The project will organise the presidency event (conference) “Europe’s Transfomation: Where People Matter” in Vienna, Austria, November 2018. It encompasses the operational and strategic work required to host this event, including Innovation and Content Management (e.g. collaboration with stakeholders to jointly design the conference programme); the Conference Logistics (e.g. organising a venue and the registration process); and Dissemination and Exploitation of the conference outcomes (e.g. setting up a conference website and collaborating with media). With regard to the wider context of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, the overall aim of the conference is to foster an improved synergy between pertinent initiatives launched by the Commission and by the Member States, to the benefit of the overall coherence of actions within the field of research and innovation in the areas covered by Societal Challenge 5.

eLTER EnRich aims at catalysing the eLTER ESFRI process towards a successful conclusion, balancing between (1) the changed framework conditions since 2020 and (2) the vision and role in the European system of Research Infrastructures (RIs) identified by ESFRI. This role is to enable frontier research for a sound understanding of ecosystem change or adaptation in response to multiple global change pressures/pulses, thus providing an essential tool for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the Green Deal, and for the transition to a sustainable and resilient Europe. Given the current 'force majeure' factors, the RI cannot be implemented in the linear process originally planned, but in a phased approach that requires agile planning tools to support scenario assessment and prioritisation in close interaction with our stakeholders. To this end, EnRich is implementing a model-based systems engineering approach to better capture the complexity of the distributed RI and to support dynamic decision making towards a research infrastructure capacity that is well co-ordinated across ~20 formally involved countries. The eLTER System Architecture (SA) allows us to design a baseline 'Skeleton RI' with well selected initial key services as a starting point for incremental extensions during the operational phase. Cyberinfrastructure components of highest relevance for the eLTER service portfolio will be driven from the SA and implemented in close collaboration with related projects and RIs. Formalisation efforts will be intensified to achieve sustainable commitment from service hosts and future ERIC members, despite the current global uncertainties. This will ensure a seamless transition from eLTER projects to eLTER ERIC operations, build capacity in terms of expertise and human resources, and strengthen user involvement in the RI. EnRich will also ensure support for decision-making in the eLTER Interim Council beyond the duration of the eLTER Preparatory Phase Project.

Significant challenges exist towards strengthening the Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) communities for coherent, mutually reinforcing and pragmatic planning and action. PLACARD seeks to support the coordination of these two communities. PLACARD will tackle current challenges by 1) providing a common ‘space’ where CCA and DRR communities can come together, share experiences and create opportunities for collaboration; 2) facilitating communication and knowledge exchange between both communities; and 3) supporting the coordination and coherence of CCA and DRR research, policy and practice. PLACARD’s approach to achieving these goals is to establish a strong and operational network of networks by connecting to existing networks and boundary organisations, to foster dialogue among stakeholders (e.g. researchers, research funders, policymakers, practitioners) engaged in CCA and DRR at the international, European, national and sub-national scales. This overarching network will enable these communities to share knowledge, to discuss challenges and to jointly co-produce options to bridge the gaps they experience. It will support the development and implementation of a research and innovation agenda to make better use of research funding, as well as to develop guidelines to strengthen relevant institutions in their efforts to mainstream CCA and DRR. PLACARD will evolve iteratively, learning from the different processes and experiences with the stakeholders, and being flexible and responsive to changing needs. PLACARD will be supported by an online platform that builds upon and links existing CCA and DRR platforms to streamline the dissemination and communication of CCA and DRR activities. PLACARD Consortium is built around the leadership of a number of key European institutions experienced in CCA and DRR policy and practice, and UN organizations leading and engaged inpost-2015 agendas.

Biodiversity Meets Data - BMD - is a Single Access Point that provides managers of natural resources and policy makers with access to high-throughput biodiversity monitoring tools and AI driven taxon identification services, services to mobilise historical baseline and legacy data to FAIR data repositories, a data catalogue to all available biodiversity information, a suite of Virtual Research Environments (VREs) for data analyses for the terrestrial, freshwater and marine realms, and a web-GIS data viewer to explore the data and VRE results. All data are harmonised across space-time-taxonomy and transformed into multi-dimensional data cubes that are analysed by the VREs. The VREs are co-designed with the stakeholder representatives to ensure that the VREs meet all requirements. The VREs include tools for a) biodiversity monitoring, b) identification and analysis of drivers of change, and c) projections of land cover and climate change on the distribution of species and habitats. The VRE results are presented as comprehensive products to the end users so that they can effectively be used to monitor biodiversity, address drivers of biodiversity loss, and plan, manage and expand protected areas, improve the conservation status of species and habitats, and comply to the reporting obligations under the EU nature directives based on up-to-date knowledge and solutions. BMD builds on a consortium of partners that are involved in the development of European research infrastructures and biodiversity monitoring projects, including eLTER (Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research), LifeWatch ERIC, MAMBO (Modern Approaches to the Monitoring of BiOdiversity), BGE (Biodiversity Genomics Europe), B3 (Biodiversity Building Blocks for Policy, GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), and ARISE (Authoritative and Rapid Identification System for Essential biodiversity information) among others.