On 11 and 12 May 2026, the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union invited delegations to attend the Conference “Riding the Wave: Advancing the EU Ocean Pact through Science, Innovation and Cooperation”. The event was organised by the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy (DMRID) of the Republic of Cyprus, together with the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI) and ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence. Representatives from EU institutions, Member States, research organisations, industry, and innovation platforms gathered together to explore how ocean science and maritime innovation can more effectively inform European policy, competitiveness, and sustainability....

The next "Marine SABRES in Fairs" will take part in Fishermen’s Day in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland, on June 7, 2026, joining a rich outreach and educational programme hosted and organised by the Marine & Freshwater Research Institute. Fishermen’s Day, celebrated annually on the first Sunday of June, is a long-standing national tradition in Iceland that honours the country’s deep connection to the sea and its fishing heritage. Established in 1938, the celebration has evolved into a nationwide event featuring harbour festivities, cultural activities, and educational initiatives that engage communities of all ages with maritime life and ocean culture. In this context,...

On 29 May 2026, the city of Lecce, home to the LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre, launches the new Demo Center of the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC) Biodiversity Gateway, Italy’s first national portal fully dedicated to biodiversity and coordinated by the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). The Biodiversity Gateway seeks to build stronger relations between research institutions, local communities, schools, public administrations and businesses, fostering awareness and action around biodiversity conservation and environmental sustainability. In this light, the Demo Center will act as a new public space where citizens can connect with scientific research on biodiversity through immersive and...

From 22 to 24 May 2026, LifeWatch ERIC and ULPGC-ECOAQUA (University Institute for Research in Sustainable Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems) presented the Marine SABRES project at FIMAR 2026 - Feria Internacional del Mar in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, co-organising a new event within the “Marine SABRES in Fairs” series. Now in its 15th edition, FIMAR attracted more than 14,000 visitors over three days, offering a rich programme including commercial exhibitions, technical sessions, public talks, boat visits, nautical demonstrations, and educational activities for all audiences. Once again the fair confirmed its role as a key reference event for the blue...

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are animals, plants, fungi or other microorganisms that, introduced accidentally or intentionally in a different environment than their natural one, can bear serious consequences for the new environment (you can find several episodes of our Podcasts dedicated to this topic by clicking on the tag Invasive Alien Species). Besides the negative impacts of IAS on biodiversity, ecosystem services, food security and human well-being, there is also a huge cost related to the management of these biological invasions. In addition to that, biodiversity conservation actions are often constrained by a lack of alignment between governance frameworks and...

Originally set for 15 May 2026, the submission deadline has now been extended to 2 June 2026, offering additional time for researchers and practitioners to prepare and submit their short or long contributed sessions (10 or 15 minutes) within one of the selected topics. The extended timeline is as follows: Early submission: 15 May 2026 (evaluation by 22 May 2026) Late submission: 2 June 2026 This extension aims to ensure broader participation from the biodiversity and ecosystem research community. Participants are encouraged to take advantage of this additional time to submit abstracts for contributed presentations and be part of BEeS...

Modelling & Workflows is one of LifeWatch ERIC's Thematic Services Working Groups, that is, groups dedicated to the implementation of activities, developments, and physical outcomes of main priority areas of e-Service construction in LifeWatch ERIC (https://www.lifewatch.eu/thematic-services-working-groups). This Working Group is coordinated by Maria Paniw (Estación Biológica de Doñana - EBD) and Agustín Riscos Núñez (University of Seville), and has the objective to turn models into open, automated, interoperable, and scalable workflows for ecological predictions. In fact, the group addresses the challenge posed by the huge amount of data that ecologists produce, and that comes from different sources (European RIs, national and...

RESTORE4Cs is the EU-funded project that supports the implementation of Climate and Biodiversity policies in the context of the European Green Deal, by assessing the effectiveness of restoration actions through models and integrative tools. The project has recently reached the end of its mandate, and has published an Implementation Roadmap as one of its final results. This roadmap guides the design and planning of national coastal wetland restoration efforts to help countries meet the obligations of EU environmental and climate policy processes. These include the development of National Restoration Plans under the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, national commitments under the...

Taxonomy - the science behind the discovery, naming, and classification of species on Earth - lies at the very heart of our knowledge of biodiversity. It connects different biological disciplines, allowing scientists to access and exchange a wealth of information on species and their significance to humanity. It is also the foundation for understanding how to protect these species from extinction, and plan future conservation actions. With taxonomists providing such a fundamental service, it is not surprising that various organisations seek to recognise their work. As the Taxonomy Recognition Day approaches, we would like to highlight three initiatives: Taxonomy Recognition...

Marine SABRES in Fairs will make its next stop in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on May 22-24, 2026, where LifeWatch ERIC and ULPGC-ECOAQUA will co-organise a series event at FIMAR 2026 - Feria Internacional del Mar, showcasing the project’s results and resources. Now in its 15th edition, FIMAR is a well-established regional reference event for professionals in the nautical and marine-maritime sector and a key driver of the Blue Economy in the Canary Islands. This year’s theme, “Outermost Regions and the Sea”, highlights the strategic role of these territories in marine innovation, sustainable development, and Atlantic cooperation. The event...

The GREENCOOP Project (https://www.lifewatch.eu/greencoop) is designed to revitalise rural areas, by integrating Agroecology and Digital Innovations (ADIs), into novel Rural Communities Business Models (RCBMs). The project started at the end of 2025 and will last for 4 years, bringing together Living Labs from Europe and China into a hybrid network of Rural Innovation Business Communities. The main ambition of GREENCOOP is to foster the agroecology and digital transition of EU and China farm systems, and use the RCBMs to integrate, interconnect, and make them adaptable to different contexts, boosting and accelerating the adoption rates of ADIs by farmers within the...

Marine SABRES is launching the third and final edition of its Serious Game School Competition, inviting secondary schools across Europe to take part in a unique learning experience focused on the ocean. Registration is now open for teachers. The event will take place on 22 May 2026, in occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity and the European Maritime Day, from 09:00 to 17:00 CEST. Following the previous edition, which brought together 13 classes from 5 schools across Europe, the competition continues to grow as a space for collaboration between classrooms and researchers. Over the course of the day,...

From 11 to 13 March 2026, LifeWatch ERIC was involved in a three-day technical workshop on large-scale airborne LiDAR processing for vegetation structure analysis. The event was hosted at SustainaLab (University of Amsterdam), and organised by W. Daniel Kissling, Yifang Shi, and Jinhu Wang as part of the EU-funded Mambo Project (Modern Approaches to the Monitoring of BiOdiversity), an initiative that develops remote-sensing and AI-based tools to improve biodiversity monitoring across Europe. LifeWatch ERIC, the Netherlands eScience Center, and SURF contributed their expertise to the event programme. Over the three days, the event brought together 21 researchers, data scientists, and...

Animal movement, behaviour, and biologging, is one of LifeWatch ERIC's Thematic Services Working Groups, networks of Common Facilities and Distributed Centres members, coordinated by the Service Centre. These WGs implement activities, developments, and physical outcomes of the RI's Thematic Services in 8 key priority areas (with more to come). Among these, animal tracking is the practice of monitoring and studying animal movements and behaviour in their natural environment from a distance, across spatial and temporal scales, using a suit of tools and technologies. This practice provides as an advantage the possibility to gather robust data over extended temporal periods and...

LifeWatch ERIC Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience Conference (BEeS) is back. This summer, we have the pleasure of inviting you to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, for a four-day appointment, from 7 to 10 July. LifeWatch Bulgaria, through the Agricultural University-Plovdiv, hosts the third edition of the conference for 2026. The event will start with a set of Pre-conference workshops on 7 July, while the plenary and contributed sessions will take place from 8 July onwards. Plenary speakers Prof. Vladislav Popov and Prof. Tatyana Bileva (Agricultural University-Plovdiv), Dr. Anne Fouilloux (LifeWatch ERIC), and Prof. Carl Beierkuhnlein (University of Bayreuth/Universidad de Granada), will present sessions...