Who We Are

LifeWatch ERIC is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium providing e-Science research facilities to scientists investigating biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services in order to support society in addressing key planetary challenges.
LifeWatch ERIC was established as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium by the European Commission in 2017.

Click here to read about Research Infrastructures and here to learn more about ERICs.

An interactive map of all Research Infrastructures, including ERICs, is available at this link. See all the other members of the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC Landscape) here.

Mission

Become the Research Infrastructure providing access to the world’s biodiversity content, services and communities in one click.

Vision

Accelerate the research effort of the scientific community by delivering the European state-of-the-art e-Infrastructure on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research: a Digital Twin which provides

  • access to, and support for, key scientific services by applying cutting-edge ICT technology,
  • enables reproducible analytics,
  • is co-designed and co-created with the user communities and
  • is tuned with the needs for research that provides key insights for society, in particular science-based policy.

Impacts & perspectives

As a provider of e-Science facilities for the European Research Area, LifeWatch ERIC represents a significant step forward, empowering users and stakeholders as they seek to address societal challenges linked to climate change and resource efficiency, food security and agriculture, sustainable development and energy supply, security and health.

 

LifeWatch ERIC is committed to:

 
  • Reaching the computers of all scientists, ecosystem managers & decision makers, and involving citizens in science
  • Providing VREs, vLabs & Big Data paradigm-based tools to conduct cutting-edge research
  • Boosting technological innovation, continuously improving the performance of our VREs, opening up new fields for socio-economic development
  • Establishing synergies with various national and regional stakeholders, particularly in respect to RIS3
  • Promoting democracy and creativity in science.

Our Story

2006-2010
2011-2017
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021

2006-2010

Preparatory phase

2011-2017

Transition Phase

Signature of a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate for the start of LifeWatch
Organisation of the first Inter-ministerial meeting
Organisation of five Operational meetings
Inaugurations of the Statutory Seat (Seville, Spain) and Service Centre (Lecce, Italy)

2017

Operational Phase

Establishment of LifeWatch ERIC by the European Union

2018

Operational Phase

Management & governance gathering speed
Establishment of the three Common Facilities Offices
Recruitment of the first units of personnel
Launch of LifeWatch ERIC Website
Organisation of ERIC Forum in Seville

2019

Operational Phase

Three new EU funded Projects: ENVRI-FAIR, Resinfra EU-LAC, ERIC Forum
First Scientific Community Meeting
First National Support Networks Meeting
Portugal joins LifeWatch ERIC
Start of LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative (IJI)
Prototypes of LifeBlock & Tesseract
EcoPortal
Co-organisation of Biodiversity Next Conference

2020

Operational Phase

One new EU project funded: ALL-Ready
Implementation of LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative (IJI)
First release of LifeWatch ERIC Tesseract, LifeBlock and Metadata catalogue
Initiation of the preparations for the next five-year period
Expansion of dialogue and fostering of collaboration with ERICs, RIs, International Organisations and Networks, and Stakeholders

2021

Operational Phase

Admit Bulgaria as the eighth EU Member State of LifeWatch ERIC
Continue its participation in 4 ongoing and 10 new projects
Grow by 45,4%, with a total human potential of 33 employees
Bring the prototype of the Infrastructure up to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6
Deliver 6 workflows at an operationally tested stage for LifeWatch ERIC IJI
Maintain a high-level dialogue with ERICs, RIs, International Organisations & Networks

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian National Distributed Centre is represented by the  Agricultural University-Plovdiv.

To know more about how Bulgaria contributes to LifeWatch ERIC, please visit our dedicated webpage.