Monday June 25, 2018
In this edition:
- Global Environmental Research Infrastructure (GERI)
- European Commission Press Release
- Research Objectives and Workflows
- TERN Evolves to Align with the 2016 Roadmap for Research Infrastructure
- Call for Paper
- Calendar of Events
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The Potential for a
GLOBAL RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE (GERI)
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An ambitious International Long Term Ecological Research Network (
ILTER
)-led
workshop made the case for some 10 national ecosystem observatories to form a global environmental research infrastructure. Participants are formalising the proposal for an LTER-based global research infrastructure by way of a statement in a scientific journal.
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESS RELEASE
EU budget: Commission proposes most ambitious Research and Innovation programme yet
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For the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027, the Commission is proposing €100 billion for research and innovation.
A new programme –
Horizon Europe
– will build on the achievements and success of the previous research and innovation programme (Horizon 2020) and keep the EU at the forefront of global research and innovation. Horizon Europe is the most ambitious research and innovation programme ever.
Read the full report
here
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RESEARCH OBJECTIVES & WORKFLOWS
Meeting Research Infrastructure Data Challenges
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COOPEUS is an EU and US coordination and support action that brought together Europe’s major environmental research infrastructure projects,
i.e
., EISCAT, EPOS, LifeWatch, EMSO, and ICOS, with their US counterparts, including AMISR, EARTHSCOPE (UNAVCO and IRIS), OOI and NEON. The aim of COOPEUS is to provide a platform to initiate collaborative cross-infrastructure data sharing and research. The activities within COOPEUS are ongoing in the US (https://www.neonscience.org/observatory/strategic-development/coopeus-project) and continue in the EU under the project COOP+ (
http://www.coop-plus.eu
) and ENVRI+. As part of COOPEUS’s Strategic Roadmap, these infrastructures are collaborating with the EU project EVER-EST (
http://ever-est.eu
), whose mission is to build a Virtual Research Environment based on research objects. The main focus is to enhance research reusability and reproducibility based on workflow-centric research objects, and lower the barriers for end-users attempting to access ‘Big Data’. A prototype has been developed that wraps research objects around Kepler workflows that are in turn linked to several RESTful web services that access time series data from UNAVCO and NEON. Within the workflow, web services are standardized to the GeoWS time series format, developed as part of the US EarthCube program. A prototype web-based map interface (
https://firemap.sdsc.edu/savi/map.html
) demonstrates the Kepler workflow utility and harmonizes access to time series plots and data from UNAVCO/EarthScope and NEON. A Research Object (
ROHub.org
) bundle can be uploaded to ROHub (including workflow, input data slice, output data, and provenance trace) for preservation, reuse, and version management. Once stored in ROHub, the RO can be inspected for reproducibility by other scientists using the data slice stored in it (without invoking the web services again) and the provenance trace. Also, ROHub can assign a DOI to the Research Object, making it citable. The results demonstrate enhanced interoperability or
interworkability
among global environmental and geophysical data, extending the focus on data and metadata standards to the exchange of formalized scientific concepts relevant to data, their modeling and analysis.
Co-authors:
Dr. José Manuel Gomez-Perez,
Expert System
Dr. Henry W Loescher, Dr. Christine Laney,
&
Melissa Genazzio,
Battelle-National Ecological Observatory Network
Dr. Daniel Crawl
&
Dr. Ilkay Altintas,
San Diego Supercomputer Center
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TERN Evolves to Align with the 2016 Roadmap for Research Infrastructures
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Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (
TERN
) Australia is funded through a Commonwealth Government grant called the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). The aim of this funding it to provide infrastructure which makes research funded through other pathways more effective. After a decade of funding the NCRIS program, the Australian Government undertook a new research infrastructure road-mapping exercise in 2016 to plot the course for the next decade and beyond. Nine national research infrastructure focus areas were prioritized, including earth and environmental systems, aimed at supporting research to ultimately improve productivity, create jobs, lift economic growth and support a healthy environment.
In the earth and environmental systems prioritized area, the government’s focus is on ensuring its research infrastructure investment is enhancing and integrating observational research infrastructure with predictive modelling to strengthen environmental management, risk assessments, primary production, and resource development whilst sustaining biodiversity. To align more closely with this vision and to optimise our inter-operability with other earth and environmental systems infrastructure providers in Australia and elsewhere in the world, TERN has been undergoing a process of refining its organisational structure. The goal has been to increase cohesion and consistency within its infrastructure, become resource efficient in the face of a tight budget and simplify its message to enhance engagement with researchers, government and industry.
The result is that TERN is now recognised as Australia’s land ecosystem change observatory providing analysis- and model-ready data at a variety of temporal and spatial scales through an open access data portal. These activities are supported by a centralized project coordination office which administer the NCRIS grant and oversee governance, communication and outreach activities.
The TERN observatory comprises three research infrastructure platforms which routinely collect data and samples. The Landscape Assessment platform monitors at a continental scale, rapidly delivering data streams and creating modelled data products and information. Indeed, this is TERN’s key spatial analysis capability for providing information on where organisms exist and when environmental events occur across the continent. The Landscape Assessment platform of TERN has grown out of the historic facilities of
Auscover
and the
Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia
and as such, it continues to provide a range of remote sensing data and derived products, often created in conjunction with the calibration-validation services of TERN’s field-based capabilities. Landscape Assessment also has significant skill sets in modelling and spatial analyses and is eager to help users with these types of research. Unlike NEON in the USA, TERN does not operate its own aircraft, acquiring its data streams instead from commercial satellite feeds and autonomous vehicles.
Another component of TERN’s observatory is the Ecosystem Surveillance monitoring platform which collects field information on a broad suite of vegetation and soils attributes in a standardised manner across the entire continent, with the aim of detecting and reporting on the magnitude and direction of environmental change. This capability provides significant datasets, but also vegetation and soil samples from across the country. Researchers can apply to access the sample collection to carry out analysis and interpretation relevant to their own research agenda. The Surveillance platform includes the formerly named TERN facilities of
Ausplots
and
Australian Transect Network
, which have now been rolled into Ecosystem Surveillance to provide that platform’s ecological surveillance data streams, not only across the continent, but with increased temporal and spatial focus on areas where environmental change is anticipated to progress more rapidly.
The Ecosystem Processes monitoring platform is the remaining part of TERN’s observatory, investigating key Australian ecosystems in a great deal of detail with highly instrumented sites that include flux towers adhering to the long-established
Ozflux
methodology. The flux towers provide continual data streams from the Australian environment within 12 biomes so that interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere can be studied. Flux tower data streams are augmented with regular field observation of the flora and fauna at these locations. The Ecosystem Processes sites are defined as Master Sites (
SuperSites)
under the international
ILTER
nomenclature. They are a focus of airborne remote sensing acquisition led by the Landscape Assessment platform and apply standardised TERN field collecting methods in common with the Ecosystem Surveillance platform.
Crucial to the observatory platforms of TERN is its Data and Modelling platform. This integrative capability is comprised of all the data streams and data products acquired since TERN’s inception. The Data and Modelling platform is illustrative of TERN’s journey from a number of separately operated facilities with their own data collections to a national asset aspiring to deliver all of TERN’s data in a consistent manner in accordance with FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) so that researchers and other users will be able to access the data that is relevant to them from the one location. While the data and modelling team faces a significant challenge in centralising TERN’s many scales and types of data, it is determined to deliver the one-TERN portal within the next year.
The new streamlined TERN has many benefits – It enables us to quickly and succinctly explain our purpose, and to easily see how each component is an essential piece of the overarching monitoring framework. It has enabled us to re-focus our work on areas that the government has identified as priorities, heightened our resource efficiency and hence our sustainability and has coordinated planning for our long term future. TERN delivers its national observatory and data capabilities with the NCRIS indexed operating grant of $6.2M AUD per annum. As it heads towards its tenth year, to be celebrated in late 2019, TERN is proud to reflect on its achievements and is optimistically looking forward to a bright future where our programs provide essential information in a timely manner to both management and research agencies to inform on some of Australia’s (and indeed the planets) complex environmental challenges.
The meeting was organized as a part of COOP+ WP4 (Promotion of Best Practices and Efficient Knowledge Transfer among research infrastructures) activity.
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Focus on Environmental Research Infrastructures: New Scientific Capabilities to Address Global Challenges
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In this
Focus Collection
, the scientific and technological capabilities of current environmental research infrastructures (RIs) will be evaluated for their ability to address global environmental challenges. This call is looking for cooperative and interdisciplinary contributions that put together ideas from ecology, biogeochemistry, Earth sciences and/or social sciences to describe the role of research infrastructures in providing part of the global solution.
Contributors are encouraged to describe fruitful cooperative constellations involving research infrastructures and global networks, academia and industry. In addition, identifying data, technology and social gaps that are hindering global action should also be included to contribute to potential maturation process in regards to the respective global challenge.
Note:
the deadline that appears in the web is not correct - the issue is still open!
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August 5-10:
ESA 103rd Annual Meeting.
New Orleans, LA USA
This is a unique opportunity to contribute to the future of the GEO Work Programmes, share knowledge and connect with others from the global GEO community. Anyone working to ensure Earth observations play a central role in decision making across environmental and development domains is welcome to attend. The encourage participation from those already involved in the GEO Work Programme, as well as those interested in getting involved.
For more information and registration please visit this
page.
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August 20-26:
OzFlux – AsiaFlux Joint Conference.
Darwin, NT, Australia
The conference will address issues of ‘
Ecosystems, climate & land-use change across Asia & Australasia
’ and is open an invitation to all members of the research community.
The conference will focus on ecosystems, climate and land use change via the following themes:
1) Ecosystems dynamics
2) Environmental change and variability
3) Land use change
4) Emerging topics
To pre-register, please complete the
Participation Survey
before Friday 29th June
and get a
10% discount
on registration!
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September 11-13:
The 3rd Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) Science Conference
Prague, Czech Republic
The conference is structured around 13 themes/sessions.
Theme 1: Climate change mitigation – closing the gap between science, inventories and policy making
Theme 2: Major research questions in Earth Observations
Theme 3: Globally integrative studies
Theme 4: Data management and quality
Theme 5: Decadal variability in biogeochemical cycles
Theme 6: Newest new in research – scientific and technical developments
Theme 7: Land sink – from residual to direct estimates
Theme 8: Reactive gases
Theme 9: Bridging the gap between bottom-up and top-down methods
Theme 10: Urban greenhouse gas budget – from novel monitoring networks to source identification
Theme 11: In-situ and remote sensing observations
Theme 12: From data to useful services with societal meaning
Theme 13: Regional efforts to constrain the global C cycle
Detailed agenda will be available later on, for more information please visit this
page
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September 12-14:
ICRI 2018 - 4th International Conference on Research Infrastructur
es.
Vienna, Austria
ICRI 2018 aims to:
·provide a forum for strategic discussion on international cooperation for research
infrastructures at global level;
·highlight the essential role of research infrastructures in addressing global challenges
and contributing to Sustainable Development Goals;
·reflect on the needs, development, and operation of global and national research
infrastructures;
·build on the outcomes of ICRI 2016, discussing existing and emerging challenges
faced by RI stakeholders and investigating policy options and possible steps forward.
For more information (registration is by invitation only) please visit this
page
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September 12-14:
Phenology 2018 Conference.
Melbourne, Australia
This will be the fourth international phenology conference sponsored by our Commission, and our venues now span four continents and both hemispheres! Phenological research continues to expand in relevance, volume, and applications, especially in relation to global climate change. I hope that you are making plans to participate, and look forward to hearing all about your research progress while we are in Melbourne.
For more information and registration please visit this
page
.
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September 3-7
:
UArctic Congress.
begins in Oulu, September 3-6 and concludes in Helsinki on September 7
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October 8
-12:
TERENO International Conference.
Berlin, Germany
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October 29
-November 1:
IEEE eScience Conference.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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November 5-9
:
7th
ENVRI Week.
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November 5-8
:
International Data Week.
Bostwana, Africa
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November 5-8
:
RDA 12th Plenary Meeting.
part of International Data Week.
Bostwana, Africa
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November 9-11:
Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2018.
Rovaniemi, Finland
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December 10-14
:
AGU 2018.
Washington, DC USA
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STRATEGIC COOPERATION COUNCIL (SCC) HOMEPAGE
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Don't forget to visit the
*NEW*
SCC Website for more information!
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View the full
Calendar of Events!
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View archived
Strategic Cooperation Council newsletters!
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Chris Lenhardt
Strategic Cooperation Council Chair
Henry W. Loescher
Lead PI
Francisco Javier Bonet García
COOP+ H2020
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Questions or comments please contact:
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Melissa A. Genazzio
SAVI Staff Scientist
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