1. Helsinki 8 May 2015, the NeIC 2015 Conference
Perspectives on Nordic-Baltic collaboration on Research Infra-structures (RI) for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research
Helsinki 8 May 2015, the NeIC 2015 Conference
Frank Hanssen (NINA), Ulf Gärdenfors (SLU), Anders Telenius (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet), Hanna Koviula (Luomus), Flemming Skov (AU), Tor G. Heggberget (NINA) and Mart Külvik (EMU)

2. We have a vision ...

3. By 2020 we should have A distributed & service oriented regional RI
National level: Data flow and management
Regional level : Services, tools and virtual laboratories
Funding and mandatory support from research councils and stakeholders both at national and regional level
National, regional and European impact
Integrate Nordic-Baltic researchers and citizen scientists
Nordic-Baltic science-based decision support
System architecture designed for open science
Educational support for eScience
Recognized regional part of the European RI

4. Presentation outline Background
Some examples of current Research Infrastructures (RI) for Biodiversity and Ecosystem research involving Nordic-Baltic countries
The Nordic LifeWatch pilot project
Action plan
Conclusions

5. Background
Nordic- Baltic research institutions participates in many national and international Biodiversity and ecosystem Research Infrastructure initiatives
The Nordic Research Council (NordForsk) regularly assess the potential strategic, scientific and financial benefits of harmonizing RIs at the Nordic - Baltic level
With this purpose NordForsk funded in a Nordic pilot project aiming to identify needs, bottlenecks, possibilities and to develop strategies to boost the compe-titiveness of Nordic-Baltic countries in eScience and innovation

6. RI for biodiversity & ecosystem research
Central, distributed or virtual facilities
Laboratories
Monitoring platforms
Collections/data banks
eInfrastructures
Data management systems
Networks, grid-computing
Software/Middleware

7. The impact of RIs towards biodiversity and ecosystem research

8. Focal areas and actions components for improved coordination of future initiatives and projects

9. Current RIs involving Nordic-Baltic countries

11. Number of datasets in GBIF per country

12. Country contribution to GBIF

13. The European Biodiversity Observation Network- EUBON (2012-2017)
The European Gateway to the Group on Earth Observations (GEOSS)

14. ESFRI LifeWatch (ERIC)

18. Norwegian Marine Data Centre
A new national RI for marine data that will serve the marine science community with seamless access to documented marine datasets covering waters of Norwegian interest

21. National RI investments from 2006

22. European level Regional level National level
Large scale distributed RIs
LifeWatch, EUBON, GBIF, LTER, EUDAT, EGI
Nordic-Baltic RI collaboration
Facilitate development of a distributed Service Oriented RI in areas of joint Nordic-Baltic interest, for the benefit of improved research at national, regional and European level
National RI`s
National stakeholder collaboration
European level
Regional level
National level

23. Nordic LifeWatch project (2012-2013)
NordForsk ( €)
Nordic inventory on:
Needs and challenges
Scientific potential
Spin-off effects
Nordic metadata
Legal framework
Strategic reccomendations

24. Key findings Great potential for collaboration
Baltic countries should be included
Great technological and scientific synergies
Need for harmonization of priorities, strategies and funding principles
Great potential to address future needs and challenges facing the Nordic-Baltic research community in HORIZON 2020

25. Stakeholder needs and challenges
How would you rank the identified needs and challenges according to the current situation in your country?
Scientific domain
Lacking awareness about the importance of data sharing and RI
National priorities, strategies and policies must be harmonized
Lacking computational models and high computing capacities
Organizational domain
Todays citation metrics do not favor data sharing
Personal attitudes and institutional culture may obstruct data sharing
Lacking knowledge of how to use new tools and eInfrastructure

26. Financial domain Legal domain Technological domain
Previous inv. in (now) obsolete RIs may obstruct new investments
Lack of a Nordic-Baltic perspective in national strategies and initiatives
RI funding need s to be coordinated at the Nordic-Baltic level
Legal domain
Inconsistent national legislation regarding access to data
Legal issues of data sharing between public and private institutions
Copyright issues and contractual arrangements
Technological domain
Low capacity in the national HPC infrastructure
Common vocabularies are missing or are incomplete
Week social networks between the ICT and biodiversity communities

27. Expected national support and individual motivation for a Nordic-Baltic collaboration on RI & eServices?
Do you expect that your country would give mandatory support to a Nordic-Baltic LifeWatch RI- collaboration?   
Are you interested to take part in a Nordic-Baltic LifeWatch RI collaboration?
I do
not know
I am
not sure
Yes No
Yes
Maybe

28. Action plan

29. Focus areas for further collaboration
Metadata management
Data sharing policies
Data reliability
Vocabularies & ontologies
Discovery and access
Physical infrastructure
Development of eTools
Scientific implementation
Capacity building

30. Actions to be taken Collaboration with NeIC
Workshop (Oslo Autumn 2015)
Stakeholder networking
State-of-the-art technology
Needs and actions
Project outline
Explore funding opportunities
Dialog with EUDAT about the uptake of the EUDAT B2 service suite at the regional level (project start Jan. 2016)
Maintain the links to LifeWatch ERIC
Maintain the links to IPBES and national action plans

31. Conclusions
Great strategic, scientific and financial synergies of harmonizing large scale RIs at the Nordic - Baltic level
Challenges has to be addressed with relevant means to ensure improved cost-efficiency and more collaboration in the field of biodiversity informatics and research
Collaboration with NeIC, EUDAT and national RI pro-viders has a very high strategic importance

32. Conclusions (2)
Relevant funding campaigns and policies should support national biodiversity RI`s towards a operational stage
NordForsk and the Nordic-Baltic countries should together consider common funding of compatible RIs at regional level
A strong Nordic-Baltic component will strengthen the European RI initiatives, and increase the competitive power of the individual countries in eScience and innovation

33. Thank you for your kind attention!..
Thank you for your kind attention!