On August 26th-27th 2014, a LifeWatch Hackathon was organized at VLIZ to exchange experience between database managers from VLIZ and the Max-Planck-Institut für Marine Mikrobiologie (MPI) in Bremen about environmental databases, online rendering of data and restructuring of databases. During day 1 it was demonstrated how the EurOBIS database works in function of structuring, aggregating and visualizing data. A brainstorm session was organized about the possibilities for integration of environmental datasets (e.g. World Ocean Database, Bio-ORACLE, Aquamaps).

From October 6th-8th 2014, VLIZ hosted a technical developers workshop organized by the Biodiversity Virtual e-Laboratory (BioVeL). Technical staff of several institutions involved in LifeWatch were getting trained in building biodiversity workflows using Taverna. Trainers were Aleksandra Pawlik, Christian Brenninkmeijer and Alan Williams of the University of Manchester. The training resulted in a wider implementation of Taverna and the discussion of possible additional workflows for biodiversity data.

On February 24th-26th 2015, the NeMys editors gathered at VLIZ to give the renewed NeMys a kick-start and to discuss future plans. Following the transfer of the World Database of Free-living Marine Nematodes – NeMys - to WoRMS in November 2014, a diverse editorial team was composed and plans were made to bring this team together for a kick-start of the renewed NeMys and to discuss the future plans. This NeMys workshop offered the editorial team the opportunity to make editorial agreements and discuss future plans and options in person.

On May 21st 2015, some 140 participants (biodiversity researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders) gathered in the Palace of the Academies, in the center of Brussels for the Empowering Biodiversity Research Conference. This conference was organized by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and several key institutes (a.o. the Flanders Marine Institute) and universities in the field pf Biodiversity Informatics, with the aim to inform on ongoing Biodiversity informatics initiatives in Belgium and reinforce further collaboration amongst actors.

The report of this meeting is available upon request.

Documents: 

Agenda expertengroep 26062015.docx