RDA 20th Plenary Meeting

RDA Meeting

Gothenburg, Sweden, 21–23 March 2023.

The Research Data Alliance will celebrate its 10th Anniversary Plenary Meeting on 21–23 March 2023 in Sweden, going back to where RDA was launched in March 2013. Following on from the success of the 19th Plenary meeting held in a hybrid format for the first time, P20 will take place in Sweden’s second-largest city – Gothenburg.

Hosted by Chalmers University of Technology, the University of Gothenburg and the Swedish National Data Service (SND), a three-day hybrid conference will once again bring together researchers, data scientists, policymakers, and data stewards from disciplines from all over the world to share new ideas and explore best practices in using data. 

RDA P20 will take place at the Lindholmen Conference Centre. The centre is located on the north side waterfront of the Göta Canal in Gothenburg. The venue offers a highly technological environment and opens its doors to many local and international events throughout the year. The waterfront offers breathtaking architecture with many cosy Swedish restaurants and cafes offering traditional food. The conference centre’s location in Gothenburg means that it is only a 4 minutes Älvsnabben ferry ride into the city centre.

Present and Future of Data Cubes discussion forum

Data cubes

Online, 7 December 2022.

Critical environmental information is today heavily under-used because it requires a high level of expertise and computing capacity. EO data is not yet a commodity and neither is environmental information.

How can we make monitoring systems that explain the effects of global warming on land cover changes and extreme weather (floods, droughts etc.) as simple to use and as popular as Google Maps or AccuWeather?

What have we learned so far from NASA’s MODIS, Google Earth Engine, Copernicus initiatives, and OpenEO.cloud?

In this live-streamed event organised by HorizonEurope’s Open-Earth-Monitor project, in which LifeWatch ERIC is partner, and OpenGeoHub, international experts and project partners will discuss how we can make environmental data derived from Earth Observations and field monitoring more usable, accessible and relevant to decision-makers and society.

REGISTER HERE!

Starting from the discussion of existing top-level solutions for the effective use of large EO data for real-world applications, we will explore open-source solutions that can process massive volumes of EO data in a more transparent and reproducible way.

On top of public services, commercial solutions can play a massive role: we will analyze and discuss existing commercial Data Cube services covering the whole of Europe and the whole world to understand what the best way to use them is for open, European projects.

Finally, the forum will give stage also to more in-depth discussions around cloud-optimized data formats and their applicability to store and share gridded, vector and tabular data.

Speakers will be soon announced!

About the EuroGeo Workshop 2022 in Athens

This event will take place within the EuroGEO workshop 2022 ‘Towards an integrated and convergent EuroGEO’ on 7 – 9 December 2022, in Athens, Greece.

EuroGEO combines the contributions of European members of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a partnership of more than 100 national governments, over 100 participating organisations and the European Commission. GEO envisions a future where decisions and measures for the benefit of humankind are informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations. 

The annual workshop brings together European players interested in and actively contributing to EuroGEO.

This year, the workshop is organised by the European Commission, the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation of the Hellenic Ministry of Development and Investments, and the Greek GEO Office operating within the National Observatory of Athens.

REGISTER HERE!

2nd FAIR Convergence Symposium

2nd FAIR Convergence Symposium

Leiden, The Netherlands, 24–26 October.

From 24-28 October, in the context of Leiden 2022: European City of Science, there will be a week dedicated to FAIR implementation and specifically to FAIR Digital Objects as the core ‘machine actionable units of information’ necessary to build an Internet and Web of FAIR data and services. The week features two closely related events: the 2nd FAIR Convergence Symposium (24-26 October) and the 1st International Conference on FAIR Digital Objects (26-28 October). The two events will explore the contention that the FAIR guiding principles, and their application through FAIR Digital Objects, are important steps to maximise the machine actionability of data and other information.

The co-organisers of the 2nd FAIR Convergence Symposium, CODATA and GO FAIR, agreed that this years’ edition will concentrate on smaller, high-priority, strategic and working meetings to encourage convergence on and implementation of FAIR, rather than convening a large open Symposium so soon after International Data Week and in the context of ongoing challenges for intercontinental travel.

Most of the meetings are organised as hybrid events, allowing for both in-person and online participation.

Service documentation for EOSC providers Workshop 1: Describing your service for onboarding

Description of services

Online, 9 November 2022.

On 9 November, from 13:00-15:00 CET, the EOSC Future project, in which LifeWatch ERIC is partner, is organising a free, open-to-all, hands-on, online workshop on “how to write good and effective descriptions of services”.

A service text description is crucial to both engage with your potential users and make your service discoverable. An optimal service description text should ideally be short and to the point, while still explaining what the service does, who it was developed for, and what benefits users will gain from adopting/using it. Description texts can be used for example during the onboarding of services in catalogues (such as the EOSC Marketplace or the ENVRI Service Catalogue), or in other contexts when you want to advertise a service to various end-user communities.

This training event is built on the materials and concepts originally developed by the ENVRI-FAIR WP6 for the ENVRI Community 2022 Summer School that took place last July.

Clear and comprehensive documentation is absolutely essential for a service to be discoverable and successfully used – both by existing and potential new target groups. There are many components of service documentation, including service catalogue entries, promotional materials, usage instructions and tutorials, technical specifications and richly commented code. As an example of the first of these, a brief service description is a required metadata item to be provided during the onboarding of a service into the EOSC Marketplace.

This event will start by giving an overview of documentation types, and discuss some strategies for creating sustainable and effective service descriptions. This will be followed by practical hands-on exercises focusing on how to prepare service descriptions following the requirements of the EOSC service onboarding protocol. So bring your own service use case along, and join an interactive and productive description writing session!

If you wish to participate, register by 7 November 2022. Agenda and registration form here.

e-IRG Workshop under Czech EU Presidency

e-IRG Workshop

Prague, Czech Republic, 12–13 December 2022.

The e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG) organises two open workshops every year, each under the auspices of the corresponding EU presidency. During the last years, the e-IRG Workshops have been organised as virtual events due to the Covid-19 pandemic, now the e-IRG Workshop under Czech EU Presidency will be organised as a face-to-face event bringing together all e-IRG stakeholder in Prague.

SESSIONS

1. Session “Coordination and collaboration among European e-Infrastructures – the e-IRG White Paper 202”

The pre-final version of the e-IRG White Paper 2022 will be presented comprising an analysis of responses to the guiding questions which has been sent to the e-Infrastructure initiatives and the further inputs from them will be presented, requesting feedback from the e-IRG major audiences, namely, the policy makers and funders (including the EC, both DG RTD and DG Connect), the e-Infrastructures themselves (commenting also on each others’ views), and the end users.

2. Session “Energy crisis and e-Infrastructures”

This session will deal with the current energy crisis and its impact on European e-Infrastructures.

3. Session “Data Infrastructures and Data Spaces”

Since Data Infrastructures, Spaces and Repositories are indispensable parts of the e-Infrastructure(s) serving the users and accomplishing the European Open Science policy a dedicated session at the e-IRG Workshop is organised. The presentations will span from from policies to the implementation. A main focus will be on the upcoming Common European Data Spaces and their interconnection with the existing data infrastructure landscape in the research domain.

4. Session “Interlinking – interaction between data, publications and PIDs”

Since Data Infrastructures, Spaces and Repositories are indispensable parts of the e-infrastructure(s) serving the users and accomplishing the European Open Science policy a dedicated session at the e-IRG Workshop is organised.

Ingrid Dillo, Coordinator of FAIR-IMPACT, in which LifeWatch ERIC is partner, will be part of a panel discussion, focused on “Data Infrastructures and Data Spaces”, which will address the upcoming thematic European Data Spaces and their interconnection with EOSC and the existing data infrastructure landscape in the research domain.

More information and regisration here.

Synchronisation Force 1st Workshop

Synchronisation Force 1st Workshop

Online, 8 November – 12 December 2022.

The Synchronisation Force 1st Workshop aims to discuss common challenges and priorities related to turning the FAIR principles into practice.

Four online collaborative sessions between the 21 and 24 November 2022 will assess the implementation of selected recommendations and ambitions from the Turning FAIR into Reality Report (2018), the FAIRsFAIR White Paper (2021), the SRIA (version June 2021) and EOSC Multi-Annual Roadmap (2023-2024).

They will be opened by an introductory session on 8 November and will conclude with a discussion session on 12 December.

The FAIR-IMPACT project (in which LifeWatch ERIC is partner) will invite key FAIR representatives of projects and initiatives in the EOSC framework to the Synchronisation Force 1st Workshop, who can actively engage in the various sessions.

Programme and registration here.

ENVRI Week 2023

ENVRI Week 2023

Leipzig, Germany, 30 January – 3 February 2023.

ENVRI week is the annual consortium meeting of the ENVRI-FAIR project, a week dedicated to Environmental Research Infrastructures such as LifeWatch ERIC. ENVRI week 2023 will host ENVRI-FAIR project-related sessions as well as several other sessions of the Board of European Environmental Research Infrastructures (BEERi) and the ENVRI Community.

After two years of online meetings, the last ENVRI week of the ENVRI-FAIR project will be held as a face-to-face meeting in Leipzig, Germany, from 30 January to 3 February 2023. Some plenary sessions might also be streamed or recorded, butl participants are strongly encouraged to join on-site. This page is your one-stop shop for anything related to the ENVRI Week 2023 from the programme to booking your accommodation.

Agenda
You can find an outline of the preliminary agenda here (pdf).
A detailed agenda for both the sessions and the workshops will be available soon.

Registration
Registration is now closed.

Remote operations of RI services and Data and access security

eRImote

Online, 24–25 October 2022.

In this second workshop of the eRImote project, we will focus on Remote Operations of RI services (including quality management) and questions of Data and Access Security. The workshop will be taking place virtually on 24th October 1-5pm CEST and 25th October 2022 from 10am – 2pm CEST. We will explore the topics from the perspectives of different scientific domains and types of RI services. The workshop is open to everyone and we strongly encourage anyone interested in these topics, particularly RI and core facility staff, to join us for active discussion and sharing of experience.

The workshop will consist of short presentations from experts from different scientific domains and RIs, breakout rooms for joint discussion of solutions and challenges in the topic areas, as well as a panel discussion. This event will also be a great opportunity to learn more about the eRImote project as a whole and get connected with the community.

LifeWatch ERIC CTO, Juan Miguel-González-Aranda, will take part in the panel at 16:00 on 24 October. Agenda here.

Please register here.

2022 High-Level Conference on Women for the Mediterranean

Women for the Mediterranean

The 2022 High-Level Conference on Women for the Mediterranean organised by the Union for the Mediterranean will take place in the afternoon of the 26th October and throughout the 27th, in a physical format in Madrid. During the High-Level Conference, Ministers from the Union for the Mediterranean(UfM) Members States and the UfM-Co-presidencies (EU and Jordan) will be invited as well as representatives of national, regional and international stakeholders from public and private sectors including financial institutions and international donors. The recommendations gathered from the Civil Society organizations will certainly be taken on board during the discussions. LifeWatch ERIC International Gender Officer, Africa Zanella, will participate as a moderator and a panellist on 27 October from 12:15–14:00 CEST.

The Conference will be preceded, on the 26th  of October 2022 by the 5th (UfM) Ministerial Conference on Strengthening the Role of Women in Society, which will gather Ministers of the 42 Member States of the UfM responsible for women affairs and gender equality.

The Conference will provide an opportunity for a further exchange of experiences, good practices and lessons learned on women empowerment and women’s rights in a regional-crisis (health, water, food and energy security) context. These discussions will also contribute to shape the Road Map for the Ministerial implementation and the regional agenda for the years to come, particularly towards an effective and inclusive gender equality policy, based on a gender transformative approach and the mobilisation of public and private actors in the region. The high-level speaker’s contribution to the discussions, taking place across the two days would be important in stepping up cooperation, focusing on implementation, concrete delivery, and monitoring of impact,while enhancing the visibility of past, on-going and future initiatives.

More information on the Union for Mediterranean website.

Sign up to watch the conference using the online form.

ALL-Ready Regional Workshop

ALL-Ready

Seville, Spain, 2 November 2022.

The ALL-Ready project is organising an interactive regional workshop on “Accelerating Agroecology Transition: Your potential role and benefits of contributing to a European network of Living Labs and Research Infrastructures”

Time: 2 November 2022, from 13.30 pm to 18 pm CET (including small lunch)
Organisers: José Manuel Ávila (LifeWatch ERIC) and Bastian Goldel (INRAE)
Venue: : LifeWatch ERIC ICT-Core Office, Cartuja Science and Technology Park, Seville, Spain

Description of the All-Ready Regional Workshop:

The European Partnership under Horizon Europe for Accelerating Farming Systems Transition by Agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures is currently being prepared by the SCAR Agroecology Strategic Working Group. The two European projects ALL-Ready and AE4EU support the European Commission in preparing this partnership and work closely together with the SCAR Strategic Working group.

The partnership aims to support a European network of living labs and research infrastructures that will accelerate the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe. It will provide spaces for long-term, site-specific, multi-stakeholder and real-life experimentation, and direction for research activities on agroecology at the European and national levels.

One of our main goals is to map the work of agroecology initiatives (including living labs and research infrastructures) that support the transition towards agroecology across Europe. In our workshop it is foreseen to:

  1. explain to the participants the aims and outcomes of the ALL-Ready project including the pilot network, as well as the future network and partnership in which LLs and RIs are planned to play a central role. This helps to make people aware or even get on board of what is happening in the upcoming years, but also to illustrate how ALL-Ready is involved in accelerating the transition.
  2. we will test our developed questionnaire with the participants and initiatives to reflect on the extent to which their organisations are involved in the agroecology transition (maturity), and discuss possible activities that could be accelerated in a network of living labs and research infrastructures.

This will give us interesting insights on common understandings, focuses, problems and difficulties that initiatives are facing in the transition process. Hence, we want to debate possible solutions to overcome these obstacles, and also how a future European network could contribute to that.

The session is addressed to:

  • Researchers & academics
  • Living Lab representatives and practitioners
  • Innovators
  • Others, namely: Every participant of an initiative related to the agroecology transition

Participants of the workhop include: Consolación Vera Sánchez, Secretary General of Agriculture, Livestock and Food of the Junta de Andalucía; José Carlos Álvarez Martín, Managing Director of the Agricultural and Fisheries Management Agency of Andalusia (AGAPA); Juan Miguel González Aranda, Technological Director of LifeWatch ERIC and of the Spanish Technical Headquarters; Heather McKhann, Coordinator of ALL-Ready from the National Institute for Research in Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), a French institution with headquarters in Paris; Muriel Mambrini-Doudet, INRAE ​​researcher, and José Manuel Ávila, Coordinator of the Agroecology Area at LifeWatch ERIC.