Participate in the validation of version 2.0 of the LifeWatch Italy Traits Thesaurus

We are updating the Traits Thesaurus, a controlled vocabulary for standardizing data and metadata on the biological traits of aquatic organisms.

As we develop version 2.0, we are looking for new validators to help us refine and agree on the terminologies used.

As a validator, you will review and provide feedback on specific terms and definitions included in version 2.0 of the Traits Thesaurus. The validation phase will last three weeks and, after necessary revisions, the updated version will be published.

The first validated version (1.0) is already available here.

If you would like to participate, register by March 25! Fill out the form here

Your contribution will be essential to improving the quality of biological trait data. Thank you for your help!

Download here the flyer

Join the OntoPortal Federation Workshop

On 20 March (10:00-11:30 CET), discover how AgroPortal, EcoPortal, EarthPortal, and BiodivPortal now enable federated browsing and search for seamless access to distributed semantic artefacts.

During the workshop, you will learn the new OntoPortal’s federated functionalities and the benefits of cross-portal interoperability.

You will also be introduced to an hands-on introduction to two complementary approaches for Semantic Catalogue interoperability: FAIR-IMPACT’s MOD-API and TS4NFDI’s API Gateway.

Don’t miss this chance, register soon at

https://fair-impact.eu/events/fair-impact-events/advancing-fair-semantic-artefact-discovery-and-search-ontoportal-0

Join FAIR-IMPACT’s Upcoming FAIR Implementation Workshops

FAIR-IMPACT invites you to take part in a series of interactive workshops designed to enhance FAIR data practices and support the adoption of FAIR-enabling tools:

Using F-UJI to Assess the FAIRness of your Data
📅 20 March 2025, 13:00–14:00 CET

OAIS version 3 – What does it mean for repositories?
📅 24 March 2025, 15:30–17:00 CET

What is a ‘Data Champion’ and how can they support good practice in data management and sharing?
📅 16 April 2025, 11:00–12:30 CET

Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of FAIR principles and engage with the community!

What’s FAIR-IMPACT?

FAIR-IMPACT is a European Project that promotes the adoption of FAIR principles for data and services within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The project supports the implementation of practices, tools, and services that facilitate data management in accordance with FAIR principles, engaging scientific communities at European, national, and institutional levels.

LifeWatch ERIC BEeS 2025: Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience Conference Heraklion, Greece, 30 June – 03 July 2025

The BEeS (Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience) Conference 2025 will gather researchers, policymakers, and experts to tackle the Triple Planetary Crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution) through eScience and European Research Infrastructures (RIs).

This year’s conference will explore synergies between LifeWatch ERIC services and emerging technologies to drive innovation for a sustainable future. The program features plenary sessions, thematic services, research presentations, and hands-on demonstrations, highlighting the crucial role of technology, data, and collaboration in addressing global environmental challenges.

Participants will engage in discussions on biological diversity and conservation, ecological responses to climate change, biogeography, taxonomy, biodiversity monitoring, and habitat mapping, with the possibility to submit an abstract by 15 April. The event will also include interactive booth activities, poster presentations, and training sessions, offering insights into Virtual Research Environments (VREs), Virtual Laboratories (vLabs), and other digital tools.

Target audience The conference welcomes researchers in biodiversity, ecosystems, and eScience, with a special focus on early-career scientists, including PhD and Master’s students. The BEeS 2025 Conference will be hosted by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology, and Aquaculture (IMBBC), in Heraklion, Greece, from June 30 to July 3, 2025.

For any detail on the abstract submission, logistics, registration and preliminary programme, visit: https://www.lifewatch.eu/bees-2025/

Andrea Tarallo (CNR-IRET) becomes FAIR Implementation Profile Facilitator

Today, Andrea Tarallo from the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology Research of the CNR and LifeWatch Italy has officially qualified as a FAIR Implementation Profile (FIP) Facilitator after successfully completing the GO FAIR Foundation FAIR Capacity Building Programme first module.

A FIP is a collection of FAIR implementation choices made by a community of practice, such as Research Infrastructures, for each of the FAIR Principles. These profiles, captured as FAIR datasets, are openly available for reuse by other communities, fostering collaboration and interoperability, and significantly accelerating the implementation of FAIR principles.

This achievement marks an important milestone, as FIPs must be compiled with the guidance of trained facilitators—and Andrea is the first in Italy to receive this qualification.

With this new expertise, the LifeWatch Italy infrastructure is further strengthened, enhancing its ability to support and implement the FAIR principles in its operations.

Congratulations to Andrea on this accomplishment!

Research fellowship at DiSTeBA, University of Salento

The University of Salento – DiSTeBA invites applications for a 1-year Research Fellow, who will contribute to the development of a training framework for research software excellence in pursuit of building a European network of Research Software Quality.

The EVERSE (European Virtual Institute for Research Software Excellence) project aims to create a framework for research software and code excellence, collaboratively designed and championed by five interdisciplinary research communities (ENVRI Community, Life Science RI, ESCAPE, PaNOSC, SSHOC) and their emerging use cases in environmental sciences, life sciences, particle physics and astrophysics, photon and neutron science, and computational linguistics.

Call for applications (IT/EN): https://www.unisalento.it/bandi-concorsi/-/bandi/view/67507252
Deadline: 3 January 2025

 

Picture designed by Freepik www.freepik.com

FAIR-EASE Open Day, 10th of October, Napoli (IT)

To mark the third annual meeting of the European INFRAEOSC FAIR-EASE project the coordinating committee will organize an OPEN DAY dedicated to Open Science for Earth Systems (Volcanoes, Soil, Water, and Biodiversity).

This event is dedicated to policy makers, institutional authorities, external scientists and stakeholders, and will be held in Naples, and online, on 10 October 2024, co-organised by the University of Naples Federico II and the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, both contributing to FAIR-EASE.

Registration to the event here: https://fairease.eu/form/fair-ease-open-day-10-october-20

Hic sunt Lupi! And citizens.

On Wednesday 3 April, the “Hic Sunt Lupi” project held its first public meeting “The return of the wolf in Salento: let’s get to know it” in Lecce, Italy.

The meeting was opened by the Councilor for Environment of Regione Puglia, Anna Grazia Maraschio, the Mayor of Lecce, Carlo Salvemini and hosted representatives of the experts involved in the project, like Paolo Ciucci, Professor at Sapienza-University of Rome, and Francesco Cozzoli and Francesco De Leo, researchers at the National Research Council (CNR-IRET), Lecce, and Ruben Cataldo, archaeologist and President of Archeo-Rec.

This was the first of a series of meetings foreseen within the project to involve the local population, not only on the objectives of the project, which has started monitoring and gathering data on the presence of wolves in Salento to get to a better understanding of the situation and pave the road towards management measures. The wolf is a protected species and its return in Salento is a fact of scientific and ecological relevance, however it is also an issue with such a strong impact on local communities for a variety of reasons (security, economical, etc.). Many are the concerns linked to the return of this predator which sometimes lead to the development of “fake-news”, like the erroneous idea that it was deliberately reintroduced in various areas, just to make an example. Disseminating science-knowledge information and facts on the wolves, their return in this specific area and their management is a critical aspect for the success of the project. “Hic Sunt Lupi” is investing to achieve a true engagement of the local population, also thanks to initiatives of citizen science, where data coming from people’s observations will be collected, validated and hosted on the LifeWatch Italy Citizen Science platform.

Hic Sunt Lupi is a project of  Regione Puglia, CNR-IRET, and the Sapienza University of Rome, with the support of LifeWatch Italy, the National Biodiversity Future Center and the University of Salento.

More information is available here HERE and HERE 

Condolences for the passing of Professor Valerio Sbordoni

We deeply regret to inform you that Professor Valerio Sbordoni passed away on February 6th. This is distressing news and an immeasurable loss for the scientific community, especially for LifeWatch Italia. Valerio was a true founding father of our research infrastructure, and over the years, his continuous dedication significantly shaped the activities of our Joint Research Unit.

With Valerio’s passing, we not only lose an illustrious scientist but also a friend and a guiding figure for all of us within LifeWatch Italia, with whom we had the honor and pleasure of working for over a decade. On behalf of LifeWatch Italia and ERIC, we express sincere gratitude to Valerio and profound condolences for his loss.

Born in Rome in 1942, Valerio Sbordoni was a full professor of zoology at Sapienza University of Rome (1980-1982) and the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (1982-2012). He was a member of the Italian National Academy of Entomology, secretary of the National Academy of Sciences (known as “dei XL”), president of the Italian Society of Biogeography, and a member of numerous other national scientific societies. His primary research interests included biogeography, population genetics, and the study of the evolution of various terrestrial and aquatic animal organisms (particularly butterflies and cave-dwelling organisms).

Throughout his career, he received awards and recognitions, including the “G.B.Grassi” Zoology Award from the National Academy of Lincei, the gold medal from the National Academy of Sciences, and the Rolex Award for Enterprise for biodiversity studies in the caves of Chiapas, Mexico.

Professor Sbordoni’s biography is available on the website of the National Academy of Sciences, “dei XL” (https://www.accademiaxl.it/accademia/soci/soci-nazionali/).

 

Photo by Luca Bartolozzi

Research grant at CNR-IRSA Verbania, Italy

Selections are open for a 12-month fellowship to carry out research activities in the framework of the PRIN 2022 – 202252 YWFC project – “FUTURE: A WARMER FUTURE WORLD:
EFFECTS ON PLANKTON COMMUNITIES AND PATHOGENS IN MEDITERRANEAN VULNERABLE ECOSYSTEMS” at the CNR Institute for Water Research in Verbania (CNR-IRSA).

The project aims at assessing and understanding the effects of temperature increase on the biodiversity of the planktonic community and the abundance and composition of the microbial community pathogenic bacteria and their resistance to antibiotics”, under the scientific responsibility of Dr. Andrea Di Cesare.

Required:
– University degree in Natural Sciences, Biological Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geological Sciences, Forestry, Chemistry, Computer Science, Environmental and Territorial Engineering, Computer Engineering, Biotechnology (all addresses), or Veterinary Science, obtained by the regulations in force before Ministerial Decree 509/99, or the relevant Specialist Degree (Ministerial Decree 509/99) or Magistral Degree (Ministerial Decree 270/04) and a professional curriculum suitable for carrying out research activities;
– Previous experience in the field and sampling activities in aquatic environments (lakes, lagoons);
– laboratory and experimental activities;
– analysis of sequencing data (amplicon sequencing and shotgun sequencing);
– data management and statistical analysis;
– knowledge of the English language

The full announcement can be accessed at https://www.urp.cnr.it/system/files/2024-01/1.%20Bando_AdR_PRIN.%20DiCesare_signed.pdf

Deadline: 20/02/2024

The application, drawn up exclusively using the forms enclosed in the call, together with the documentation proving the qualifications and publications must be sent to the Water Research Institute, exclusively by Certified Electronic Mail (PEC) to the address: protocollo.irsa@pec.cnr.it by 20 February 2024