Slovenia

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...

The Slovenian Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy issued a grant decision on 23 December 2019 (from the ERDF) that will help LifeWatch Slovenia to enhance its international competitiveness. The LifeWatch-SI project grant of €2.6 million will enable the purchase of equipment to support the implementation of international research projects in monitoring and predicting the impacts of global changes on biodiversity.  The research infrastructure, established in 2015, will be better able to collect, manage and save biodiversity data by establishing a tissue sample bank, an analytical centre, a molecular laboratory with the necessary software for analysing genetic diversity, and...

The Dirk Bouts Building in the Flemish Administrative Centre (VAC) in Leuven, Belgium, was the scene for the 5th LifeWatch ERIC General Assembly, from 11–12 December 2019, chaired by Gert Verreet. Composed of the representatives from all full Member States and observers, the purpose of General Assembly Meetings, the highest governing body of LifeWatch ERIC, is to set the overall direction and to supervise the development and operation of LifeWatch ERIC.  At the heart of this 5th General Assembly lies the prototype of the LifeWatch ERIC Platform, an integrated initiative of LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities presented by the CTO, Dr...

The LifeWatch ERIC Internal Joint Initiative was launched in October 2019 to design and construct a Virtual Research Environment capable of processing and modelling available data on one of the planet's most burning biodiversity issues, the proliferation of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species (NIS), in order to help mitigate their impacts.  Development of a new Virtual Research Environment (VRE) is essential to further integrate the tools and services available in the LifeWatch ERIC web portal. The process will allow stakeholders greater ability to develop their research activities within the e-Science Infrastructure, whilst also clearly demonstrating the added value that LifeWatch ERIC's...

LifeWatch ERIC just launched an Internal Joint Initiative (IJI) focusing on the topic of Non-indigenous and Invasive Species (NIS) with the aim of developing new dedicated Virtual Research Environments. The IJI kicked off with the organisation of the LifeWatch ERIC 1st Dahlem-type Workshop: Current and future challenges of NIS in Europe, which took place from 14th to 18th October, in the Casa de la Ciencia, and the V. De Madariaga Foundation, in Seville, Spain.  The choice of the Dahlem-type1 workshop stems from the desire of the infrastructure to use the most participative interdisciplinary approach in the search for new perspectives to...

Non-indigenous and Invasive species (NIS) are considered a major threat to biodiversity around the globe: they can impact ecosystems in many ways by outcompeting or predating on native species. Who has not heard of the Burmese pythons in Florida that eat alligators? The negative impact of imported rats and cats that have decimated island fauna populations? However, the long-term impacts of NIS on ecosystem integrity are poorly explored, and policy-makers are often left without sufficient information to make wise management decisions. In the belief that the first steps in tackling biodiversity loss must be to improve our knowledge by developing...

When the Slovenian Consortium, LifeWatch-SI, was established in 2015, the National Institute of Biology (NIB) was a founding partner, but marine research and monitoring of seawater quality operations at the NIB's Marine Biology Station Piran began a long time before that. Indeed, in 2019, the interdisciplinary marine station is celebrating 50 years of physical, chemical and biological oceanography. The Marine Biological Station (MBS) was founded in 1969 by a small group of enthusiastic researchers and the very first premises were in small house located in coastal city Portorož. Today it is one of the largest departments within the National Institute of...

The Scientific Community Meeting held in Rome from 27 – 29 May 2019 was designed to bring together the wider LifeWatch ERIC scientific communities of researchers and developers to generate and advance the discussion of the most promising lines of scientific development. In the view of the conference coordinator, Alberto Basset, Interim Director of the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre in Lecce and Professor of Ecology at the University of Salento, the 3-day event hosted by the Italian National Research Council, leader of the Italian contribution to the infrastructure, "was a great success". A truly international event, the meeting boasted 150 participants from 12 different countries which, thanks to the contributions given by LifeWatch ERIC Common Facilities and National Nodes (Belgium, Greece, Italy, Netherlands,...

The Slovenian Research Infrastructure Roadmap 2011-2020 (Revised 2016), listed LifeWatch among the international RI projects in the field of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Technology. Slovenian researchers cooperating in this project are aiming to raise the Slovenian science to an internationally comparable level in Environmental sciences. The project is part of Slovenian Strategy for Smart Specialization (S4) and Horizon 2020, focusing on the development of technological solutions in the field of biodiversity and socio-ecosystem research. Founded in 2015, the Slovenian Consortium LifeWatch-SI advocates  the importance of integrating and networking information & data to: (i) combine biodiversity research in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems;...

Biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems, including those precious services sustaining our life and our societies, are at risk, affecting the ecological sustainability of our Planet, our well-being and our future. LifeWatch ERIC, the European e-Science Infrastructure of Biodiversity and Ecosystem research (portal.lifewatch.dev) has organised a meeting in Ljubljana, on 13–14 December 2019, discussing with representatives of Common Facilities, National Nodes and the wider Slovenian scientific community and partners in the LifeWatch Slovenia consortium on the vision, mission and operational priorities of the research infrastructure. The ambition was to deploy the proper e-Infrastructure to scientists in order to build the...

On 12 & 13 November, the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre organised the first working meeting on "Metadata, Controlled Vocabularies and Ontologies" in Lecce, Italy. The aim of the meeting was to set a roadmap for a common strategy to be adopted on metadata, controlled vocabularies and ontologies within the LifeWatch ERIC community and in accordance with the FAIR principles. The meeting witnessed the participation of 13 experts, with both scientific and technical backgrounds, from Coomon Facilities and national nodes of LifeWatch ERIC (Belgium, Greece, Italy, Slovenia,  Spain, The Netherlands). Three sessions were held on 1) Metadata, 2) Controlled Vocabularies, and 3)...

Deepening biodiversity and ecosystem related issues has become a crucial value in contemporary society, which is tackling global scale challenges on capital elements, such as resource supply, economic development, environmental security and human well-being. The European Commission recognises research in this area as a priority, moving further from the punctual programmes funding the many fixed-term projects, to the institution of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium, as a long term strategy to ensure sustainability of research. Welcome, LifeWatch ERIC! LifeWatch ERIC is the 14th European research infrastructure to be granted this important status, and it is composed by eight founding member states and three common...