Organised by ENVRI-FAIR and LifeWatch ERIC, the School has established itself as an unmissable opportunity to learn about FAIRness in the framework of Research Infrastructures. Having gone into depth on data FAIRness and data management during previous editions, in summer 2022 the school will focus on The ENVRI-Hub for Scientists: Designing and Developing Services, Tools and Applications.

The school will take place over a week, and on top of the time spent with experienced trainers, it will also include optional excursions and social events.

In the run-up to the ENVRI Community International Summer School in July, LifeWatch ERIC and ENVRI-FAIR will be organising two webinars on “Designing and Developing Data Services for End Users”. Participation in the webinars can be in preparation for the School or as stand-alone sessions, for those who cannot attend the School, or those who are still considering registering. For more information on the ENVRI Community International Summer School “Road to a FAIR ENVRI-Hub: Designing and Developing Data Services for End Users”, please visit the dedicated minisite.

On June 21st 2022 the annual VSC Users Day takes ‘live’ place in Ghent.

The event aims to gather users, partners, and the team of Vlaams Supercomputer Centrum. You will be informed about the latest developments, meet the VSC-team, discuss future developments and trends, share experiences, and ideas and influence the future of Supercomputing – and of course, network. You will also have the unique opportunity to meet Hortense, the new Tier-1 supercomputer at UGent, and discover its unique features.  

The DecaNet workshop is a 4 day workshop (10-13 May) that takes place in VLIZ, Ostend and is organized by LifeWatch VLIZ (WoRMS-team). The goal of the workshop is to work towards establishing a Global Species List of Decapoda, which not only will incorporate all the basic taxonomic information, but will also host all the literature records (incl. an extensive pdf library), document the distributions of the species, as well as list their ecological (depth, habitat, etc.) attributes in a uniform and hierarchical way.

The aims are directly linked with the above information:

Documents: 

DecaNet_Workshop_Agenda_May2022.pdf

Stakeholder Engagement is the theme around which this year's Blue Economy Science Summit (BESS) – organized on Wednesday 18 May by VLIZ and De Blauwe Cluster – brings marine science and industry together. In addition to interesting keynotes, explanations and conversations, they provide an extensive innovation market where you get to know a range of marine research and innovation projects and where you have ample opportunity for networking.

The European Tracking Network (ETN) Annual Meeting, with delegates from across the continent is this year a the three-day event in Derry/Londonderry.

The conference, which is funded by the EU’s COST Action programme, took place in the City Hotel Derry from 5-7 April, with attendees taking part in a range of informative workshops and activities.

The Network has six strategically placed large marine fish counters, known as ‘arrays’, situated across the continent’s waters, with various member organisations involved in the long-term project.

Documents: 

Agenda COST ETN Annual Meeting 2022.docx.pdf

LifeWatch and Elixir Belgium invite you to a hands-on workshop to manage and publish research data. The workshop is organized in the context of the Empowering Biodiversity Research conference (EBRII) and will cover data management plans, data cleaning and GitHub. If this is jargon you always wanted to know about (but were afraid to ask), then this workshop is for you!

In this LifeWatch VLIZ workshop we will learn different steps in a workflow to query and combine data from European marine databases, visualize and get them ready for further analysis. We will also apply the workflow to your own datasets or research questions. As an example, we will retrieve near real time biodiversity data from the Belgian part of the North Sea (plankton, cetaceans, fish or sea birds.

On Sunday 8 May (10-16h) the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) is organizing – together with Natuurpunt, SciVil, Iedereen Wetenschapper and EOS Magazine and many other organizations – the first citizen science festival of the Belgian coast: ZEEKERWETEN. This initiative is part of the LifeWatch Belgium project.

On March 11th, 2022, 1-2 PM UTC the Atlantic International Research Centre (AIR centre) organizes an online webinar with presentations on Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) within the context of a Global Ocean Observation System. The objectives of this session are to provide a better understanding of marine life to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and to facilitate connections and strengthen collaboration among existing marine biodiversity-related Un Decade of the Ocean activities.