PROJECTS

EMSO directly participates in european projects, other projects or research networks.

The ongoing and closed projects are presented below.

ONGOING PROJECTS

AtlantECO

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: AtlantECO
PROJECT TITLE: Atlantic ECOsystems assessment, forecasting & sustainability
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/09/2020 END date: 31/08/2024

The ambition of AtlantECO is to develop and apply a novel, unifying framework for providing knowledge-based resources to design policies, support decisions making, and engage with citizens to encourage responsible behaviour to manage the Atlantic system and protect its Ecosystem Services (ES) provision. AtlantECO aims to determine the structure and function of the Atlantic microbiome in the context of ocean circulation and the presence of pollutants, e.g., plastics, to assess its role in driving the dynamics of Atlantic ecosystems at basin and regional scales; its potential of being used as a sensor of ecosystem state and the mechanisms by which it drives the provision of 5ES. This is key to improving our predictions on the future provision of ES in the basin and favouring the establishment of a sustainable Blue Growth strategy for an All-Atlantic community.

EMSO ROLE: The EMSO project participation is linked with a set of activities aiming at generating new observations about microbiomes, plastics, and the plastisphere, using AtlantECO’s standard protocols during sampling activities in the Atlantic. (ESTOC).

EMSO MEMBERS/REGIONAL FACILITIES PARTICIPATING: PLOCAN (LTP)

EMSO Point of Contact: Valentina Tegas

WWW.ATLANTECO.EU

DOORS

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: DOORS
PROJECT TITLE: Developing Optimal and Open Research Support for the Black Sea
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/06/2021 END date: 31/05/2025

Led by GeoEcoMar from Romania, DOORS (‘Developing Optimal and Open Research Support’) will bring together expertise and technology from 37 institutions from the Black Sea region and other European countries to address the human and climate change impacts on damaged ecosystems.
Bordered by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, the Black Sea has a rich cultural history and a wealth of biodiversity and wildlife. But to address the environmental challenges that threaten the Black Sea, DOORS will develop a common framework of scientific methods for gathering data. The project will provide a system that will bring together information from in-situ measurements, research cruises, satellite observation, modelling, and data integration capabilities. This system will allow partners to better understand the complex marine processes that happen across the Black Sea.
Alongside the integration of scientific knowledge sharing, it is a fundamental objective for DOORS to engage with wider society. By providing mechanisms for businesses to link with research, DOORS will create new job opportunities for emerging Blue Growth economies through new synergies and mentoring schemes; the first of its kind to be set up in the Black Sea.
Key initiatives that engage schools, universities, and general citizens of the region will promote behaviour change and celebrate best practices, influencing future policy, Blue Growth, and the health of Black Sea communities.

EMSO ROLE: Stakeholder Engagement and Project Legacy, ENGAGING THE PUBLIC AND THE MEDIA, SUPPORTING CITIZENS SCIENCES, Design the SoS through Stakeholder and End-User Engagement within the Black Sea Riparian Countries, Connection to existing sensor networks and digital data sets. Support the harmonization processes for existing data, Review existing methodologies, and propose harmonized options.

EMSO Point of Contact: Gabriella Quaranta

WWW.DOORSBLACKSEA.EU

EOSC Future

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: EOSC Future
PROJECT TITLE: EOSC Future
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/12/2021 END date: 30/09/2023

EOSC Future responds to INFRAEOSC-03-2020 call to integrate, consolidate, and connect e-infrastructures, research communities, and initiatives in Open Science to further develop the EOSC Portal, EOSC-Core and EOSC- Exchange of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
EOSC Future is structured around six thematic pillars that strategically group the work package tasks and activities and coherently present the key objectives and activities of the project to stakeholders: Pillar 1 on Policy & Strategy will coordinate and support a strategic vision for the future EOSC; Pillar 2 on Connection & Integration will connect and integrate EOSC infrastructures, data, and services; Pillar 3 on Excellent Science & Interdisciplinarity will extend the EOSC value Chain with scientific use cases; Pillar 4 on Growth & Innovation will grow and innovate EOSC with value-added services; Pillar 5 on Skills & Training will train users and providers of the EOSC ecosystem, and Pillar 6 on Engagement & Communications will engage the wider EOSC Community at a global level.
EOSC Future will unlock the potential of European research via a vision of Open Science for Society by (1) bringing all major stakeholders in the EOSC ecosystem together under one project umbrella to break the disciplinary and community silos and consolidate key EOSC project outputs, (2) developing scientific use cases in collaboration with the thematic communities showcasing the benefits and societal value of EOSC for doing excellent and interdisciplinary research, (3) engaging the wider EOSC community and increasing the visibility of EOSC through communications campaigns, marketing strategies, and physical and online engagement events, and (4) including the EOSC community in developing the EOSC Portal (including the long tail of science, public and private sectors, and international partners) via co-creation open calls.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO ERIC will provide information on EOVs affecting the distribution and behavior of different invasive species in European seas. EMSO ERIC will cover the following tasks; a) Provision of data obtained through different Regional Facilities, and b) eventual access to a selected number of Regional Facilities.

EMSO Point of Contact: Ivan Rodero

WWW.EOSCFUTURE.EU

eRImote

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: eRImote
PROJECT TITLE:
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/06/2022 END date: 30/11/2024

The eRImote project is the first to consider solutions for digital and remote service provision across RI domains and to look for transferable practices and new developments that will improve the accessibility and resilience of RI infrastructures. While existing processes will be collected, eRImote will also explore new solutions using defined use cases to develop and test their implementation in RI scenarios. This will take us beyond the state-of-the-art for concrete solutions. The eRImote consortium is relatively small with eight beneficiary participants representing four main ESFRI RI Roadmap domains. However, the consortium extends much more broadly through the existing contacts and networking partners of each of the project participants, increasing the reach out to hundreds of individuals, other European and global RIs, scientific networks, RI users, industry partners, and policymakers.
eRImote is intended for 30 months to enable timely interventions. The project is outlined as relatively straightforward with four main activities. eRImote will create an online information platform with a publicly available data store on best practices and tools based on landscape analysis, also with needs and impact. This will be translated into strategies on transition and use cases (Green Paper). All this is based on broad outreach and extensive dissemination beyond the consortium. The eRImote consortium will identify strategies and solutions to enable the transition to remote and digital access to RI services that will help to enhance and make more accessible the service capacities of RIs while reducing the need for physical access to RI sites, bringing benefits to the green economy, reducing the footprint of RIs and increasing their inclusiveness as a result.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO will provide one out of the five remote access USE CASE. Moreover, EMSO will contribute to the recommendations as part of a green paper for the development of remote and digital access policies in the framework of RI providing information to promote the integration with partner infrastructure organizations (e.g. EOSC through the EOSC Association).

EMSO Point of Contact: Valentina Tegas

WWW.ERIMOTE.EU

EUROFLEETS PLUS

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: EUROFLEETS PLUS
PROJECT TITLE:An alliance of European marine research infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of the research and industrial communities
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/02/2019 END date: 31/10/2023

The project will facilitate open access to an integrated and advanced research vessel fleet, designed to meet the evolving and challenging needs of the user community. European and international researchers from academia and industry will be able to apply for several access programs, through a single-entry system. EurofleetsPlus will prioritize support for research on sustainable, clean, and healthy oceans, linking with existing ocean observation infrastructures, and supporting innovation through working closely with industry. The project will enable access to a unique fleet of 27 state-of-the-art research vessels from European and international partners. Through competitive Calls, researchers will be able to access the entire North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Black Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Pacific Southern Oc,ean and the Ross Sea. In addition to ship time, researchers will also have access to new Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and Remotely Operated Vehicles. A unique portable telepresence system will enable remote access by researchers and diverse end users including the public; a first for Europe. In addition to comprehensive transnational activities, the project will undertake joint research activities to meet the evolving challenges of marine research, in particular, deep ocean research and exploration, data management, and virtual access. EurofleetsPlus will facilitate access to unique marine infrastructure, enabling excellent research, increasing ocean literacy, and providing a clear road map for the continued integration and advancement of the European research fleet.

EMSO ROLE: Stakeholders’ engagement activities.

EMSO Point of Contact: Valentina Tegas

WWW.EUROFLEETS.EU

EUROSEA

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: EUROSEA
PROJECT TITLE: Improving and Integrating European Ocean Observing and Forecasting Systems for Sustainable use of the Oceans
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/11/2019 END date: 31/10/2023

Although the Ocean is a fundamental part of the global system providing a wealth of resources, there are fundamental gaps in ocean observing and forecasting systems, limiting our capacity in Europe to sustainably manage the ocean and its resources. Ocean observing is a “big science” and cannot be solved by individual nations; it is necessary to ensure high-level integration for coordinated observations of the ocean that can be sustained in the long term. EuroSea brings together key European actors of ocean observation and forecasting with key end users of ocean observations, responding to the Future of the Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative. Our vision is a truly interdisciplinary ocean observing system that delivers the essential ocean information needed for the well-being, blue growth, and sustainable management of the ocean. EuroSea will strengthen the European and Global Ocean Observing System (EOOS and GOOS) and support its partners. EuroSea will increase the technology readiness levels (TRL) of critical components of ocean observation systems and tools and in particular the TRL of the integrated ocean observing system. EuroSea will improve: European and international coordination; design of the observing system adapted to European needs; in situ observing networks; data delivery; integration of remote and in-situ data; and forecasting capability. EuroSea will work towards integrating individual observing elements into an integrated observing system and will connect end users with the operators of the observing system and information providers. European will demonstrate the utility of the European Ocean Observing System through three demonstration activities focused on operational services, ocean health, and climate, where a dialogue between actors in the ocean observing system will guide the development of the services, including market replication and innovation supporting the development of the blue economy.

EMSO ROLE: The EMSO’s interest in the project is related to the improvement of the harmonization between the EMOSO-ERIC and the global Eulerian observatory network (OceanSITES) to create a coherently coordinated European network of Eulerian Observations. Harmonization of metadata standards, Best Practices, and data quality control and archiving will be done and the network will be further opened to new users and contributors (e.g. T3.8). Support for WP6,7 will be provided by the implementation of paired pH/O2 sensors.

EMSO Point of Contact: Ivan Rodero

WWW.EUROSEA.EU

iMagine

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: iMAGINE
PROJECT TITLE: Imaging data and services for aquatic science
PROGRAMME: HORIZON EUROPE
START date: 01/09/2022 END date: 31/08/2025

iMagine provides a portfolio of free-at-the-point-of-use image datasets, high-performance image analysis tools empowered with Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Best Practice documents for scientific image analysis. These services and materials enable better and more efficient processing and analysis of imaging data in marine and freshwater research, accelerating our scientific insights about processes and measures relevant to healthy oceans, seas, and coastal and inland waters.
By building on the computing platform of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) the project delivers a generic framework for AI model development, training, and deployment, which can be adopted by researchers for refining their AI-based applications for water pollution mitigation, biodiversity, and ecosystem studies, climate change analysis, and beach monitoring, but also for developing and optimizing other AI-based applications in this field.
The iMagine compute layer consists of providers from the pan-European EGI federation infrastructure, collectively offering over 132,000 GPU hours, 6,000,000 CPU hours, and 1500 TB-month for image hosting and processing. The iMagine AI framework offers neural networks, parallel post-processing of very large data, and analysis of massive online data streams in distributed environments. 13 RIs will share over 9 million images and 8 AI-powered applications through the framework. Having representatives from so many RIs and IT experts, developing a portfolio of eye-catching image processing services together will also give rise to Best Practices. The synergies between aquatic use cases will lead to common solutions in data management, quality control, performance, integration, provenance, and FAIRness, contributing to harmonization across RIs and providing input for the iMagine Best Practice guidelines. The project results will be integrated into and will bring important contributions from RIs and e-infrastructures to EOSC and AI4EU.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO ERIC is mainly involved in Marine Ecosystem Monitoring and is the leader of two tasks related to this domain and, therefore, responsible for the use case “Ecosystem monitoring at EMSO sites by video imagery”. The work that will be performed is focused on • Improving and simplifying data flows to databases by providing guidelines and standards for multidisciplinary data management, • Improving the pre-processing pipeline and methods for automatically processing video imagery for identifying interesting images for further analyses for purposes of ecosystem monitoring at EMSO sites, dealing with large volume and continuous video and further automation, to generate multidisciplinary databases.

EMSO Point of Contact: Gabriella Quaranta

WWW.IMAGINE-AI.EU

Geo-Inquire

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: Geo-Inquire
PROJECT TITLE: Imaging data and services for aquatic science
PROGRAMME: HORIZON EUROPE
START date: 01/10/2022 END date: 30/09/2026

Geo-INQUIRE will provide and enhance access to selected key data, products, and services, enabling the dynamic processes within the geosphere to be monitored and modeled at new levels of spatial and temporal detail and precision. Geo-INQUIRE aims to overcome cross-domain barriers, especially the land-sea-atmosphere environment, ents and will exploit innovative data management techniques, modeling and simulations methods, developments in AI and big data, and extend existing data infrastructures to disseminate these resources to the wider scientific community, including the EOSC landscape. Geo-INQUIRE benefits from a unique partnership of 51 partners consisting of major national research institutes, universities, national geological surveys, and European consortia. Geo-INQUIRE will enhance and make interoperable the activities of the involved partners and conduct dedicated training programs for their optimal use. A portfolio of over 150 Virtual Access (VA) and Transnational Access (TA, both virtual and on-site) installations will be offered to the scientific community. While many such resources are already available at a high level of maturity, Geo-INQUIRE will ensure that they not only reach the highest level of scientific excellence through targeted actions on availability, quality, and spatial and temporal resolution, but also that they follow FAIR principles, adopt proper standards and open licenses, and aim at cross-disciplinary interoperability. Furthermore, the integration of different data, including new observables, products, and services will be optimized through TA activities via 6 test beds, which will also host workshops and summer schools dealing with the available resources. Ultimately, Geo-INQUIRE, with its enhanced data, product, and service portfolio, will enable the next generation of scientists to carry out leading-edge research addressing societal challenges from a multidisciplinary perspective, making intelligent use of these resources.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO ERIC is involved in several tasks and work packages within the project, anyway, its participation is mainly related to access to seafloor data, RIs integration, harmonization of data, FAIR metrics, and training activities.
Among the others, EMSO ERIC will be responsible for the assessment and, if necessary, improvement of the FAIR metrics to ensure that they are appropriate for the Geo-INQUIRE project.

EMSO MEMBERS/REGIONAL FACILITIES PARTICIPATING: HCMR (AE), MI (AE), UPC (AE), PLOCAN (AE)

EMSO Point of Contact: Gabriella Quaranta

SOON AVAILBLE

MINKE

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: MINKE
PROJECT TITLE: Metrology for Integrated Marine Management and Knowledge-Transfer Network
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/04/2021 END date: 31/03/2025

The EU project MINKE, coordinated by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC-ICM) in Barcelona, aims to improve the quality of oceanographic data, targeting its accuracy and completeness.
To achieve this, MINKE will integrate European marine infrastructures -from calibration laboratories to citizen science observatories- that are key to improving measurement methods within the discipline known as metrology. Data from established observatories, equipped with accurate high-end sensors, will be complemented with data provided by the civil society -NGOs, Makers community, and citizen science platforms- to have a more complete picture of the ocean processes. Data harmonization standards and, later on, data fusion algorithms will be used to merge both sources of data. The participation of National Metrology Institutes will be fundamental to setting the standards to achieve high-quality data to be delivered to users worldwide.
The oceanographic variables included in the project include some of those that allow us to understand the effects of climate change, such as sea temperature, salinity, or marine currents, and others that allow us to assess the impacts of human activity, such as the loss of biodiversity or marine litter.
The project will also provide external users access to the marine research infrastructures participating in the project, allowing for hands-on experiences in sensor development and testing.

EMSO ROLE: Harmonisation of Data – Networking and Engagement with Stakeholders.

EMSO Point of Contact: Simo Cusi

WWW.MINKE.EU

ANERIS

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: ANERIS
PROJECT TITLE: operAtional seNsing lifE technologies for maRIne ecosystemS
PROGRAMME: HORIZON EUROPE
START date: 01/01/2023 END date: 31/12/2026

ANERIS aims at developing the next generation of scientific instrumentation tools and methods for sensing marine life. The design of the new instruments and methods will integrate different types of marine life-sensing technologies: genomics, imagingbiooptics and participatory sciences. The technologies will be implemented in a co-design framework, involving all the interested stakeholders: academia, industry, civil society and government. The project proposes the concept of Operational Marine Biology (OMB), understood as a biodiversity information system for systematic and long-term routine measurements of the ocean and coastal life, and their rapid interpretation and dissemination. The production of FAIR Operational Marine Biology data will be carried out in a distributed IT infrastructure built from edge and cloud compute nodes, to be connected with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The technologies will be tested and validated in different case studies, involving the ANERIS innovations, commercial instruments to be improved and different world-class research infrastructures (RI).

EMSO ROLE: EMSO is involved together with the other three ERICs (LifeWatch, EMBRC, Euro-BioImaging) as well as large-scale IT infrastructures and frameworks (EGI, EOSC) in the development and validation. This ensures the uptake and implementation of the developed OMB technologies in the broad networks represented by these infrastructures and leverages their expert communities and connections. In two EMSO nodes, SmartBay and OBSEA, imaging flow cytometers will be deployed and in situ images will be obtained.

EMSO Point of Contact: Simo Cusi

WWW.ANERIS.EU

BlueCloud2026

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: BlueCloud2026
PROJECT TITLE: A federated European FAIR and Open Research Ecosystem for oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters
PROGRAMME: HORIZON EUROPE
START date: 01/01/2023 END date: 30/06/2026

Blue-Cloud 2026 builds upon the pilot Blue-Cloud project which established a pilot cyber platform, providing researchers access to multi-disciplinary datasets from observations, analytical services, and computing facilities essential for blue science.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO will participate in the activities aiming at expanding & optimising the Blue-Cloud Data Discovery & Access service and its FAIRness.

EMSO Point of Contact: Juanjo Dañobeitia

WWW.BLUE-CLOUD/BLUE-CLOUD-2026

GEORGE

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: GEORGE
PROJECT TITLE: Next generation multiplatform Ocean observing technologies for research infrastructures
PROGRAMME: HORIZON EUROPE
START date: 01/01/2023 END date: 30/06/2027

GEORGE will advance the global technological competitiveness of European ocean observing research infrastructures (EMSO, ICOS, Euro-Argo) through the
development and demonstration of a state-of-the-art biogeochemical, multi-platform observing system for characterisation of the ocean carbon system. GEORGE will advance the technology readiness level of novel sensors enabling for the first time systematic autonomous, in situ seawater CO2 system characterisation, and CO2 fluxes on moving and fixed platforms. These sensors will be integrated on state-of-the-art platforms augmented with the latest in autonomous technology enabling new observing capability. Technologies, methods and SOPs for carbon observing will be harmonised across a framework for multi-platform, cross-ERIC ocean observing, from sensor to data repositories. GEORGE will build capacity in ERICs through the provision of training in the use of new technologies and SOPs on data handling and reporting to staff and member organisations. Technology will be co-developed between industry and ERICs ensuring direct route to market and potential for scalability.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO is involved in WP 1, 3, 4, 5 6, and 7. It mainly participates as Leader of WP 5, which aims at:
– Designing and implementing a process and relevant SOPs for the validation of technologies and their TRL progression;
– Defining validation requirements and stage-gates for TRL progression of each technology developed through;
– Coordinating sea trials for the validation and demonstration of technologies
– Evaluating technological developments for integration into the ERIC observing infrastructure EMSO will offer support also for integration and interoperability. Moreover, EMSO is involved in training activities, in activities related to the identification of the legacy of the project’s results and technologies beyond the lifetime of the project and in the exploitation activities.

EMSO Point of Contact: Simo Cusi

WWW.GEORGE-PROJECT.EU

TRIDENT

Status: ongoing

PROJECT ACRONYM: TRIDENT
PROJECT TITLE: Technology based impact assessment tool foR sustaInable, transparent Deep sEa miNing exploraTion and exploitation
PROGRAMME: HORIZON EUROPE
START date: 01/01/2023 END date: 31/12/2027

TRIDENT aims to contribute to sustainable exploitation of seabed mineral resources, by developing a reliable, transparent and cost-effective system for prediction and continuous environmental impact monitoring of exploration and exploitation activities in the deep sea. The objective of the project is to develop and integrate technology and novel solutions to operate autonomously in remote areas under extreme conditions and provide real-time data to permitting and supervising authorities. TRIDENT will identify all relevant physical, chemical, geological and biological parameters to be measured at the sea surface, mid-water and seabed, identifying gaps in existing data sets and developing solutions to address them.

EMSO ROLE: The major involvements of EMSO ERIC in this project consist of WP4 support, in developing and implementing sensing systems for deep sea monitoring.

EMSO Point of Contact: Marco Galeotti

CLOSED PROJECTS

EGI-ACE

Status: closed

PROJECT ACRONYM: EGI-ACE
PROJECT TITLE: EGI Advanced Computing for EOSC
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/01/2021 END date: 30/06/2023

EGI-ACE empowers researchers from all disciplines to collaborate in data- and compute-intensive research across borders through free at-the-point-of-use services. Building on the distributed computing integration in EOSC-hub, it delivers the EOSC Compute Platform and contributes to the EOSC Data Commons through a federation of Cloud compute and storage facilities, PaaS services, and data spaces with analytics tools, and federated access services. The Platform is built on the EGI Federation, the largest distributed computing infrastructure for research. The EGI Federation delivers over 1 Exabyte of research data and 1 Million CPU cores which supported the discovery of the Higgs Boson and the first observation of gravitational waves while remaining open to new members.
The Platform pools the capacity of some of Europe’s largest research data centers, leveraging ISO-compliant federated service management. Over 30 months, it will provide more than 82 M CPU hours and 250 K GPU hours for data processing and analytics, and 45 PB/month to host and exploit research data. Its services address the needs of major research infrastructures and communities of practice engaged through the EOSC-hub project. The Platform advances beyond the state of the art through a data-centric approach, where data, tools, and computing and storage facilities form a fully integrated environment accessible across borders thanks to Virtual Access.
The Platform offers heterogeneous systems to meet different needs, including state-of-the-art GPGPUs and accelerators supporting AI and ML, making the Platform an ideal innovation space for AI applications. The data spaces and analytics tools are delivered in collaboration with tens of research infrastructures and projects, to support use cases for Health, the Green Deal, and fundamental sciences.
The consortium builds on the expertise and assets of the EGI federation members, key research communities and data providers, and collaborating initiatives.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO ERIC is interested in data services Installation: EMSO ERIC data services provide access to harmonized key ocean variables from 11 observatory nodes placed at key environmental sites across European seas, from the North Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, to the Black Sea. The EMSO ERIC data services are currently operated using EGI resources. The services include databases of harmonized EMSO ERIC data and metadata, data portals and dashboards supporting science-driven use case applications, machine-to-machine interfaces, data archives, DAP services, and virtual research environments.

EMSO Point of Contact: Ivan Rodero

WWW.EGI.EU/PROJECT/EGI-ACE

ENVRI FAIR

Status: closed

PROJECT ACRONYM: ENVRI FAIR
PROJECT TITLE: ENVironmental Research Infrastructures building Fair services Accessible for society, Innovation and Research
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/01/2019 END date: 30/06/2023

ENVRI-FAIR is the connection of the ESFRI Cluster of Environmental Research Infrastructures (ENVRI) to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Participating research infrastructures (RI) of the environmental domain cover the subdomains Atmosphere, Marine, Solid Earth, and Biodiversity / Ecosystems and thus the Earth system in its full complexity. The overarching goal of the project is to ensure that by the end of it all participating RIs have built a set of FAIR data services which enhances the efficiency and productivity of researchers, supports innovation, enables data- and knowledge-based decisions, and connect the ENVRI Cluster to the EOSC. This goal is reached by: 1) well-defined community policies and standards on all steps of the data life cycle, aligned with the wider European policies, as well as with international developments; 2) each participating RI will have sustainable, transparent, and auditable data services, for each step of the data life cycle, compliant to the FAIR principles. 3) the implementation of prototypes for testing pre-production services at each RI; 4) the complete set of thematic data services and tools provided by the ENVRI cluster is exposed under the EOSC catalogue of services.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO is a member of The Board of European Environmental Research Infrastructure (BEERi) – Fostering ENVRI data-driven innovation – supports Common FAIR Policies – EMSO FAIR data implementation – Implementation of a FAIR roadmap for Marine solid Earth data.

EMSO Point of Contact: Ivan Rodero

WWW.ENVRI.RU/HOME-ENVRI-FAIR/

ERIC FORUM

Status: closed

PROJECT ACRONYM: ERIC FORUM
PROJECT TITLE: ERIC Forum Implementation project
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/12/2019 END date: 31/12/2022

It is a Horizon 2020 project that aims at establishing a formal and structural collaboration and coordination of ERICs. ERIC – European Research Infrastructure Consortium – is a European legal instrument specifically created for European multi-site and multi-country owned Research Infrastructures (RI) in 2009.
The ERIC Forum Implementation Project brings together the ERIC community to strengthen its coordination and enhance collaborations between the partners. One of its major outcomes is to frame the necessary knowledge to support RIs interested in exploring the ERIC legal framework and ERICs in preparation with various aspects.
The major objectives of the ERIC Forum Implementation Project are to:
1) strengthening coordination and networking reinforcing the informal ERIC network or its successor framework;
2) supporting the organization of specific meetings, targeted thematic workshops focusing on shared challenges such as the development of internal procurement rules, harmonized reporting, VAT exemption practices, insurance and pensions policies, and training of governance bodies representatives;
3) supporting ERICs in preparation, based on best practices;
4) supporting common communication and outreach activities and strengthening the external representation of ERICs as a stakeholder in consultations and other policy actions that could affect them.

EMSO ROLE: Exchange of best practices and internal procedures in several fields, such as budgeting and financial reporting principles.

EMSO Point of Contact: Valentina Tegas

WWW.ERIC-FORUM.EU

ENRIITC

Status: closed

PROJECT ACRONYM: ENRIITC
PROJECT TITLE: European Network of Research Infrastructures & IndusTry for Collaboration
PROGRAMME: HORIZON 2020
START date: 01/01/2020 END date: 31/12/2022

The project aims at building a permanent pan-European network of Industrial Liaison and Contact Officers (ILOs/ICOs). It will support the establishment of strategic, cross-border partnerships between industry and research infrastructures. ENRIITC is formed by 11 partners from seven countries, and it is supported by 61 Associates from around Europe. Its main goals are 1) establishing a sustainable European network of ILOs and ICOs that enables mutual learning; 2) mapping collaboration potential between research infrastructures and industry; 3) developing and refining strategies and best practices to foster these collaborations; 4) raising awareness among the industry for collaboration opportunities at research infrastructures, and demonstrate impact.

EMSO ROLE: EMSO has been mainly involved in WP2 for mapping the key element to enact the envisaged collaborative framework between the ESFRI RIs and industry players to bring technological innovation about. In WP3, EMSO participated in the development of a strategy for exploiting the innovation potential of RIs, the development of a strategy for the training of ILOs/ICOs, the Strategy for innovation and industry-RI cooperation and has contributed to the drafting of policy recommendations for the optimization of ILO/ICO performance.

EMSO Point of Contact: Marco Galeotti

WWW.ENRIITC.EU

EMSO-Link

Status: closed

It is a project financed by the European Commission as part of the Horizon 2020 roadmap for the research infrastructures. EMSO-Link, led by EMSO ERIC, is aimed at accelerating the organization and full operation of the Consortium as the central hub coordinating EMSO fixed-point open ocean observatories, including physical and virtual access to observatories and data. The project’s ambition is also to consolidate and expand the current EMSO ERIC membership involving other countries and their respective marine science communities, and to enhance the relations with sister marine initiatives and counterpart/complementary Research Infrastructures.

WWW.EMSO.EU/EMSO-LINK

DANUBIUS-PP

Status: closed

DANUBIUS-PP is a three-year project to raise DANUBIUS-RI (International Centre for Advanced Studies on River-Sea Systems) to the legal, financial and technical maturity required for successful implementation and development. DANUBIUS-RI is a pan-European distributed research infrastructure (RI) building on existing expertise to support interdisciplinary research on river-sea (RS) systems, spanning the environmental, social and economic sciences. It will provide access to a range of RS systems, facilities and expertise, a ‘one-stop shop’ for knowledge exchange, access to harmonised data, and a platform for interdisciplinary research, education and training.

WWW.DANUBIUS-PP.EU

EMSODEV

Status: closed

The EMSODEV’s general objective is to catalyse the full implementation and operation of the EMSO distributed Research Infrastructure (RI), through the development, testing and deployment of an EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM). This module ensures accurate, consistent, comparable, regional scale, long‐term measurements of ocean parameters, which are key to addressing urgent societal and scientific challenges such as climate change, ocean ecosystem disturbance, and marine hazards. This will result in the increased interoperability of EMSO nodes thanks to the harmonized collection of ocean essential variable time series. In addition, EGIM will also greatly help optimize the investments and operational efficiency of the EMSO research infrastructure thus improving RI effectiveness and its attractiveness for member states and users, including industry.

WWW.EMSODEV.EU

ENVRI PLUS

Status: closed

It clusters the research infrastructures (RIs) of the Environmental sector listed in the ESFRI roadmap, associates leading e-infrastructures and promotes the integration of their activities with technical specialist partners. ENVRIPLUS is driven by 3 overarching goals: 1) favoring cross-fertilization between infrastructures, 2) implementing innovative concepts and devices across RIs, and 3) facilitating research and innovation in the field of environment to an increasing number of users outside the RIs. ENVRIPLUS organizes its activities along a main strategic plan where sharing multi-disciplinary expertise will be most effective. It aims to improve Earth observation monitoring systems and strategies, including actions towards harmonization and innovation, to generate common solutions to many shared information technology and data related challenges, to harmonize policies for access and provide strategies for knowledge transfer amongst RIs. ENVRIPLUS develops guidelines to enhance trans- disciplinary use of data and data-products supported by applied use-cases involving RIs from different domains. ENVRIPLUS coordinates actions to improve communication and cooperation, addressing Environmental RIs at all levels, from management to end-users, implementing RI-staff exchange programs, generating material for RI personnel, and proposing common strategic developments and actions for enhancing services to users and evaluating the socio-economic impacts. ENVRIPLUS is expected to facilitate structuration and improve quality of services offered both within single RIs and at pan-RI level. It promotes efficient and multi-disciplinary research offering new opportunities to users, new tools to RI managers and new communication strategies for environmental RI communities. The produced solutions, services and other project results are made available to all environmental RI initiatives, thus contributing to the development of a consistent European RI ecosystem.

WWW.ENVRIPLUS.EU

INDIGO-DATACLOUD

Status: closed

It developed a data/computing platform targeted at scientific communities, deployable on multiple hardware, and provisioned over hybrid (private or public) e-infrastructures. This platform was built by leading European developers, resource providers, e-infrastructures and scientific communities in order to ensure its successful exploitation and sustainability.
All members of the consortium share the common interest in developing advanced middleware to sustain the deployment of service models and
user tools to tackle the challenges of the Big Data era. INDIGO extended the formidable know-how that was built in Europe along the past ten years of collaborations on scientific computing based on different consolidated and emerging paradigms (HPC, Grid and Cloud).
Regarding Cloud computing, both the public and private sectors are already offering IaaS-type Cloud resources. However, numerous areas are of interest to scientific communities where Cloud computing uptake is currently lacking, especially at the PaaS and SaaS levels. The project therefore aimed at developing tools and platforms based on open source solutions addressing scientific challenges in the Cloud computing, storage and network areas. INDIGO allowed application development and execution on Cloud and Grid based infrastructures, as well as on HPC clusters. The project extended existing PaaS solutions, allowing public and private e-infrastructures, including those provided by EGI, EUDAT, PRACE and HelixNebula, to integrate their existing services, make them available through GEANT-compliant federated and distributed AA policies, guaranteeing transparency and trust in the provisioning of such services. INDIGO also addressed the development of a flexible and modular presentation layer connected to the expanded PaaS and SaaS frameworks developed by the project and allowing innovative user experiences, also from mobile appliances.

www.indigo-datacloud.eu

FIXO3

Status: closed

It seeked to integrate European open ocean fixed point observatories and to improve access to these key installations for the broader community from 29 partners from academia, research institutions and SME’s. These have provided multidisciplinary observations of the oceans from the air-sea interface to the deep seafloor. Coordinated by the National Oceanography Centre, UK, FixO3 built on the significant advances largely achieved through the FP7 programs EuroSITES, ESONET and CARBOOCEAN.

www.fixo3.eu

COOPEUS

Status: closed

The project is funded within the Framework Programme 7 (FP7) of the European Union and aims at fostering the EU-USA cooperation in the field of Research Infrastructures dedicate to environmental sciences. It was coordinated by MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen.

www.coopeus.eu

MARSITE

Status: closed

It promoted new concepts of risk mitigation and management by long-term monitoring activities carried out both on land and at sea. The MARSITE project aimed at coordinating research groups with different scientific skills (from seismology to engineering to gas geochemistry) in a comprehensive monitoring activity developed both in the Marmara Sea and in the surrounding urban and country areas. The project planned to coordinate initiatives to collect multidisciplinary data, to be shared, interpreted and merged in consistent theoretical and practical models suitable for the implementation of good practices to move the necessary information to the end users.

www.marsite.eu

SCIDIP-ES

Status: closed

The aim of the initiative was to deliver generic services for science data preservation as part of the data infrastructure for e-science and build on the experience of the ESA Earth Observation Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) programme. The ultimate goal was to favour the set-up of a European Framework for the long term preservation of Earth Science (ES) data through the definition of common preservation policies, the harmonization of metadata and semantics and the deployment of the generic infrastructure services in the ES domain.

www.scidip-es.eu

ENVRI

Status: closed

Its focus was on developing common capabilities including software and services of the environmental and e-infrastructure communities. While the ENVRI infrastructures are very diverse, they face common challenges including data capture from distributed sensors, metadata standardisation, management of high volume data, workflow execution and data visualisation. The common standards, deployable services and tools developed were adopted by each infrastructure as it progresses through its construction phase.
Two use cases, led by the most mature infrastructures, focused on the development work on separate requirements and solutions for data pre-processing of primary data and post-processing toward publishing. The project is based on a common reference model created by capturing the semantic resources of each ESFRI-ENV infrastructure. This model and the development driven by the testbed deployments result in ready-to-use systems which can be integrated into the environmental research infrastructures.

www.envri.eu

ESONET Network of Excellence

Status: closed

It aimed at the integration of a community of scientists, engineers and managers for implementing, operating and maintaining a network of ocean observatories in deep waters around Europe from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea connected to shore with data and power links via fibre optic cables. The fundamental scientific objective was to acquire continuous real-time observations of environmental variables over decadal, annual, seasonal, diel and tidal time scales. It provided integration across disciplines from geosciences, through physical, chemical and biological oceanography to technologies of instrumentation, cables, data processing and archiving. ESONET research activities jointly executed by the partners demonstrated the functions of observatories at several cabled and non-cabled sites around Europe. Existing deep-sea cables installed for neutrino telescopes were utilised and shallower tests sites were established elsewhere.

www.esonet-emso.org

EuroSITES

Status: closed

EuroSITES formed an integrated European network of nine deep-ocean observatories sited in waters off the continental shelf and of greater than 1000m depth, measuring variables from sea surface to sea floor. It involved 13 Partners across Europe and the Cape Verde Islands.
EuroSITES integrated and enhanced the existing European open-ocean observational capacity to encompass the ocean interior, seafloor and subseafloor. It produced a more reliable ocean observatory network with common funding streams and data management systems. The network also enhanced the development of more sophisticated sensors to measure more complex properties of the oceans. This allowed a greater understanding of the impact of the changing global Ocean and Earth on mankind and ecosystems at large. This has implications for policy makers, production industries (e.g. fisheries, agriculture) service industries (e.g. insurance) and society at large.