ENVRI community: We are part of it but what is that?
1 July 2021
Understanding the Earth is not possible without interdisciplinary science. We need a holistic approach where environmental data, research products and services produced by the different Research Infrastructures (RIs) are harmonized and easy to access and use for scientists from any field of environmental research. Such integration efforts are organized within the European environmental Research Infrastructures (ENVRI) community.
ENVRI is a cluster of terrestrial, solid earth, marine and atmospheric domains consisting of over 20 RIs working together to observe the Earth as one system. It collaborates to provide environmental data, tools, and other services that are Open and Fair, and can be used by anyone for free. eLTER is part of the ENVRI community.
The senior representatives of the RIs in the ENVRI community are part of the Board of European environmental research infrastructures (BEERi). BEERi meets twice a year to discuss joint strategies and communication efforts of the environmental RIs. Particularly the integration of the European environmental RI landscape, joint communication efforts in, for example, EGU meetings, and sharing of information has been valuable for the RIs of the ENVRI community.
The evolution of ENVRI community cooperation started from the publication of the ESFRI roadmap in 2008. It was obvious that environmental RIs would face similar challenges in their implementation, and that led to the onset of the cluster projects ENVRI (2011-2014), ENVRIplus (2015-2019) and the current ENVRI-FAIR (2019-2022). These three projects have been focusing on the integration of the European environmental RI landscape.
The ENVRI community is currently fueled by the EU funded ENVRI-FAIR project. ENVRI-FAIR makes the environmental research infrastructure data and services FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable). eLTER’s role in the project is to participate in several Work Packages as task leads and contributors through EAA, UKCEH and BIOSENSE, and to contribute to all WPs where RI level contribution is needed, for example WP 11 Biodiversity and ecosystem subdomain implementation.
Marjut Kaukolehto (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ)
