EU marine governance gets a boost as new European research project “PERMAGOV” sets sail

Permagov project

The EU Green Deal aims to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing Europe and the world, among them environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, climate change, and pollution. The promise of this ambitious legislative package is to transform the EU into the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, with a competitive and data-agile economy decoupled from fossil fuels, zero net greenhouse gas emissions, and a society where no one is left behind (green, digital and just transition).

Achieving the Green Deal requires a concerted effort across multiple areas that are closely related (e.g. environment, climate, energy, transportation), with success also dependent on transformative action in marine governance. Oceans are vital to life above and below ground, so their sustainable exploitation will be necessary to ensuring their effective functioning – as a climate regulator, as source of clean air, energy, jobs, and food, as one of the main trading routes – for generations to come.

However, the current setup of marine governance is not conducive to reaching Green Deal objectives, because it is hampered by institutional barriers, lack of coherent policy mechanisms, and ineffective governance systems. Marine governance must evolve to become more agile and flexible, cross-sectoral and multi-actor, in tune with changing dynamics in policy, science, technology, industry and society.  

This is exactly what PERMAGOV, the new Horizon Europe project, sets out to achieve. Over the next four years, PERMAGOV will set out to support the improvement of EU marine governance performance in four selected seas (Adriatic, Baltic, Celtic, and Mediterranean) and three national waters bordering Italy, Ireland, Slovenia, Croatia, Denmark, and Norway. 

“Achieving the ‘blue’ dimension of the EU Green Deal will require innovative, multi-level and cross-sectoral governance approaches which break down long-standing institutional barriers and dependency on established paths, and which span multiple fronts and challenges that must be addressed to ensure the health of EU marine ecosystems, for example water pollution, overfishing, biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, energy production, shipping,” said Dr. Judith van Leeuwen, the PERMAGOV project’s coordinator and Associate Professor at Wageningen University.  

“The ocean and seas are the main ‘lungs of the planet’ and essential to all life on it. Through the PERMAGOV project we hope to contribute to their conservation and sustainable use so they can continue to support humankind and all other life on the planet long into the future.”

You can read the full press release here.

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

Completion of RI-SI-LifeWatch Project

RI-SI-LifeWatch

In December 2019, the “Development of research infrastructure for the international competitiveness of the Slovenian RRI space – RI-SI-LifeWatch” project was granted by the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and the European Regional Development Fund. The aim of the project was for the LifeWatch Slovenia consortium to build a network for monitoring and collecting biodiversity and environmental data obtained and processed through the acquisition of high-performance research equipment. 

With the help of the new research equipment from the RI-SI-LifeWatch project, the Slovenian consortium is now collecting a large amount of research data in digital form, which will be included in the national Karst database, harmonised with FAIR principles and designed to provide a temporal and spatial link between specific sites.

The LifeWatch Slovenia Data Centre has also been established and consists of very powerful server and computer units. Although it is still in an early stage of development, the current functionality of LifeWatch Slovenia Data Centre is beginning to collect the various large datasets obtained with the new instruments and catalogue their metadata within a GeoNetwork portal to build a standardised database with system management and user interface for data mining and access to data products. The architecture of the new data centre proposes to replicate the functionality and standards of LifeWatch ERIC to be compliant with FAIR data principles and data lifecycle. Data collected by RI-SI-LifeWatch’s equipment will support the development of data and services planned and/or already developed and operating within the LifeWatch Slovenia consortium.

In addition, LifeWatch Slovenia is now providing new ecological research measurements and observations leading to scientific publications, as well as new datasets for the Bird Ringing database (BRDbase), for the FOR-PLAT forest database and for the Buoy VIDA marine database. 

With the new equipment we will develop two virtual labs in the near future: ProteusWatch vLab, Karst Groundwater Habitats vLab to assess and monitor the inaccessible and unique karst groundwater biodiversity hotspots (e.g. Proteus anguinus and various cave invertebrates).

The RI-SI-LifeWatch project has also enriched the international research infrastructure LifeWatch ERIC with new research opportunities and incentives. The project has helped to:

  1. conduct modern biodiversity research for marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems
  2. establish open access to Big Data related to various databases and observatories
  3. conduct data visualisation from virtual labs with modelling tools and enhance the LifeWatch RI by developing new analytical capacity for open research data
  4. support targeted user training and collaboration to monitor and predict the impacts of global change on biodiversity

A national hub of distributed biodiversity and ecosystem research data centres will be implemented at individual national partners. The RI-SI-LifeWatch project was successfully completed on 31 August 2021.

LifeWatch ERIC in RItrainPlus Project

RItrainPlus

LifeWatch ERIC is pleased to announce its collaboration in the RItrainPlus Horizon2020 project as both a beneficiary and an associated partner.* This project has the potential to bring a great deal of added value to LifeWatch ERIC because of the unique context in which it operates, at the nexus of international scientific and political realities.

But what is RItrainPlus?

RItrainPlus is a project designed to aid Research Infrastructures (RIs) and advanced scientific facilities, ensuring they have the management skills to deal with all aspects of their operation (governance, management, organisational, financial, etc.). The RItrainPlus project will transform the skills-base to drive the professionalisation, efficiency and long-term value creation of European Research Infrastructures and Core Facilities.

What exactly does it do?

In essence, this Project brings together RIs, core facilities, business management schools and European universities, to transform the access and empowerment of human resources for national and international scientific facilities in Europe. Just a handful of its objectives include: providing a coaching programme for managers; connecting RIs to the EOSC and the ERIC Forum; and encouraging staff and knowledge exchange through short-term mobility programmes. In addition, RItrainPlus is looking to establish a European School for Management of Research Infrastructures (ESMRI), a dedicated sustainable training organisation providing specialised training courses and workshops to meet the needs for professional skills in this context.

What role does LifeWatch ERIC play?

The main contribution of LifeWatch ERIC will mainly consist of co-designing a new model of online transdisciplinary RI-related staff CVs, based on Blockchain technologies (using the LifeWatch ERIC “LifeBlock” platform) to facilitate dynamic staff exchange, incentivisation and visibility based on the accounting of distributed activities performed by Research Infrastructures, particularly in the EU-LAC area. The Infrastructure will also contribute to the following tasks, among others: the development of common European policies and learning tracking for curricula enrichment, instructional design methodology, and the production of a trainers’ kit, which will be co-led with UNIMIB. LifeWatch ERIC staff Juan Miguel González-Aranda, CTO & ICT-Core Director (PI), and Elisa Morón-López, ICT-Core Project Manager, attended the kick-off meeting of Work Package 3 “Course development and delivery” on 21 July 2021.

For more information on RItrainPlus, please visit its website.

*grant agreement No. 101008503, duration 2021–2025

LifeWatch ERIC in DOORS Project Kick-Off Meeting

DOORS Project

LifeWatch ERIC was proud to represent part of the pan-European contingent of 37 partners in the kick-off meeting for the new EU project ‘DOORS’, led by GeoEcoMar, on 29–30 June 2021. The meeting was launched by Wendy Bonne of the European Commission and Mr Ciprian Teleman, Romanian Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitalisation, who said:

“DOORS represents a clear commitment of the European Union for the Black Sea, which will enable a climate neutral, sustainable and productive blue economy. Education, Research and innovation is the Golden Triangle for the knowledge-based economy to strengthen the links between Romanian and European scientists.”

But what is DOORS?

DOORS is a €9m Horizon 2020 project* that stands for ‘Developing Optimal and Open Research Support’ in the Black Sea, which is infamously the world’s most polluted. It will link science, policy and industry for critical Black Sea regeneration, bringing together expertise and technology from institutions from the Black Sea region and other European countries to address the human and climate change impacts on damaged ecosystems.

What exactly will it do?

DOORS will develop a common framework of scientific methods for gathering data, allowing partners to better understand the complex marine processes that happen across the Black Sea. The project will provide a system that will bring together information from in-situ measurements, research cruises, satellite observation, modelling and data integration capabilities.
Alongside the integration of scientific knowledge sharing, it is a fundamental objective for DOORS to engage with wider society. By providing mechanisms for business to link with research, DOORS will create new job opportunities for emerging Blue Growth economies through new synergies and mentoring schemes; the first of its kind to be setup in the Black Sea. Key initiatives that engage schools, universities and general citizens of the region will promote behaviour change and celebrate best practice, influencing future policy, Blue Growth and the health of Black Sea communities.

What role will LifeWatch ERIC play?

LifeWatch ERIC will be participating in Work Package 2: Harmonisation; 6: Blue Growth; 7: Capacity Building; 8: Stakeholder Engagement; and 9: Dissemination and Communication. Alberto Basset, Service Centre Director and project coordinator for LifeWatch ERIC, noted: 

“LifeWatch ERIC’s strong ties with the biodiversity and ecosystem research communities, along with its specialist knowledge in data integration and providing training activities will ensure the infrastructure’s contribution to all three of the DOORS project’s core pillars: System of Systems, Blue Growth Accelerator and Knowledge Transfer and Training. We look forward to strengthening and establishing connections in the Black Sea research community through DOORS, confident that the results of this project will be advantageous for both citizens and scientists of the Black Sea area, as well as Europe as a whole.”

Click here for the DOORS website. You can also follow its activities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

*grant agreement No. 101000518

EOSC Future: Call for Evaluators

EOSC Future

LifeWatch ERIC is proud to be a partner in the EOSC Future project, which, over the next two and a half years, will develop an environment with professional data services, open research products and infrastructure. It looks to create a so-called ‘system of systems’ that will support European researchers in managing the entire data lifecycle: from sharing, managing and exploiting their own data to discovering, re-using and recombining the datasets of others. The project will engage, train and support (potential) EOSC users and will encourage providers to sign up by offering easy onboarding, ticket management and analytics.

Since its official kick-off meeting on 10 June, the project has launched a call for external evaluators, seeking experts to evaluate a series of diverse grants to be awarded by the Research Data Alliance (RDA). Though the call will remain open for submissions until June 2023,  experts will be called on to evaluate grant applications as soon as October 2021.

To enable the co-creation of EOSC, via early adoption, technical and domain solution development and interoperability, RDA will be running a rich set of regular open calls. The RDA Open Calls mechanism is backed by a €1 000 000 grant earmarked for engaging with multiple stakeholders, including targeted scientific communities, technical experts and early career researchers. The calls will be complemented by a broad range of support activities, such as events, use cases, info packages, best practices, a Scientific Ambassador Network and dedicated RDA groups. These activities will enable a continual innovation workflow and engagement with science projects to support the implementation of an EOSC environment.  

In keeping with its principles of transparent and community-driven action, RDA is looking for external expert evaluators to support the decision-making process for awarding the RDA Open Calls grants. These evaluators will operate remotely via the EOSC Future Grants Platform and will be responsible for evaluating applications for RDA Open Calls, both for general and discipline- or domain-specific grants. While the call for external expert evaluators is open for the entire duration of the EOSC Future project, evaluators will be needed as soon as October 2021. Evaluators will be routinely selected from the pool of applicants based on their availability and the expertise required. Aside from a few exceptional cases, drafting an individual evaluation report will be compensated with a €150 fee (equivalent to 0.3 working days). 

Experts can submit their applications via the dedicated EOSC Future Grants Platform, which will manage the grants application process for all calls under EOSC Future‘s €1.6 million grant fund. This includes the €1 000 000 in grants under the RDA Open Calls as well as another €600 000 awarded through various DIH Calls.