Author: lifewatch

The COVID-19 pandemic is hitting our society and citizens hard, in Europe and all over the world, generating a health crisis whose proportions and impacts have no precedent in recent history, and are yet to be fully understood. An emergency, that to be tackled requires institutional and science key actors to join forces and coordinate efforts and identify viable science-based approaches.

LifeWatch ERIC welcomed the initiative undertaken by ESFRI for “aggregating information about dedicated services offered by Research Infrastructures and communicating all relevant actions as broadly as possibly” on a unique web page where the information collected is clearly organised, immediately available and regularly updated.

LifeWatch ERIC submitted a proposal to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation on a joint initiative, involving a group of international scientists with long-track experience in machine learning and modelling, to create dedicated epidemiology and data support services. Expected to become available in the next few months, the services will make it possible to: 

• Implement a large set of scenario and model simulations to establish alternative trajectories of the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

• Perform an extensive sensitivity analysis to understand the major sources of uncertainty associated with model projections.

• Develop an on-line decision support system platform enabling individuals and stakeholders in the public and private sectors to make queries about risks in specific locations and time periods.

• Support the federation, provenance and accountability mechanisms associated with distributed (e-)Resources (databases, publications, media, software, etc.) through Blockchain-based technologies.

3^rd International Workshop on Semantics for Biodiversity

The S4BioDiv 3rd International Workshop on Semantics for Biodiversity, to be held in Bolzano, Italy, on 16 September, has issued a call for papers. Authors are invited to submit for inclusion topics related the application and development of semantic technologies to support research in the biodiversity and related domains. In the light of the coronavirus crisis, the conference may need to be held virtually. The final format of the conference will be determined in June.

Biodiversity deals with heterogeneous data and concepts generated from a large number of disciplines in order to build a coherent picture of the extent of life on earth. The presence of such a myriad of data resources makes integrative biodiversity research increasingly important, as well as challenging given the variety of ways in which data and information are produced and made available. The Semantic Web approach enhances data discoverability, sharing, interoperability and integration through a formalized conceptual environment providing common formats, standards, and terminological resources.

The workshop, which is supported by LifeWatch ERIC, aims to bring together computer scientists and biologists, working on Semantic Web approaches for biodiversity, ecology and related areas such as plant sciences, agronomy, agroecology or citizen science related to biodiversity. The goal is to exchange experiences, build a state of the art of realizations and challenges, and reuse and adapt solutions that have been proposed in other domains. The workshop focuses will be on presenting challenging issues and solutions for the design of high-quality biodiversity information systems leveraging Semantic Web techniques.

Click here for conference details and important dates.

The pan-European Workshop, held in Porto from 26 to 28 February, in the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO-InBIO) at the Vairão campus of the University of Porto, Portugal, boasted a very specific title: ‘Online Bioinformatic Platforms to Support Metabarcoding and Metagenomics Research and Applications’.

The workshop witnessed more than 30 participants from nine European countries (Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland) with different expertise and backgrounds, ranging from metagenomics and metabarcoding, to ecology and ICT.

The workshop was jointly organised with PORBIOTA/ LifeWatch Portugal, DNAqua-Net (dedicated to the protection, preservation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems and their functions) and the EnvMetaGen project at InBIO (Research Network in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology). LifeWatch ERIC supported its organisation as part of its Internal Joint Initiative on Non-indigenous and Invasive Species. The workshop explored the architecture and function of an online bioinformatics platform capable to address as many needs of the scientific community as possible, such as:

1) Checking existing distributed Bioinformatics e-Resources within the LifeWatch ERIC communities of practice,

2) Reaching a common understanding of users’ requirements and needs in Virtual Research Environments, and

3) Proposing an efficient and realistic and engaging mechanism from an ICT perspective, capable of federating those e-Resources within the LifeWatch ERIC VREs.

Examples of evidence-based research were provided by the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), MIRRI (Microbial Research Resource Infrastructure), ELIXIR (which unites Europe’s leading life science organisations in managing and safeguarding the ever-growing volumes of data generated), other Research Infrastructures and Bioinformatics initiatives.

The outcome of the three days was a plan with well-identified next steps towards the co-construction of the bioinformatic platform.

Transfiere is the biggest professional and multi-sectoral forum for knowledge and technology transfer to take place in Spain. From 12-13 February, the Palace of Fairs and Congress in Málaga FYCMA witnessed the gathering of the most relevant players in the national and international Research & Development & Innovation ecosystem.

Being part of Transfiere allowed the 1,600 participants to build networks of contacts, synergies and knowledge sharing in fields as diverse as Artificial intelligence and digital transformation, Public Administration, Internationalisation opportunities, and Investment and Open innovation. 

At the LifeWatch ERIC stand, Giovanna Caputi, National Nodes Operations Manager, and Cristina Huertas-Olivares, International Initiatives and Projects Manager, interacted with delegates and disseminated information on the Infrastructure’s potential to facilitate interdisciplinary research in biodiversity and ecosystems.  

In parallel, working meetings were held on new Workflows & VRE developments at the University of Málaga-Picasso HPC, part of LifeWatch ERIC ICT Core premises. Their coordinator, LifeWatch ERIC CTO Juan Miguel González-Aranda welcomed participants from LW ERIC international ICT Team, and introduced Professors Emilio López Zapata & José F. Aldana also considered reputed experts on HPC, Big Data & Artificial Intelligence at international level, who supported at technical level during the different sessions.

Felipe Romera, president of the Organizing Committee of Transfiere, was pleased that the two days of “much intensity” had provided a valuable meeting place for the Spanish innovation system and strategic sectors of the economy, both public and private.

The ENVRI-FAIR project brings together 26 Research Infrastructures to build sustainable, transparent and trustworthy data services compliant with FAIR principles. Once a year, ENVRI Week is dedicated to Environmental Research Infrastructures so that Working Parties can report on progress and seek guidance on future developments. 

ENVRI Week 2020 was held in Dresden, Germany, from 3-7 February and attracted 40 participants. Morning plenary presentations broke into parallel sessions in the afternoon to address the requirements of the four subdomains: Atmosphere, Marine, Solid Earth and Terrestrial ecosystems & biodiversity. 

For the first time a training event for data centre staff was featured, entitled ‘Terminologies for ENVRIs: Why, What & How’, presented by Clement Jonquet (University of Montpellier) and Markus Stocker (Knowledge Infrastructures research group), and also made available on Zoom.

WP6 of the Ecosystem & Biodiversity subdomain was tasked with providing relevant training materials. Maggie Hellström (ICOS) detailed the training needs analysis, the preparation of materials and the operation of the common platform. Lucia Vaira (LifeWatch ERIC) presented the improved user interface of the ENVRI FAIR training catalogue populated with training resources and materials related to FAIR Data Principles and Research Data Management, graded by difficulty level, and emphasised the need to create a feedback group to test and expand the catalogue

Nicola Fiore (LifeWatch ERIC) guided participants through the ENVRI community Training Platform resources, from Species Distribution Modelling to serious games, and from the ‘Why, What and How’ program, to the ENVRI-LifeWatch ERIC International Summer School Data Fairness, a new edition of which will be offered in 2020. 

LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre Director Alberto Basset reported back to the plenary on the progress made in WP11 and Task Force experts from the Research Infrastructures present worked together to set objectives for the coming year. ENVRI Week demonstrated that European Research Institutes share the ideals of ground-breaking research, empowering users, democratised science, and improved data discoverability.

LifeWatch ERIC participated in the second Board Meeting of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) at the invitation of the Swedish CAFF Chairmanship. The meeting, held on February 3-6, 2020 at the Gällivare Folkets Hus in Sweden, was attended by the LifeWatch ERIC e-infrastructure operation coordinator, Antonio José Sáenz-Albanés. 

CAFF is the biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council, established in 1996 as a high-level governmental forum to address issues faced by the Arctic governments and the indigenous people of the Arctic. LifeWatch ERIC is involved in the CAFF Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI).

LifeWatch ERIC supports AMBI in many ways, hosting in its Spanish premises the offices of the Coordinator of the African Eurasian Flyway, which seeks to improve the conservation and management of shorebird sites along their migration paths from the Arctic down to Africa, and supporting AMBI objectives and its engagement within the African continent and in particular in Guinea-Bissau.

As the Board Meeting progressed however, it became clear that Arctic ecosystems are facing challenges that LifeWatch ERIC is already addressing elsewhere, such as Arctic Invasive Alien Species for example, thus opening up further possibilities to collaborate and add value to a wide range of issues.

In this context, when Antonio José Sáenz-Albanés gave a presentation on LifeWatch ERIC’s state-of-art of ICT developments in Data FAIRness and workflows, some still under construction and deployment, and commitments to dealing with environmental hot topics, it was warmly welcomed. 

The last day provided the opportunity to learn first-hand about the application of indigenous knowledge in managing biodiversity and ecosystem services by the Sámi people, also known as Saami or Lapps, who are native to northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola peninsula of Russia.

ASSEMBLE Plus has issued a call to academics and researchers to submit proposals for the Transnational Access programme, which offers sponsorship of successful applicants for up to 30 days to carry out research in their marine biological stations.

ASSEMBLE Plus is a consortium of organisations from 16 countries operating under the umbrella of the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC) and offers access to over 30 marine biological institutions across Europe, complete with travel and subsistence, under Horizon 2020 funding. The deadline for this seventh call for applications is 24 April 2020.  

The ASSEMBLE Plus Transnational Access programme provides access to ecosystems (including research vessels and diving facilities), biological resources, technology platforms (molecular imaging, structural and chemical analysis), experimental facilities and e-Services (data sets, analysis, computing and storage). The window of access to research infrastructures is between April and September 2020.  

To qualify for access to facilities, platforms, laboratories, travel, accommodation allowances and shipping costs of project material back to the home institution, applicants should be PhDs, postdoc researchers or engineers in teams of up to two, working or studying in recognised institutions in the European Union with an innovative project proposal. 

Transnational means that the main applicant must be based in a county different from that of the selected access provider. For more information, click here for the website. 

Four environmental Research Infrastructures to build a new joint vision for transitional and coastal environments in the future.

Two years after the last appointment in Athens, the 9th European Coastal Lagoons Conference (EUROLAG) was held in Venice, from 20 to 24 January 2020. Hosted by the Institute of Marine Sciences (ISMAR) of the Italian National Research Council, the Consortium for Lagoon Research (CORILA) and the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari jointly organised this 2020 edition with a focus on science, research and management issues related to lagoons and transitional areas. 

The EUROLAG conference marked a very important step not only on the specific coastal lagoon scientific and managerial issues approached in the five days, but it also distinguished itself by putting in the spotlight European research infrastructures, their potential and capacity to tackle big societal challenges, and connecting and supporting scientists in their work. 

The conference opened every day with a keynote talk given by one of the four research infrastructures involved: LifeWatch-ERIC, eLTER, Danubius-RI and EMBRC-ERIC. These sponsors combined their efforts and pooled their strengths to chart a path towards how environmental research infrastructures can collaborate in transitional and coastal environments in the future, avoiding the duplication of tasks, and identifying areas for more intense cooperation and engagement with stakeholders. 

More information on the congress, its programme and contributed sessions are available on https://www.eurolag9.it/.