Life below Water and Life on Land

LifeWatch ERIC Session UNGA76

On 1 October 2021, LifeWatch ERIC had the privilege of convening a session of the 76th UN General Assembly Science Summit*, dedicated to SDG 14, Life below Water, and SDG 15, Life on Land. LifeWatch ERIC CEO, Christos Arvanitidis, and CTO, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, convened the event, which featured experts from all over the world, speaking in keynotes and sessions. An interdisciplinary and cross-domain approach is crucial to achieve the SDGs by 2030, and this was reflected in the choice of speakers: policymakers, researchers, doctors and social scientists, whose range of perspectives and expertise was well-received by the audience.

After the introduction, the first topic of discussion was on SDG 14, Life below Water, then on SDG 15, Life on Land, before moving on to examine approaches key to the achievement of the 2030 SDGs, such as strengthening international collaboration, pursuing transdisciplinary approaches and modes of capacity building. Recurrent hot topics included the increased use of e-Biodiversity tools, in particular remote observation, in fighting the biodiversity crisis, along with indigenous knowledge. Finally, speakers pondered issues to tackle at UNGA77 in September 2022 and opened up the floor to participants, who brought yet more unique perspectives to the table.

CTO Juan Miguel González-Aranda summarised his main takeaways from the event:

“Integrating e-Biodiversity and sustainable ecosystem management makes us stronger. Goals 14 and 15, along with all the SDGs, can be accomplished when we base our efforts on scientific evidence, FAIR data and FAIR services. We must work hand-in-hand across sectors, without leaving anyone behind, integrating indigenous knowledge into our approach and following the motto thinking globally, acting locally. Finally, we must be conscious that data by itself is not enough; it must be transformed into information, evidence, knowledge and innovation, combining the outcomes of both Green and Digital Agendas in order to create tangible Green Products together.”

Click here to watch the full session on YouTube.

*Coordinated and moderated by ISC, the UNGA76 Science Summit is taking place from 14 September – 14 October, its central aim being to raise awareness of the role and contribution of science to the attainment of the SDGs. Please see our previous news item for more information.

Speakers in order of first appearance:

Mr Declan Kirrane SSUNGA76 Organiser

Dr Christos Arvanitidis LifeWatch ERIC CEO

Ms Jyoti Mathur-Filipp Director of the Implementation and Support Division at the UN Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Canada

Dr Ciara Leonard University College Dublin, Public Affairs Manager, UCD Research and Innovation; Moderator, Ireland

Dr Alberto Basset Interim Director of Service Centre, LifeWatch ERIC, Lecce, Italy

Dr Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, LifeWatch Spain

Mr Michel Massart DEFIS, European Commission, Belgium

Dr Peter Heffernan UN Oceans Ambassador; Member, EU Mission Board: ‘Healthy Oceans, Seas, Coastal & Inland Waters’ Ireland

Prof. Mike Elliott University of Hull, UK

Dr Stephanie Splett Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Germany

Prof. Eric Ruuth Scientific Coordinator, IMIBIO, Argentina

Ms Inmaculada Figueroa EU-LAC ResInfra: Towards a new EU-LAC partnership in Research Infrastructures. LifEuLAC pilot

Prof. Javier Castroviejo-Bolívar Amigos de Doñana, Spain

Prof. Antonio Micha Director-General of the National Institute for Environmental Conservation INCOMA, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea 

Dr Shirish Ravan Head, Beijing Office, The United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) Programme of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Vienna, Austria

Dr Juan Miguel González-Aranda LifeWatch ERIC CTO, ICT Core Director and ERIC Forum Executive Board Member

Mr Stephen Peedell Knowledge for Sustainable Development and Food Security, Joint Research Centre European Commission, Belgium

Prof. Vladislav Popov Agriculture University of Plovdiv, LifeWatch Bulgaria

Dr José Manuel Ávila-Castuera LifeWatch ERIC AgroEcology Officer

Patrick Worms, the Centre for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry CIFOR-ICRAF

Ms Africa Zanella, Director Centre for Sustainability and Gender Economics (CSGE), Australia-Spain

Dr Milind Pimprika Founder and Chairman CANEUS International, Centre for Large Space Structures and Systems

Dr Murray Hitzman iCRAG, Ireland

Dr Akhilesh Gupta Senior Adviser, Policy Coordination and Programme Management Division Dept of Science and Technology, India

Dr Lino Barañao Argentina

Kurt Zatloukal Medical University of Graz

LifeWatch ERIC in IKRI Launch

Click here to watch a short explanatory video on IKRI.

The UNGA76 Science Summit is in full swing, and LifeWatch ERIC has already played an active part in several sessions, looking forward to the LifeWatch ERIC-convened session on SDGs 14 and 15 on 1 October 2021. On 23 September, LifeWatch ERIC CTO, Dr Juan Miguel González-Aranda, alongside Prof Vladislav Popov and Ms Karina Angelieva from LifeWatch Bulgaria, took part in an important session on the launch of the Indigenous Knowledge Research Infrastructure (IKRI), which approximately 140 people attended.

The UNFSS (UN Food Systems Summit) recommended five ongoing Action Areas where the UN will place a particular focus and take increased responsibility to link the local to the global and support implementation at country level to maximise impact on the 2030 Agenda.* These Action Areas will help to organise, guide, and direct the wealth of initiatives emerging from the Summit process to achieve the SDGs. Action area 5: “Support the Means of Implementation” covers the following: Finance; Governance; Science and Knowledge (Indigenous Food Systems); Innovation, Technology, & Data, Capacity; and Human Rights, and beyond).

The “Global Research Initiative and Knowledge Repository to integrate Indigenous Knowledge into Food Systems” was developed as part of the UN Food Systems Summit process, with the collective efforts of CANEUS, together with The Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC), United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), The Africa-Europe Science and Innovation Platform (AERAP) and LifeWatch ERIC. It will contribute to action area 5: “Support Means of Implementation”, and was launched at the UN FSS Summit.

This Global research initiative aims to develop digital infrastructure to support more comprehensive R&D collaboration between the UN and the EU, AU, and other regions, creating partnerships and sustained access to data and information sources globally and lessening the regulatory burden associated with access to and use of public data. The initiative will function as a digital infrastructure known as IKRI, based on the EU Strategy Forum for Research infrastructures ESFRI. It will have a component of “Technology-based Repository” that utilises frontier Technologies (Earth observation and geospatial intelligence with 4th Industrial Revolution Technologies) for the development of a portal that captures, processes, analyses and presents Indigenous knowledge through multiple sources.

The IKRI is hoped to increase the level and range of partners who can bring Indigenous knowledge to collaborative research supported by the EU Horizon Europe Programme and other research programmes implemented at state level and committed to supporting the SDGs. It would further leverage the EU Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Programme, known as the Global Europe Programme, to support Indigenous knowledge, ensuring that developing nations are considered within the context of enabling global policies and related regulations to ensure that the global regulatory environment does not become a barrier to knowledge exchange, but rather supports access to and use of patent data, knowledge and know-how.

*(1) Nourish All People, (2) Boost Nature-based Solutions, (3) Advance Equitable Livelihoods, Decent Work & Empowered Communities, (4) Build Resilience to Vulnerabilities, Shocks and Stresses, and (5) Support Means of Implementation.

LifeWatch ERIC at UNGA76 Science Summit

UNGA76 LW ERIC convened session
LifeWatch ERIC to convene a session on SDGs 14 & 15 at the UNGA76 Science Summit 

LifeWatch ERIC is pleased to announce that it will convene a session of the 76th UN General Assembly Science Summit, dedicated to SDG 14, Life below Water, and SDG 15, Life on Land. The session will take place online on 1 October 2021, from 13:00 – 19:15 CEST, and will feature experts from all over the world. LifeWatch ERIC CEO, Christos Arvanitidis, and CTO, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, will convene the event.

Coordinated and moderated by ISC, the UNGA76 Science Summit has been underway since Tuesday 14 September and features circa 500 speakers in over 80 sessions, several of which LifeWatch ERIC has been participating in. The central aim of the summit is to raise awareness of the role and contribution of science to the attainment of the SDGs, which will be sustained through to the end with LifeWatch ERIC’s focus on a critical area of scientific development: e-science for biodiversity and ecosystem research. As well as exploring the contribution of science to achieving SDG 14 and 15, the session will also delve into current and potential collaboration between biodiversity-centric research and data infrastructures, such as DiSSCo (the Distributed System of Scientific Collections), GBIF (the Global Biodiversity Information Facility), EMSO ERIC (the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory) and EMBRC ERIC (the European Marine Biological Resource Centre).