.

Convened by “Medicines for Future (M4F)” initiative, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria, and Cape Bio Pharms, South Africa, in cooperation with the International Society for Plant Molecular Farming, the session aimed to contribute to increasing the accessibility of essential medicines to people in low- and middle-income countries. Similarly to the Biodiversity Plenary, the results of the session will also be used to prepare joint input for the United Nations Summit of the Future, which will take place in 2024, aiming at further developing the collaboration model and to increase awareness for Plant Molecular Farming as an affordable, innovative and versatile manufacturing platform for biopharmaceuticals and beyond at high-level decision makers globally. An extremely important initiative that will be enriched by the participation of LifeWatch ERIC.

Appearing in the photo from left to right: Kurt Zatloukal, Medical University of Graz, Austria, Declan Kirrane, ISC Intelligence, Josef GlĂśssl, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

A Plenary Dedicated to Biodiversity in Support of the SDGs | The UNGA77 Science Summit

SSUNGA77

The Biodiversity Plenary at the Science Summit held to coincide with the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77) was convened by LifeWatch ERIC and GBIF (the Global Biodiversity Information Facility) on Friday 16 September. The event brought together representatives from governments, research infrastructures and data repositories, with demonstrations of collaborative research systems and examples of innovative digital technologies to facilitate the society to meet the challenge set by the SDGs to preserve ecosystems, through better informed decision-making that is firmly rooted in science. 

With the support of the European Commission (European Regional Development Fund) and the Government of Andalusia, Spain, and organised and moderated by ISC Intelligence in Science (advisory firm specialised in science, technology and policy), the hybrid summit saw real engagement in global science cooperation with representation from Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Finland, Ghana, Greece, Mongolia, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay, and the USA. Recommendations made at the conclusion confirmed the centrality of open data in attaining Sustainable Development Goals numbers 14, Life below Water, and 15, Life on Earth. 

The free availability and interoperability of biodiversity and ecosystem data globally is essential to solve the interrelated challenges of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, and the involvement of indigenous knowledge was acknowledged as being critical in identifying and implementing local solutions to these complex and global matters. Aligning policies, priorities and protocols will provide an enabling regulatory environment that will allow communities around the world to exchange data and interpret science-based knowledge with confidence.   

The meeting, held in the Extenda office of the Permanent Mission of Spain to the United Nations in New York, provides a springboard to preparing input for the United Nations Summit of the Future, which will take place during UNGA78 in September 2023. LifeWatch ERIC and GBIF were thanked at the end for providing powerful leadership in convening the summit.

Watch a recording of the full Plenary on the LifeWatching Science Channel.

See the complete day’s programme here.

ECSA59: Showcasing the LifeWatch ERIC VRE

ECSA59

ECSA59 was the first face-to-face meeting of the Estuarine and Coastal Sciences Association in three years and attracted 460 participants to the Kursaal Conference Centre in Donostia-San SebastiĂĄn, Spain from 5–8 September 2022. Under the theme of ‘Using the best scientific knowledge for the sustainable management of estuaries and coastal seas’, scientists from all over the world discussed urbanisation, remote sensing, social ecology, governance, resilience to global warming, modelling food webs and much, much more.

Professor Angel Borja of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (AZTI) as Conference Chair noted in his opening address how much things have changed in the 50 years since ECSA’s first papers were published in 1962. 150 years after Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition first circumnavigated the world, we are all now concerned that anthropogenic changes are impacting estuarine and coastal waters more than other domains, and the only way to set up sustainable management strategies is to provide decision-makers with the best scientific knowledge. 

Diverse aspects of that scientific knowledge were presented in five keynote plenaries and 44 parallel sessions over the four days of ECSA59. LifeWatch ERIC sponsored the conference and its stand proved very popular; early-career researchers in particular were keen to learn more about its open data, open-access Virtual Research Environment, the constantly-evolving result of the Infrastructure’s first internal project, which focuses on the topic of invasive alien species. The event concluded with field trips and the start of the AZTI Summer School. The next ECSA conference will be held in 2024.

Visitors to stand included: Mike Elliott, University of Hull; John Humphries, ECSA president-elect; Irene Prete, UniversitĂ  del Salento; Henrique Cabral, INRAE, France; Professor Omar Defeo, Universidad de la RepĂşblica de Uruguay; Patrick L. Friend, Deep-time Digital Earth; Irene Guarnieri, CNR-ISMAR; Nathalie Caill-Milly, Ifremer, France; Sonagnon Olivier Tokpanou, UniversitĂŠ Laval, Quebec; Grzegorz Rozynski, Polish Academy of Sciences; Marina Dolbeth, University of Porto; and Heliana Teixeira, University of Aveiro.

LifeWatch Greece launches Marine Creatures Citizen Science platform for Nautilos project￟

Nautilos Marine Creatures

The Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research –coordinator of the LifeWatch Greece node– has launched a new citizen science platform for the Horizon2020 project, Nautilos. Using the software Zooniverse, they have called their platform for Nautilos Marine Creatures, at the service of citizen scientists everywhere. The aim of the project is to help identify the sessile and often unnoticed benthic communities living on hard substrates using high-definition underwater images from artificial reefs, ports and natural sea caves. Morphological characters can be used to identify the taxonomic groups of these sophisticated marine communities.

If you would like to participate in this voluntary project and help out, please click here and get involved! A Tutorial and a Field Guide are available which will help you discover the project, be a Citizen Scientist and learn more about the marine environment.