Final Report Summary - ANAEE (Infrastructure for Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems)
Executive Summary:
WP2: A survey of AnaEE potential stakeholder characteristics and expectations was conducted and the services AnaEE should deliver were listed at workshops with all AnaEE participants. An AnaEE Vision document was produced, the basis for the AnaEE communication tools. Sustained interactions between WP2 and the other work packages allowed mutual feeding and a coherent overall development of the various aspects of AnaEE. In order to launch a call for the nations that would host the supra-national entities, the objectives, tasks, organisation and personnel of the Hub and the three Service Centres (Technology, Data&Modeling, Interface &Synthesis) were detailed. Finally, the AnaEE Strategic Plan and Integrated Roadmap were written for an immediate efficient start of the Pre-Operational Phase which will lead to the signature of the ERIC and the long-term running of AnaEE.
WP3 provided analyses and documentation based on a dialogue and discussion with the scientific community and stakeholders. A multidimensional matrix of drivers, platforms and responses was used to identify the infrastructure requisites and requirements. This was chosen to ensure that the European infrastructure spans a necessary range in types of ecosystems, soils, land management, land use and climate as well as cross-ecosystem interactions. Workshops involving users and stakeholders of ecosystem research together with scientist from key disciplines identified, in coordination with WP2, key research questions (drivers, pressures and responses), services and structure needed from ANAEE within different regions/countries and how the infrastructure can provide most optimal and efficient facilities to address scientific questions and service needs within key areas on the short and the long term. Survey of existing ecosystem research infrastructures – identification of gaps Major and significant existing experimental facilities at the national and European level as well as outside Europe were examined and used to define and optimize requirements and guideline for the ANAEE infrastructure. A focus was made particularly on the experimental service provision, interdisciplinary integration and distribution of results, to ensure high quality and development of experiments as well as significant added value from the integration with projects and different experimental and modelling facilities and approaches. Development plan for the construction and implementation of ANAEE Technical document on construction and development highlighting coordination and development of existing and construction of new infrastructures to implement ANAEE in the construction phase.
WP4 has delivered an analysis of stakeholder requirements using input from the research community and policy frameworks for: how intellectual property will be managed; how access to the different platforms and to the data they generate will be organised using the best practises in data sharing; for how the quality of data will be managed; how computational models and associated simulation datasets can be made interoperable with experimental data. Finally, WP4 proposes a plan for organisation of data services as a basis for future operation of the Data and Modelling Centre.
WP5 deals with Innovation and the impact on industry and the economy of AnaEE activities and services. In particular, the WP has outlined the organization, competencies and contractual means whereby knowledge produced inside the AnaEE organization may be beneficial to a vast array of stakeholders. These include: environmental scientists, policy makers, business and ecosystems. In the last year the WP also contributed to the elaboration of the AnaEE business plan and the marketing and communication strategy of AnaEE construction phase.
WP6: Following the end of the Preparatory Phase, AnaEE will enter the Pre-operational Phase to further enable development and implementation. The governance for this phase will be aligned to the long-term framework for AnaEE which will take on the form of an ERIC (European Research Infrastructures Consortium). The ERIC will come into effect once statutes are finalised and signed by at least five countries.
WP7 worked on the financial planning and human resources of the AnaEE ERIC. We developed the cost calculations, principles for ERIC funding including host and member contributions, and the Business sustainability plan. The funding principles were consolidated with the consortium and the shareholders. Staffing and human resources planning for the centers were considered over both the pre-operational and operational phases.
WP8: As of 2013, a Communication Plan was designed to outline AnaEE goals, target audiences, key messages, tools, activities, timelines and human and financial resources. Tasks 8.1 to 8.5 involved updating the AnaEE website and representing the RI at international conferences. Special attention was given to the lobbying aspect of the overarching project goals, as well as defining Higher Education, Communications and Marketing strategies for future operations.
Project Context and Objectives:
The sustainability of agricultural, forested, freshwater and other ecosystems is under threat due to climate change, loss of biodiversity, disturbance of biogeochemical cycles and land use changes. In order to meet the challenges of preserving or improving ecosystem services, securing food supply and building a 21 century bioeconomy, we need to understand and forecast how ecosystems will respond to these changes.
AnaEE is a research infrastructure for experimental manipulation of managed and unmanaged terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It will strongly support scientists in their analysis, assessment and forecasting of the impact of climate and other global changes on the services that ecosystems provide to society.
AnaEE will support European scientists and policymakers to develop solutions to the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability, with the aim of stimulating the growth of a vibrant bioeconomy. AnaEE will accomplish this mission by building permanent and substantial links among researchers, science managers, policy makers, public and private sector innovators, and citizens.
Project Results:
Task 2.1 The Vision of AnaEE Services (deliverable 2.1)
A Vision document has been produced which describes the environmental and societal context of AnaEE and the challenges AnaEE is addressing. The AnaEE infrastructure allows to address these challenges through experimentation on ecosystems in order to predict the impact of global changes (figure 1).
The AnaEE will adopt an experimental approach built around Manipulation, Measurements, Modelling, Mitigation and Management (figure 2).
The AnaEE stakeholders and the services to be provided have been identified: Stakeholders are i) scientists (researchers, technicians, students), ii) national and European policy makers, iii) educators, iii) business, iv) society at large (NGO and citizens). Services are: a) access to infrastructures, b) harmonisation, c) data access, d) modelling, e) development of front edge techniques, f) analytical services, g) science development and integration, h) promoting interaction of users groups, i) general coordination. The added values of AnaEE for each of these services will be achieved through tools organized at supra national levels.
Task 2.2 Tools and Integration of AnaEE Components and Services (deliverable 2.2)
The scheme of AnaEE has been defined. The distributed national platforms are the fundamental building blocks of AnaEE. Four types of complementary platforms will compose the distributed part of AnaEE: 1. Open-air platforms that host well designed in-situ experiments. 2. Enclosed experiments platforms such as Ecotrons. 3. Analytical platforms that provide novel techniques and high-tech equipment 4. Modelling platforms that specialize in models building and in simulation.
However, the raison d’être of AnaEE is to provide added value to the scientists and other stakeholders using these platforms through services best or uniquely developed and delivered jointly at a supra-national level. These services aim at developing the visibility and optimum international use of the platforms, improving their technological and experimental capacities, enhancing the quality, accessibility and integration of the data, stimulating modelling activities, organising training, interfacing various stakeholders and delivering scientific syntheses (Figure 3). These services will be organised by 3 Service Centres and the Central Hub. The Hub, beside the management of the infrastructure, will run the AnaEE web portal which will promote the international access to the platforms and to AnaEE services and data. A Technology Centre will organise procedures harmonisation and technological development. A Data and Modelling Centre will manage access to data and stimulate modelling activities. Finally, an Interface and Synthesis Centre will promote foresight and transfer activities and deliver scientific syntheses. The activities of these Hub and Centres, coordinated by AnaEE appointed officers, will involve leading scientists and platforms engineers.
Task 2.3 Implementing the vision in the process (deliverable 2.3)
A report of the implementation recommendation was produced with contribution of all WP leaders. The feedback from the WP influence the further fine-tuning of the AnaEE vision, especially for the supranational structures to integrate the roles currently played by each WP (e.g. data management, technology transfer, funding and human resource).
Task 2.4 the AnaEE Strategic Plan and Integrated Roadmap (deliverable 2.4)
The supra-national entities of AnaEE (the Central Hub and the Service Centres) have been defined and thoroughly described in term of objectives, tasks, organisation and personnel. This description has been a central document for the launching of the call for countries to host these supra-national entities (summer 2016 for the Hub and fall 2016 for the Service Centres).
The recommendations for the follow-up of the Preparatory Phase (Pre-Operational Phase and Operational Phase) as stated by the various work packages, and which should be integrated in the implementation of the roadmap, have been recalled.
Finally, the immediate organisation of the Pre Operational Phase (which will lead to the signature of the ERIC legal status and the Running Operational Phase of AnaEE) as well as the timing of its milestones has been given.
WP3: ANAEE Technical Development Plan
The experimental dimension of AnaEE is essential and what makes AnaEE unique and complementary to any other research infrastructure in the ecosystem science domain, since it can reveal the mechanisms that underlie changes in ecosystem functioning in a way that cannot be understood by long term monitoring alone. However, to achieve its goal to build a world-class capacity in ecosystem science through state-of-the-art facilities, infrastructure with a clear identity and services at the highest level of excellence are needed. The platform and facility selection process is crucial in building that identity, since it determines the level of excellence and ultimately what kind of services AnaEE will provide, and therefore which users will be interested in using AnaEE. A Call for Expression of Interest was launched in June 2014 with the aim to identify platforms that can be part of AnaEE, as well as to identify optimal infrastructures. This allows AnaEE to offer state of the art technical and flexible solutions to manipulate the various drivers and monitor the resulting impacts. Only as such can AnaEE lift the experimental services in ecosystem science to a new level.
After the call for expression of interest, the corresponding focal point meeting in Copenhagen (November 2015) initiated a feedback process between AnaEE and the local platform owners. The feedback process clarified open issues regarding technical capabilities of the platforms and identified which investments are needed for platforms to be included in the AnaEE infrastructure. It also provided information on the current funding status for upgrade investments. The feedback process resulted in the definition of the final technical criteria for the experimental platforms. The AnaEE enclosed (formerly called in vitro) platform criteria remained unchanged after the feedback process with the focal points, while adjustments were made to the final criteria for open-air (formerly called in natura) platforms. In particular, regarding the initial criterion on obligatory climate change pressures, several national focal points expressed that it was too narrow/unbalanced compared to other important global change pressures.
Modelling and analytical platforms are equally important components to a successful AnaEE-infrastructure. The procedure for ensuring that the best analytical and modelling platforms will take part in AnaEE differed from that for experimental platforms, due to the unique and service supporting character of these facilities. In AnaEE, modelling services will be provided by distributed modelling platforms. Modelling platforms exist in two forms: modelling solution platforms and model factories. Both are used to exploit mathematical models to test and develop our understanding of the complex quantitative relationships between processes within ecosystems, the interactions with their environments, and their functioning and behavior under various pressures. Modelling solution platforms are implemented as self-contained software solutions that model specific aspects of ecosystem functioning and are centered on a well-established and supported model development team with a strong community of users. A model factory is a software platform with advanced and well-established facilities providing users access to general and extensible modelling resources. Key criteria for modelling platforms were developed in cooperation with the focal points.
Analytical platforms represent a specific group of platforms within AnaEE. Their main objective is to provide services to support the experimental ecosystem research, bringing added value to the AnaEE community. These services must be unique and otherwise unavailable to most experimental platforms. Uniqueness means that analytical platforms are equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation and use cutting edge methodologies with highest accuracy. Platforms should preferably provide integration of several analytical methods on one place or in one measuring process. Minimum criteria will be defined in a later stage for individual services selected according to relevance and availability by asking experts in individual scientific areas to define e.g. minimum resolution, spectral range, limit of detection etc. with the aim to ensure excellent level of services for the whole AnaEE community. Final criteria will be developed in close cooperation with the focal points and the platform owners.
Results – Open Air platforms
The analysis showed that the Open Air platforms suggested by the countries after the final criteria were set covered a total of 180 different currently existing installations with 57% of these installations in Forest and Agricultural platforms and another 15% in grassland ecosystems. The overall higher representation of these three ecosystem types compared to the remaining ones may be warranted by the direct ecosystem services they provide to society in terms of food and fiber. When inspecting the distribution of installations individually for the four climatic zones, the humid oceanic, humid continental and subarctic climatic zones still have installations within all seven ecosystem types, whereas wetland, rivers and lakes are missing from the Mediterranean climate zone. AnaEE should therefore pursue in particular to have these ecosystem types covered in this climatic zone as more countries potentially may join AnaEE after the end of the preparatory phase. According to the expert scores, the primary needs for pressures to be offered by such platforms should furthermore be prioritized towards especially warming, precipitation and hydrological changes, eutrophication and pests as well as biodiversity loss.
In terms of coverage of different pressures overall across climatic zones and ecosystem types, management is the most commonly applied pressure. However, it also covers a wide range of different types of management including e.g. grazing, tillage, fertilization, conventional vs. organic farming and crop rotation. Still, it does reflect that agrosystems are the dominant ecosystem type covered by the proposed platforms across all countries. The climate change related pressures (precipitation and hydrological change, warming and elevated CO2) are represented in all climatic zones but warming and elevated CO2 are offered at few platforms especially in the Mediterranean.
The detailed analysis of combinations of ecosystems/pressures/climate zones may be used to guide national focal points in their efforts to ensure the highest possible scientific relevance as well as complementarity of their national platforms within the Pan-European landscape. The analysis revealed that only 5 of the 71 missing important ecosystem/pressure/climatic zone combinations were covered by the current planned upgrades among the platform owners highlighting the need for a Pan-European coordination of infrastructure development if these gaps are to be better filled in the future. Similarly, even when including future planned pressures there are still 70 ecosystem/pressure/climatic zone combinations with above average importance, which are being addressed at only 1-2 platforms within each climatic zone, i.e. a low number platforms.
The analysis of currently existing and planned future combinations of ecosystem/pressure/climate zone therefore shows:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 1).
• Warming and precipitation/hydrological changes dominate among the climate-related gaps in combinations (missing in 18 combinations)
• Elevated CO2 is better covered and is only missing in 3 combinations (Humid Oceanic forests and Mediterranean forests and grasslands).
• Pests (missing in 12 combinations), habitat fragmentation (missing in 10 combinations) and biodiversity loss (missing 10 combinations) are the clearest gaps in current coverage.
The pressure categories UV, soil eutrophication, desertification and management are not missing at all.
Results – Enclosed platforms
Of the 28 platforms, 15 are situated in the humid oceanic, 6 in the (sub-)arctic, 4 in the humid continental and 3 in the Mediterranean climate zone. The results for enclosed platforms include both planned and existing platforms facilities.
The analysis showed that the 28 enclosed platforms in total covered 64 potential installations across different ecosystems (about 2 ecosystems per platform on average). 25% of the platforms covered agricultural ecosystems and 20% covered grassland ecosystems. 17% covered lakes, 16% covered shrublands (see Figure 4). When inspecting the distribution of installations individually for the four climatic zones, the humid oceanic climate zone has most of the installations, but lacks forest installations. Other terrestrial and lake ecosystems are well represented, river installations are rare. In the humid continental climate zone, wetland and river installations are lacking. In the Mediterranean, no forest, river and wetland platforms are present. In the (sub)arctic, all ecosystem types are represented, though aquatic facilities only have one platform for every ecosystem type. AnaEE will pursue in particular to have the underrepresented ecosystem types in future or upgraded platforms, as other countries potentially may join AnaEE after the end of the preparatory phase. According to the expert scores, the primary needs for pressures to be offered by such platforms should furthermore be prioritized towards especially warming, precipitation and hydrological changes, eutrophication and pests as well as biodiversity loss (see Table 2). Overall, climate zone location is in principle less important for enclosed ecosystems, since climate can potentially be manipulated within the platform. However, many enclosed systems are sunlit, which makes it difficult to simulate light intensities and daylengths of other latitudes. For this reason, similar European coverage is basically needed as with Open Air platforms. In general, river and wetland platforms are least represented in the current platform selection.
In terms of coverage of different pressures overall across climatic zones and ecosystem types (Table 3), warming is the most commonly applied pressure. In general, there is a broad cover of all major pressures except fire and desertification. Also habitat fragmentation, soil erosion and GMO pressure are relatively underrepresented. There are no facilities that cover hydrological changes in any ecosystem type in the humid continental climate. The same applies to soil erosion and fire in the Mediterranean and fire in (sub-)arctic.
From this analysis, it is clear that most important gaps exist for the Mediterranean and the humid continental climates, where a multitude of important combinations is now not covered by any facility. The large representation of humid oceanic facilities is reflected in the low amount of uncovered, relevant combinations, except for forest ecosystems. The same applies for subarctic facilities, where only 5 of the most relevant combinations are currently missing.
The analysis of currently existing and planned future combinations of ecosystem/pressure/climate zone shows:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 4).
• Wetland and river ecosystems are least represented currently, most wetland and river platforms (or planned platforms) are currently in the humid oceanic climate zone
• A multitude of important combinations is not covered by any platform in both the Mediterranean and the humid continental climate zone
• Fire, desertification, habitat fragmentation, soil erosion and GMO pressure are relatively underrepresented in the current platform selection
Results – modelling platforms
While terrestrial ecosystems are well covered by suggested models, there is a big lack for modelling the aquatic ecosystems. This lack needs to be compensated and we asked focal points and aquatic experimental site managers for suggesting some potential model platform candidates. There are also some other weaknesses that should be strengthened during the AnaEE implementation phase. These are:
• 3D representation at all levels (compartment to the ecosystem) is lacking.
• In most cases soil chemistry in the models is limited to the carbon/nitrogen cycles and should be extended to wider range of chemical components
• There are no real landscape models offering a comprehensive representation of the lateral energy, mass or gene flows between landscape components.
• Animal/plant interactions and in general processes dealing with interactions between animal and plant communities are poorly represented (only in the project of biodiversity modelling platform).
• A modelling factory dedicated to forests is missing.
We can also notice that agrosystems are represented by many platforms and some redundancies might occur. It would be wise to have a strong coordination between BIOMA, Vsoil and RECORD MF and maximize synergies and complementary services offered by other platforms (Ensembler Crop Modelling platforms, GHG).
It is worth noting that the models used by the experimental platform are very diverse (48 identified models and 18 own model developments). With the exception of the Coup model (cited 9 times), the other AMP are never cited more than 2 times. A survey to collect the experimental platform owner feedback on the 9 AMP is recommended.
Results – Analytical platforms
According to this results it seems that most valuable services for AnaEE community are trace gas analyses (PTR/MS, GC/MS), remote sensing services (hyperspectral and thermal imaging, LiDAR), isotope discrimination services iRMS, soil microbiology (qPCR, enzymatic activity), metabolomics (particularly LC/HRMS) and genomics (mass sequencing, flow cytometry, real time qPCR).
After the formation of the experimental platforms (both Open Air and Enclosed) within AnaEE the necessary step will be the quantification of needs for analytical services and gap analysis in order to identify potential needs for extending number of analytical platforms providing some specific services.
WP4: Access to ANAEE infrastructure and data and links with the wider community
In the first deliverable of WP4 (D4.1 “Access Requirements for General and Policy Users “) the outcome was reported from an online survey that was developed to capture information on the usage and access requirements from stakeholders in the agro-ecological sciences. The scientific community was identified as being the group most likely to have the largest interest and experience of ecosystem data/information and was thus targeted in the initial phase of information gathering, with a view to further refinement of the survey for other stakeholder groups. The information gathered from the survey and subsequent discussions with other stakeholder groups provided valuable insights into the challenges that the community faced over data access and this influenced the development of both policies relating to data and platform access (D4.3) and the priority areas that should be addressed in the implementation phase by AnaEE Service Centres when anticipating a wider community of users.
Results from the survey showed that the majority of ecosystem data/information sources used come from agricultural and temperate forest systems. Most researchers rely on existing academic collaborations to access datasets, with only 50% being able to make use of open access data resources. Multiple sources of data, including data from models, are important for many users but this can lead to significant challenges when integrating data. Problems encountered during data integration include inconsistency of experimental methods, incompatible temporal or spatial resolution, poor quality or missing metadata, inconsistent data definitions, and complex access permissions. Furthermore, most data standards are informal guidelines and there is a recognised shortage of meta-data and poor coverage by existing meta-data standards. The most important obstacles that users encounter when accessing agro-ecosystems data are in decreasing order of importance: knowing where to look, intellectual property and licensing issues, unsuitable data formats, financial cost, and poorly constructed websites.
Deliverable D4.2 sets out the AnaEE “Intellectual Property Framework” This document describes an approach to managing Intellectual Property within AnaEE which takes into account the need for AnaEE to foster the free-flow of data, ideas and knowhow among partners and stakeholders. It acknowledges the fact that while the IP framework must protect the rights of the AnaEE partners, this must not undermine the wider objectives of AnaEE as a research infrastructure which expects to receive most of its funding from the public purse through national research agencies whose remit will be to support research for public good. An IP framework is proposed based on the central role of the AnaEE Hub. The key elements include: that IP Rights will be maintained by generating parties; The AnaEE Central hub will be given widest possible rights to manage and license to third parties; owners and generators of IP should have priority access for use within the AnaEE partnership but would require licenses to use data for purposes involving external partners; use by third parties would be under clear terms with standard licenses for not-for-profit use (e.g. based on Creative Commons models preferred - see also D4.3). Use by for-profit organisations (industry) should be negotiated on a case-by-case basis by the Central Hub. No exclusive licenses would be granted; revenues generated by third-party use will be held by the Central Hub and used for the benefit of the Project; all publications by third-parties must acknowledge AnaEE and the party(s) generating the IP supplied to the third-party.
In Deliverable D4.3 a policy is proposed for how access to data (through the Central Hub and Data and Modelling Centre) and the research and analytical platforms will be supported. The nature of the different platforms within AnaEE means that there will be a variety of access mechanisms available to AnaEE users. Physical access will allow a user to visit the platform and set-up an experiment or collect samples themselves (with help). Remote access allows the user to request experiments or experimental services to be conducted on their behalf and Virtual access permits access to data or models or supporting information. The policy sets out a framework for management of platform capacity and the role of the Central Hub as management focus for this activity. Access to experimental platforms on most occasions is expected to go via the Central Hub using a transparent and open process intended to be as supportive as possible towards reaching the optimal experimental design taking into consideration both cost and delivery of maximum scientific impact.
As a Research Infrastructure supported by European national public research funding agencies, AnaEE will comply with the recently published Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data. This means ensuring that data collected on AnaEE platforms is made accessible as quickly as possible to potential users following any necessary steps to ensure research quality and to protect the rights of investigators to interpret project data and secure any potential intellectual policy. The Data and Modelling Centre will play a central role in managing the access to data and will maintain metadata catalogues and oversee the development of Data Management Plans and associated data access processes. Access mechanisms and Data Management Plans will respect the different release schedules needed for baseline data sets collected routinely, especially by open-air experimental platforms and project-specific data where investigators will need time to analyse and interpret results before they are made openly accessible.
It is recommended that AnaEE follows best practices in Open Access licensing and use standard CreativeCommons licenses. Given the role of AnaEE and its role as a publicly-funded research infrastructure the recommendation from WP4 and WP6 is that the CC3 (CC BY-NC-SA) would be the most appropriate license for the majority of data products. This does not, however, prevent other licenses to be use when the data are being used for non-research purposes. It is recommended that a subset of CC licenses will be selected that are most likely to be relevant to AnaEE to help simplify discussions for all stakeholders. AnaEE will be committed to promoting best practises in the open scientific data community and will facilitate this by supporting the deposition of partial or complete datasets from AnaEE platforms and projects in a publicly accessible repository. Data depositions will be accompanied by suitable metadata for automated data discovery and will use DOIs or similar emerging standards for persistent identifiers to provide permanently citable references to the datasets.
It is important to the success of AnaEE, that users recognise it as an RI with high standards of data and metadata quality. As a distributed research infrastructure, with many different platforms locations and types, it is important that there is a clear plan for, and commitment to, the management of data quality throughout and that responsibilities for quality assurance are clear. It is well recognised that there are multiple facets to the concept of data quality and each needs to be addressed by AnaEE. In deliverable D4.4 the “AnaEE Quality Framework for Data and Metadata”, the different aspects of data quality are identified and the reference model developed by the ENVRI and ENVRI-plus projects is used as a framework to structure the quality assurance processes that will be needed. In particular, the deliverable report provides a provisional mapping of the different quality assurance processes and the actors who should expect to have responsibility for these processes.
A very large number of mathematical and computational models have been developed in the agricultural and ecosystems research community and these play an important role in the both research methodology and the translation of research into practise. The number of different models, the range of technical implementations and their relevance to different aspects of ecosystem function, however, pose a challenge to users looking for the most appropriate modelling tool for any given question. Deliverable D4.5 “Models and Simulation Data Sharing” catalogues the range of models that are potentially relevant to AnaEE using the responses to questions that were in the calls for expressions of interest to become AnaEE experimental and analytical platforms. The primary objective of the modelling support activities in the AnaEE Data and Modelling Centre will be to make it easier for users to find suitable models with relevant datasets and then, by providing access to interoperable models and data, make it easier for users to use these models for their research or to develop new resources such as data syntheses, decision support tools or novel data products.
The development and use of suitable metadata standards for agro-ecosystem models and simulation datasets that are derived from them will make an important contribution to making these assets discoverable by users or by software systems. Consistent metadata annotation across models and datasets will also help users and modellers to identify sources of data and models that can be integrated or should be interoperable. The deliverable identifies some key issue in the development of the meta-data descriptions surround ecosystem models; and in particular highlights the importance of distinguishing between the meta-data for the software that implements a model and the model description itself. A review of potentially relevant metadata standards showed that there is no single standard for meta-data for ecosystem models and related software and so links to relevant meta-data standards from other domains are provided as the basis for future development of a compositional meta-data approach using multiple meta-data source. These are summarised as recommendations that could be used by the Data and Modelling Centre.
Reliable and sustainable management of the data and information generated by AnaEE sites will play an essential role in the success of AnaEE, i.e. its contribution to generation of an ecological knowledge base for better decision-making in Europe. Deliverable D4.6 “Data Services Plan” proposes how data services will be provided throughout the AnaEE infrastructure. AnaEE sites and Service Centres will generate a wealth of diverse data and information products. Data generation will start mostly at the experimental sites, though modelling activities will also use and produce output datasets. It is essential that the data, whatever their origin, are accompanied with metadata, and that all processes leading to the final products be fully documented by the use of persistent identifiers. Datasets will go through successive versions and these also need to be unequivocally identified. Similarly, datasets have to be associated with scientists involved in their generation and transformation. It is proposed all data products be tagged by using one of the current researcher identification schemes (such as ORCID ID, Scopus Author Identifier, Researcher ID, etc.)
The Data and Modeling Center (DMC) will play a central role, but it will also be assisted by data management teams at the local AnaEE platforms. The DMC is mainly responsible for harmonizing data and metadata generated or collected by the national platforms or hubs. Two different schemes are being proposed as to the localization of the data and metadata. In both options, the metadata will be maintained at the DMC and will facilitate ‘one-stop’ data discovery and retrieval. The datasets can be both stored and served from the DMC, or they may reside at the local AnaEE sites. In the latter case, it is still important that a backup mechanism be provided for reliability and availability. Data quality control processes will involve several stages and the tasks need to be distributed between data originating sites and the DMC.
The implementation of the proposed data services during the construction phase will have at its disposition a wealth of technological options/schemes that are being currently tested in similar large-scale projects. The implementation of these services will benefit from a standardization of software toolkits across the AnaEE infrastructure. The DMC will design and distribute software to local sites in order to facilitate data, metadata and dataflow standards. Also, European initiatives such as EUDAT can provide much needed data storage and backup services.
WP5: Innovation
The mission of WP5 consists of identifying and preparing the tools and the organization required to make available the results of AnaEE scientific investigation to non-science stakeholders. For clarity, we can distinguish them into (a) AnaEE scientific investigation, (b) results, and (c) non-science stakeholders.
(a) AnaEE scientific investigation consists of experimental, analytical and modeling exercises performed according to AnaEE standards, at facilities that are part of the AnaEE infrastructure.
(b) Results are data in crude or aggregate format; they need to be stored and made available free of charge. Results may extend to interpretation and exposition in languages, formats, or standards that make them usable by the intended audience. Results also include improvements, techniques and tools (hard and soft) supporting stakeholders’ concerns and activities, or providing answers to stakeholders’ problems. The choice of standards and interpretations should be consistent with that of complementary European Infrastructures (such as ICOS and LifeWatch).
(c) Non-Science stakeholders include agriculture, industry, educators, policy makers, and the civil society at large. Stakeholders may be local or global. Examples of local Stakeholders are SMEs, Regional Governments, and Educational institutions physically located in the neighbourhood of one or another AnaEE facility. Examples of Global Stakeholders are Multinational Corporations, the European Commission, a National Research Institution, and Agencies studying or protecting the Environment.
In the light of the above, the first task of WP 5 - Innovation was to perform a survey of the leading international standards of environmental experimentation, by surveying the agencies that issue and maintain them. The survey led to interesting results.
The WP5 Standards Report described more than 90 such organizations. Hence, rather than developing new standards, AnaEE should adopt established standards and best practices used by existing agencies and projects. In this regards, it can have been identified 6 recognizable levels of activity: i) measurement, ii) experiment setup, iii) data, vi) metadata and data analysis, v) modelling, vi) and interpretation. Each level has produced its own distinctive standards and best practices. However, standards are not equally developed across all activities. In particular, a survey conducted among 70 AnaEE researchers did show that consensus on common standards is strong in the design and execution of experiments, and weak in the analysis and interpretation of results.
Therefore AnaEE should adopt existing standards and best practices in the activities upstream (conducting experiments), while establishing its own standards in the activities downstream (interpreting results and their impact).
Results of the Standards Report were then used to feed into the AnaEE Report on Quality Policy, Vision and Mission (Deliverable 5.2). The Quality Report was discussed and finalized during a roundtable conducted by AnaEE with the participation of data generators and data users.
Its outcome was a set of guidelines addressing in particular (i) Data Access Policy (being a publicly funded institution, AnaEE data should be open, accessible and free of charge) (ii) Data Quality Standards, (iii) Data Management, and (iv) the promotion of all forms of knowledge transfer, as described in the next section, “Potential Impact”.
Specifically, the Quality Policy defined minimal requirements for an experiment to be AnaEE compliant. An “AnaEE Label” is considered a sort of certificate of compliance awarded to experiments and data that are conducted according to AnaEE quality standards.
However, AnaEE output is not limited to experimental results, which will mainly be used by external researchers to generate scientific literature. AnaEE output also includes interpretations, reports supporting decisions taken by policy makers, validation of products and services, and other forms of knowledge transfer to industry. These formats will require elaboration and interpretation of data and results (either by AnaEE in-house researchers or by guest researchers). Clearly, in order to be useful to policy makers, companies, educators, media, or the general public, the opinions expressed by AnaEE should be supported by strong experimental evidence, but also unbiased and transparent.
The second goal of AnaEE is to generate innovation which in turn creates income and employment, and promote a competitive European green economy. That goal will be pursued through a set of activities commonly known as Technology Transfer: they are described the next section on Impact, dissemination and exploitation of results
A third objective was added to WP5, in the form of a new Task: System Engineering and Business Process analysis. The need for an additional task emerged as a result of two independent pressures. On one hand, the International Scientific Advisory Board recommended a System Engineering approach on the ground of the complexity of AnaEE. On the other hand, the call for expression of interest for AnaEE platforms produced a response six times greater than foreseen (180 versus 30 respondents). Each platform had filled a long questionnaire, providing accurate descriptions of capabilities, competencies and instrumentation. The unexpectedly large amount of response data could not be handled without professional management tools.
A System Engineering approach was therefore added to the tasks of WP5, to order and analyse the call responses. WP5 was assigned the task of coordinating the collection, processing and interpreting that data. That major endeavour has produced a comprehensive digital map of measurements, pressures and ecosystems available at each experimental facility.
WP6: Legal and Governance
D6.1: Exploring legal and governance models for AnaEE
To explore legal and governance models of the infrastructure that allows the effective integration and operation of its components:
• Using existing documents such as from the AnaEE Design Phase project and materials available on the web, WP6 produced an initial analysis and report on the legal frameworks available for AnaEE;
• By looking at long-term governance models from other ESFRI projects and taking the development of the AnaEE vision into account, several draft governance models have been drafted and are continuously being refined to ensure that once AnaEE is in its operational phase, the structure will allow effective integration and operation of its components;
To deliver interim and long-term governances that respond to objectives and priorities of funding and research organisations participating in the report was used to make first recommendations for interim and long-term governance options via the Legal, Governance and Funding Advisory Group (LGF-AG) made up of representatives of funders and ministries where participants endorsed the need for an interim governance and legal model. Two models for interim governance and two options for long-term governance were presented.
The LGF-AG were consulted throughout the course of the AnaEE Preparatory Phase project to ensure the needs and requirements of ministries and funders were addressed and met to ensure AnaEE could continue to develop in the most suitable way.
D6.2: Interim Governance
WP6/7 formed a joint Working Group in order to progress issues relating to legal, governance and funding. The WG consisted of WP6/7 members as well as invited legal and financial experts outside of the consortium to help develop the legal and governance for AnaEE in a way that meets the needs of partner countries. The WG was made up of the following partners: BBSRC, DTU, UHEL, FEM, INRA, INRA Transfert CNRS, UTARTU, CzechGLOBE, BGU (EWI from Belgium also attended meetings and financed their own participation)
In order to achieve completing D6.2 monthly meetings were held with every other meeting as face to face between the WG. Work completed:
• Drafting the Letter of Intent (LoI) order to encourage continued participation and commitment from partner countries of the PP and beyond
• Develop evolution of AnaEE governance from PP to the Pre-operational Phase including bodies required to further implementation of AnaEE and identify next steps required
• Decide on what components the AnaEE ERIC will be made up on including an analysis report of whether the Service Centres should be in or out of the ERIC
• Begin drafting of AnaEE ERIC statutes
As a result of the work completed, the following outcomes were achieved:
• The LoI was circulated to partner countries for signature at the government level- so far 5 countries (BE,CZ,DK,FR,IL) have signed the LoI with more to follow;
• A decision was made on the interim governance model and evolution of governance from AnaEE PP to the next Phase. The next Phases will be known at the Pre-operational Phase and Operational Phase. Each phase will be made up of the required bodies needed for effective governance
• Following analysis on the Service Centres being in/out of the ERIC, a recommendation to the AnaEE SC that the Service Centres should be inside of the ERIC. As part of the process to identify host countries to host the supranational entities, applicants will get a chance to make the case for the entity to exist out of the ERIC which will be assessed
A writing group to draft the ERIC Statutes was created and met to discuss issues in developing the ERIC to be addressed in going forward.
D6.3: Long-term governance strategy
Further progress was made on the long-term AnaEE governance strategy following outcomes from D6.2. The LGF WG continued to work on a regular basis to:
• Create a proposal and framework for the transition of AnaEE from the PP to the Pre-operational Phase with a timeline
• Contribute to drafting the text for AnaEE host country call for its supranational entities
• Draft description of the main bodies required for the Pre-operational and Operational Phase
• Further develop long-term governance structure in line with recommendations from the AnaEE SC and LGF-AG
• Draft framework for ERIC statutes and identify issues and questions which will need to be addressed during the Pre-operational Phase
As a result of the work completed, the following outcomes were achieved:
• Host country for AnaEE identified as France
• Agreement of framework for transition from the PP to the POP: a Transition Team led by INRA/France will oversee the transition and will be responsible for creating the Central Hub Set up team and manage Programme of Work to ensure implementation of AnaEE towards the Operational Phase
• Agreement of bodies and structure required for governance of the Pre-operational Phase
• Further developed legal and governance framework for the Operational Phase
WP7: Financial and human resource planning
WP7 concentrated on the financial and human resources strategy issues. We analysed the global cost estimates for both pre-operational and operational RI, as well as the contribution principles and sustainable funding scheme which were proposed and validated by the consortium. In addition, we were compiling the Business plan (Figure 5) and human resources plan for the pre-operational and operational phase.
Financial and funding framework
AnaEE is a pan-European research infrastructure consisting of a central coordination body (AnaEE, which comprises a Central Hub and three Service Centres) with experimental, modelling and analytical facilities (i.e. national platforms), distributed across its Member States. Each Member State is independently responsible of funding the upgrades, maintenance and operation of its national platforms. The ERIC will be funded pro rata by Members and Hosts, while the research projects carried within the AnaEE RI and using the facilities will be funded through joint European research programs according to EU-defined strategies and objectives, through private-public partnerships, and national research grants. The funding framework will continuously be developed as AnaEE shifts from the Pre-operational Phase to Operational Phase and creates an ERIC. The final decisions regarding the funding model are made by the AnaEE Assembly of Members.
Pre-operational Phase investments for the central services
The hosting countries will be responsible of funding 100% of the investment necessary for the setup and activities of the AnaEE Central Hub and the Service Centres during the Pre-operational Phase.
Operational Phase funding model
The Central Hub and the Service Centres constitute the AnaEE legal entity, and their funding model is decided by the Assembly of Members. AnaEE operative costs are covered largely by the Member States’ public funding. The Member States need to agree on a five-year budget on annual basis. Figure 6 presents the suggested funding model for AnaEE.
The proposed minimum Host contribution is 50% of the hosted central facility costs, while the rest of the costs is covered by annual membership contributions towards AnaEE. Members with an observer status will not pay any contribution to AnaEE before becoming full Members. This exemption and the amount of the yearly membership contribution may be adjusted annually by the Assembly of Members in the end of calendar year.
Host contributions will be provided in-cash or in-kind, while membership contributions will be provided primarily in-cash to cover AnaEE expenses related to e.g. consumables, travel of staff, meetings, outreach, services (including legal, accounting, auditing, marketing, recruitment and subcontracting), equipment (software, licenses etc.) and the salary of the Director General. However, in-kind contributions in human resources from non-hosting countries can be considered and decided case by case in the Assembly of Members. AnaEE membership contributions will be allocated to the Central Services.
Regarding the membership contributions, combination of an equal share fraction, and GDP and platform number based fractions is recommended; 50% Equal Share + 25% GDP-based contribution + 25% platform number based contribution. The equal share component ensures that a certain baseline fee is paid by all Members, while the size of a state’s economy is also acknowledged by the GDP based contribution. In addition, each Member’s contribution to AnaEE is accounted for; the proposed model respects the added value of services that the Service Centres and the Hub provide to AnaEE platforms.
Platform-based fees shall cover 25% of the membership contributions. From this share, the price per AnaEE platform is determined. The platform price will naturally depend on the number of Members and platforms, and the number of platforms of each type. The platforms are divided into price categories according to the platform type and the manipulations done on the platform.
Since the activities of AnaEE will depend both on the number of Members and on the number of platforms, this will influence the costs. However, in order to avoid large fluctuations in the annual membership contribution, a constant median membership contribution of around € 50k/ year is proposed. To assure that the annual membership contributions are of similar magnitude throughout the years, regardless of the number of Members, a modular approach was suggested: increase in the activity level of the Central Services along increase in the number of Members.
Host and membership contributions shall cover the key operative costs of AnaEE. Any additional activities e.g. development of new technologies, special training sessions or hiring AnaEE post-docs for the synthesis activities will need additional funding. The application and use of these additional funds are decided case-by-case by the AnaEE Assembly of Members. Additional sources of income under consideration include access fees from physical access to the AnaEE platforms, consultancy services, licensing and industrial sponsors. AnaEE is eligible to apply for funding from EU framework targeted funding instruments for the research infrastructures and technologies.
AnaEE will provide most of the services to its Members and other stakeholders without a charge. However, some services such as consultancy services and others mentioned above may have a fee. Pricing policy of AnaEE regarding members and non-members is still under development. However, it is clear that the data will be free and open access for all users; the terms of data usage will be captured in licenses. Revenues coming from the services AnaEE provides to the stakeholders are expected from the second year on. These services possibly include e.g.:
• Technical consultancy services: to build sites in specific areas around the world (sensor networks); to develop observatories for specific applications (e.g. artificial ecosystems).
• Monitoring and data products: data collection and integration at specific sites provided as a service; Data systems, architectures and products.
• Decision support tools, synthesis products from data or technology
The governance structure and human resources affect the budget calculations to great extent, and as they are still evolving some of the assumptions used for these calculations are likely to change. The final global cost estimates and the value of the AnaEE infrastructure will become available after it is known which platforms exactly will be proposed by each Member as AnaEE components.
Pre-operational Phase starts in 2016 and runs until the beginning of 2018 when AnaEE is expected to be established (Operational Phase) AnaEE. The functioning costs of AnaEE will consist of i) personnel costs including salary and indirect employee costs, ii) other AnaEE costs related mainly to operations, and iii) costs to cover the premises.
Minimum operative costs of AnaEE to maintain Central Services at a proper level of operation are covered by ERIC Members’ public funding; Host and membership contributions. In order to ensure the financial sustainability, ERIC Founding Members need to commit to AnaEE for long-term, minimum for five years. Strong state-level financial commitments to AnaEE will provide sustainable base funding for ERIC activities and operation.
The minimum operational costs of the Central Services are likely lower with less Member States and increase with the number of Members towards full operation. As a rough estimate, with 7 Member States and fixed Host contribution of 50%, the total budget of the AnaEE is around € 1 million / year with median membership contribution of around € 50,000/ year. However, to maintain a proper level of operation in the Central Services, also the Host contribution can be adjusted if the Host is willing and the Assembly of Members so decides.
The Member contributions to fund the AnaEE Hub and Service Centres should not fluctuate significantly between the years – annual median contribution of € 50000 is targeted. Therefore, it is important that when planning the operations and activities of the Central Services, the number of Members using the services is accounted for. This is done by applying a modular approach (Figure 7). Modular approach means in this context increase in the activity level, i.e. the budget, of the Central Services with an increase in the number of AnaEE Members. Full operation of the Central Services is expected in the fifth year with sixteen Members with an annual budget of ca. € 2.15 million.
AnaEE Hub should become fully operational as soon as possible after establishing the ERIC and it is expected that the Service Centres will also enter in full operation as soon as possible during the first years, in order to provide the expected added value to the scientific community as well as to policy makers and society as a whole.
The goal of the financial management of the legal body of AnaEE is to run operations on a non-economic basis, efficiently and according to budget. Full transparency shall be applied on all financial matters of AnaEE. AnaEE will be run according to the Host legislation on accounting standards and principles. The AnaEE AoM decides on the RI strategic orientation, policies and objectives.
Documents defining policies and rules of the AnaEE resources are:
• ERIC statutes (to be developed among the founding members)
• RI Internal Financial Rules (to be developed among the hosting countries)
• ERIC procurement rules
• Other internal rules deemed necessary by the AoM
Human resources plan
The expertise needed for running an operational research infrastructure is different from scientific research. Research in temporary projects can produce important data and knowledge but it is the well-managed international research infrastructures that can provide data and knowledge for big science. The starting point in running AnaEE is to have qualified RI staff to enable researchers to do their research using the sustained high quality facilities. Note that the European Code of Conduct for Researcher Integrity presents general principles and requirements applicable especially to the researchers and their funders. Researchers represent the user group of the RI and hence are very important in the RI advisory and user boards.
Examples of needed skills from the staff of a European infrastructure are operational and human resource management, data management, data curation, and computing with big research data. There is increasing need for education in these emerging professions, e.g. infrastructure operators, research technologists with computational skills, and data scientists. This needs to be taken into account in career development issues. AnaEE aims to recruit the best RI professionals to provide the best services for its users. Hence, RI should not be run by the researchers nor post-docs or professors. AnaEE needs to provide competitive career opportunities for those who want to specialise in managing and operating a world class RI.
The establishment and staffing of the Hub is crucial. Especially, the recruitment of interim Director General to lead activities for AnaEE until a long-term Director General is officially recruited should have a formally approved process: the country selected to host the Hub will make a proposal to the Pre-operational Assembly of Members. In order to lead the AnaEE towards the Operational Phase the interim Director has to have the trust and mandate of the LoI signatories (Pre-operational Assembly of Members). The Director General of the ERIC is a key individual, and the success of the RI will, to a significant extent, depend on his/her abilities as a scientist, manager, spokesperson and diplomat. The Director General is an individual with experience and stature, chosen on the basis of reputation and excellence. To attract a person of sufficient calibre, it may be necessary to offer an employment contract of significant duration, especially if the Director General and his/her family will have to move from another country. To fully support the European dimension of the ERIC, it is recommended that the Director General comes from another country than the Hosting Country.
The recruitment process of the Director General for AnaEE needs to start during the Pre-operational phase, but the Director General’s contract will be only signed when ERIC is established by the Assembly of Members of the ERIC. All staff in the ERIC is recruited by the Director General and he/she is the superior for all ERIC staff. In the case all the Service Centres are in the ERIC legal entity, the Director General manages the recruitment of all staff, consulting with the Directors of the other Centres. The principle of Balance and Checks should be applied, whenever possible. There needs to be an open call for the positions in the ERIC.
A pan-European recruitment strategy is needed to ensure efficient management and operation of the AnaEE. The recruitment plan (level of activities and type of profiles) for the Operational Phase will be decided by the Assembly of Members based on the negotiated AnaEE budget and activities in the Service Centres.
WP8: Communication, Networking, education and training
As of December 2013, a Communication Plan was designed to outline AnaEE goals, target audiences, key messages, communication tools, activities, timelines and human and financial resources. The overarching goal was to organize and implement stakeholder relations as well as lobbying and public relations efforts, based on the following tools:
• key objectives and tasks;
• Key audiences;
• Messages;
• Tools and activities;
• Resources and timescales;
• Collaborative approaches to achieve communications goals;
• Evaluation procedures.
In order to articulate the communications goals of the AnaEE Preparatory Phase, a stakeholder mapping initiative was conducted. Echoing the AnaEE User Strategy, the Communications Plan concentrated its efforts on 4 priority stakeholders groups, each requiring a specific outreach approach:
1. Scientists and science managers;
2. Public and private sector innovators;
3. Policy makers and funding bodies;
4. Educators, the media and the broader public.
First and foremost, an attractive and coherent visual identity was devised for AnaEE, including a logo, templates and all other recognizable visual elements associated to AnaEE output.
AnaEE’s online presence materializes in the shape of website, which showcases the advancement of key projects, provides contact details to all relevant parties, regular news postings and events updates. This online content policy is reinforced through the publication of a quarterly email newsletter in HTML format, presenting all project advancements and relevant news to external audiences.
AnaEE will strive to be represented during all major ecosystems-related conferences, workshops and corollary research events discussing new developments in the fields of environmental and biodiversity studies. Indeed, the setup team prepared a toolkit containing the following:
• A concise A4 brochure, outlining key AnaEE talking points and arguments;
• A compelling 4-minute video, both posted online and played during AnaEE presentations at international conferences;
• A standard Powerpoint presentation will support opening statements for all types of audiences and meetings;
This external outreach policy will derive further strength from a targeted press relations effort, especially through special reports on key AnaEE publications. The goal will be to position AnaEE as a prime source of information and state-of-the-art tools to tackle issues such as food security and biodiversity.
Finally, a comprehensive stakeholder engagement plan was designed by AnaEE. Ongoing dialog is based on a Stakeholder Handbook, outlining key details on AnaEE, including (but not limited to) the preparatory phase.
As of June 2016, the WP leader and AnaEE Coordination launched a sub-task force aiming to reflect on how to establish AnaEE as a benchmark and key ally for industries and policy-makers looking to develop innovative technologies and solutions for the global Greentech market.
Indeed, communications initiatives will strive to demonstrate how co-designed and co-developed experimental research projects could significantly reduce exposure to risk and advance socio-ecological-economic resilience, by providing (i) explicit decision-space and uncertainty estimates for ecological processes affected by climate change, (ii) comparative capability, (iii) diverse modelling platforms and tools for ecological forecasting and (iv), effective data flow management and common standards.
As a result of Communications involving in Strategic planning – as highlighted by an incremental mobilization in the finalization of the AnaEE Business Plan – a materiality matrix was successfully presented and adopted by the Consortium. A questionnaire was devised to be shared amongst different stakeholders across Europe, to serve as a prioritization tool in AnaEE work and a lobbying tool to build industrial partnerships.
In short, tasks 8.1 to 8.5 all covered this period and included updating the website and publishing a quarterly newsletter, representing AnaEE at international conferences and chiefly focusing on lobbying aspects of the overarching WP mission, which lies in securing larger buy-in from new and existing Member States. An extensive learning module was also produced and posted online, generating positive feedback from all partners involved in the WP. This provided a sound stakeholder engagement tool in relations to educators and the broader public, highlighting strategic decisions regarding future AnaEE higher education activities and training, directed towards students, researchers and professionals alike. Furthermore, prospective marketing and communication strategy, materials and tools for the construction phase of ANAEE.
As described above, the societal and economic impact of the project were at the heart of new brainstorming sessions with the AnaEE coordination, so prepare the transition from PP to POP and set an ambitious vision for the RI as solution to global challenges and a valuable partner in innovative industrial partnerships.
Potential Impact:
WP2: Implementing the ANAEE vision
The Vision document and the description of the services to be provided by the supra-national entities of AnaEE have been the building blocks of the communication of AnaEE towards the scientific community, the institutional science managers and to a lesser extent so far, the industrial stakeholders.
These documents, completed by outputs of other work packages (platforms identification, governance, funding ...) composed the roadmap of AnaEE to implement the infrastructure during the Pre-Operational Phase and Running phase. It is during the running phase that the societal impact of the project, and in particular of WP2 will become significant.
WP3: ANAEE Technical Development Plan
The technical Development Plan and roadmap for ANAEE provides a strong basis for developing a coherent and complementary infrastructure with combinations of ecosystem/pressure/climate zones. For Open Air platforms this demonstrates:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 1).
• Warming and precipitation/hydrological changes dominate among the climate-related gaps in combinations (missing in 18 combinations).
• Olid basis for Elevated CO2 is better covered and is only missing in 3 combinations (Humid Oceanic forests and Mediterranean forests and grasslands).
• Pests (missing in 12 combinations), habitat fragmentation (missing in 10 combinations) and biodiversity loss (missing 10 combinations) are the clearest gaps in current coverage.
• The pressure categories UV, soil eutrophication, desertification and management are not missing at all.
And for Enclosed platforms this demonstrates:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 4).
• Wetland and river ecosystems are least represented currently, most wetland and river platforms (or planned platforms) are currently in the humid oceanic climate zone
• A multitude of important combinations is not covered by any platform in both the Mediterranean and the humid continental climate zone
• Fire, desertification, habitat fragmentation, soil erosion and GMO pressure are relatively underrepresented in the current platform selection
WP4: Access to ANAEE infrastructure and data and links with the wider community
WP4 has been developing the frameworks for how intellectual property, data and computational modelling will be managed in AnaEE. The framework and draft proposals for an intellectual property policy take into account the contributions that the research sponsor, the research project leader and the platform owners make to a project. It will be important for the potential economic impact of the project that each partner has a clearly articulated stake in the IP as this will facilitate collaboration among both academic and commercial users.
The work on data sharing policies and the proposals for the use of standards for capturing suitable metadata are all essential components for achieving impact from AnaEE. High standards of both quality and accessibility are required of the data from AnaEE to ensure that it becomes a trusted delivery partner for all the potential users. High quality data services and a strong technical and scientific reputation are also important to attract the best projects and the best platforms to become part of AnaEE. National agencies supporting AnaEE will also have expectations that the data access policies comply with national and international standards and expectations of open access. As these aspects of AnaEE operations have been developed by WP4 (with others) these have fed in to the definition of the role of the Service Centres – particularly the Data and Modelling Centre.
WP4 (and WP3) have been addressing how mathematical and computational models can provide added value to AnaEE and stakeholders. While WP4 has largely been concerned with how the use of standards can make data and models interoperate more effectively, the end purpose of this is to make the adoption and uptake of modelling more straightforward for users. Models are often the end product of ecosystem research and the use of models to forecast changes to ecosystems as a result of climate change and land use provide major mechanisms for realising impact – social and economic. Models can also have an impact through supporting the needs of policy makers to ask what-if questions and explore the ongoing and future impact of policy on ecosystems.
Access to data and analytical tools will also have an impact through their use by educators who need well-developed datasets as part of their teaching materials to train the next generation of quantitative ecosystem science researchers and engineers. AnaEE also considers that impact in education and training an important part of its role.
WP5: Innovation
WP5 main task was to evaluate the impact of AnaEE on industry and the economy in general. In particular, WP5 described which quality standards should be adopted by each experimental facility in order to generate reliable, replicable information for the benefit of external shareholders. WP5 also dealt with the forms to convey that information to industry, decision- makers communities and society at large.
The early activity of WP5 did focus on identifying the stakeholders, their needs and their communication tools. WP5 issued or coordinated three deliverables:
• D2.1 (the Vision document) includes in PART III a Stakeholders’ survey, involving 117 respondents to 22 questions out of 561 contacts. The Survey was conducted by WP5.
• D5.1 is a Map of standard agencies and leading standards. Its primary purpose is to identify the standards and the languages AnaEE should use to communicate result to non -scientists. The third deliverable,
• D5.2. (Quality Vision and Mission) is a definition the quality assurance principles that should guide the issuance of data, and of its interpretations.
In addition, WP5 has been assigned a new task: organize the collection and analysis of data provided by facilities in response to the call for expression of interest according to system engineering practices. A deliverable D5.5. Key Criteria for Site selection process was delivered in January 2015.
In order to implement its vision, WP5 tried to identify and generate genuine consensus on the managerial tools, and the organization that will provide long term resilience to AnaEE. In particular:
• In October 2013, at the first Stakeholders meeting in Venetia, the AnaEE Scientific Advisory Board (ISAAB) emphasized the complexity of AnaEE distributed infrastructure and invited AnaEE to employ organizational tools such as SYSTEM ENGINEERING to handle it. As a result, a new Task 5.6. was assigned to WP5.
• Meanwhile WP5 organized the dataflow from Facilities applying to the Call for Expression of Interest within an MCDA framework (Multi Criteria Decision Analysis). Main purpose of the MCDA exercise was to provide AnaEE with convincing arguments to direct the allocation of resources provided by National Authorities.
• In October 2014, at a Workshop on data quality in Antwerp, Werner Kutsch described the rich infrastructure needed to manage data at ICOS. Similar level of complexity may be expected at AnaEE, both in the area of naked data and in the area of elaborations and interpretations, supporting decision makers.
During the period from 2013 to 2016, WP5 has contributed four building blocks to the AnaEE construction:
• System engineering techniques and industrial management approach, following the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Board;
• Ecosystem Services Accounting and Natural Capital Accounting as means to communicate scientific syntheses to administrators and policy makers;
• Advanced data processing to manage and analyze over 180 platform applications in response to the call for expressions of interest (in cooperation with WP3), and techniques that will enable qualitative decision processes;
• Anticipation techniques and foresight methods, as ways to approach technology transfer and support decision processes by the Centers for Technology, Data and Modelling, and Interface and Synthesis.
It is important to remind that, according to a recent study on cost-benefit analysis of large research infrastructures , there are four classes of contributions direct to users: knowledge output (to scientists), human capital development (to students and young researchers), technological spillovers (to firms), and cultural effects (to society at large).
In the case of AnaEE, each contribution represents a form of technology transfer, although it may not be managed as such within the organization. In addition to benefits offered by infrastructures dealing with theoretical research, AnaEE displays two more positive effects: (i) it facilitates evidence-based decisions by policy makers about the use of ecosystem services; (ii) it provides industry with fact-based validation of innovations meant to reduce exploitation of ecosystem services, and to mitigate the impact of global change on human activities. In both cases, decisions informed by knowledge developed at AnaEE will ultimately lead to increased protection of the environment.
As known, AnaEE will be a research infrastructure for experimental manipulation of managed and unmanaged terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It will strongly support scientists in their analysis, assessment and forecasting of the impact of climate and other global changes on the services that ecosystems provide to society. In this context, WP5 will stimulate the achievement of AnaEE mission by supporting building permanent and substantial links among researchers, science managers, policy makers, public and private sector innovators, and citizens. Managing the multiplicity of relationships generated by those activities requires a flexible approach, particularly in the framework of a research infrastructure minutely spread over a whole continent.
WP5 also contributed significantly to the D 8.6 focuses on the marketing and communications strategy corresponding to the construction phase of ANAEE. WP 5, in close cooperation with WP2, WP6, WP7 and WP8, proposed the setting up of marketing and communications materials and tools, in order to increase and reinforce the visibility of AnaEE’s scientific excellence, highlighting the competitive advantage of AnaEE research centers and services to stimulate new research and innovation opportunities.
WP6: Legal and Governance
WP6 has worked closely with other project partners to ensure maximum potential impact as part of the wider aims and objectives of AnaEE. The potential impacts of AnaEE are documented in the AnaEE Business Plan due to be published and the summary of the Business Plan already published.
The key impact specific to WP6 is that the interim governance and long-term governance strategy developed will be essential to ensuring AnaEE can operate as a sustainable distributed research infrastructure and provide its services as effectively as possible.
WP6 has contributed to many dissemination activities including the monthly newsletter, responding to surveys, drafting of AnaEE publications e.g. leaflets and presenting on AnaEE to external audiences.
WP7: Financial and human resource planning
A sustainable funding model is a fundamental backbone for a successful, operational RI. WP7 worked towards this aim by designing several options with which the implications of selection of final funding model were possible to compare, and the final outcome was validated by PP partners as well as by the Shareholders of the PP. The impact of the sustainable funding model of AnaEE will be seen in the greater visibility of national platforms and their improved functioning as part of AnaEE ERIC. Economic and societal implications include advanced European-wide employment possibilities for trained experts in experimental ecosystem research and potential novel innovations and opportunities for SMEs specialized e.g. in observations, collection and storage of data from experiments.
The AnaEE Business model is the main dissemination tool and a central asset for creating a well-known brand from the AnaEE ERIC. Being one of the first in its category, it is also benchmarking the Business model concept for other research infrastructures which are underway and still developing their approach.
WP8: Communication, Networking, education and training
Communications plays a strategic role in setting into motion an ambitious vision for the AnaEE RI as a valuable partner in designing innovative solutions to face climate change. A vast array of traditional communication tools support the strategy in place (to be expanded upon as AnaEE transitions into its Pre-operational Phase). The Communications team will strive to seek out further ways of engaging new and existing users.
The crux of AnaEE’s dissemination activities at the national, regional, European and international levels lies in representing AnaEE at scientific conferences and relaying information on its proprietary website. Key tools – such as the quarterly newsletter – were also developed as a proactive communications and strategic thinking platforms. Pre-existing elements (the AnaEE PowerPoint presentation and leaflet notably) are widely disseminated as part of an intense conference attendance strategy (ICRI, AGU, EGU...) and further cross-cutting events (D 8.1 & 3).
The ecosystems research mailing list (2500 members) is also called upon to share news beyond the AnaEE network, to reinforce cohesiveness with other RIs worldwide. Through AnaEE’s online presence, extensive information is provided to external audiences in a way both accessible and visible by everyone and the 140 members of the AnaEE LinkedIn group of scientists, funding bodies, private sector and other stakeholders in particular (D 8.2 & 3). Additional concepts and innovative tools were eventually identified as part of a prospective vision for the AnaEE communications and marketing strategy. The goal was to effectively reflect on AnaEE’s medium to long-term impact for its stakeholders, expanding on the results of ongoing planning efforts and expanding the proposed outreach (D 8.6).
Educational activities and tools came first in line of these stakeholder engagement efforts. Indeed, an online training tool intended for school children and the broader public was produced thanks to the feedback shared by all partners (D 8.4). In order to expand on the latter and effectively increase integration between the AnaEE infrastructure and higher education programs, a plan was established regarding AnaEE’s higher education activities and training (D 8.5). The goal was to jointly increase knowledge and understanding of the role and importance of ecosystems research and of AnaEE as a key player in carrying out research projects at the European level. A series of training activities will be set up and delivered for different target groups, notably school children, teachers and the general public, but also for policy-makers at national and regional levels.
Finally, articular attention was paid to engaging innovative partnerships between AnaEE users and stakeholders, noticeably amongst small and medium-sized businesses, industries and decision-makers in general (D 8.3). There lies the condition for AnaEE to attract end-users far and wide, as they are instrumental in the AnaEE infrastructure’s ultimate capacity to provide its global community with new services and solutions. Communications would effectively activate the AnaEE brand as an international flagship for scientific probity and excellence (D 8.6). The aim is also to establish AnaEE as a benchmark and key ally for industries looking to develop innovative technologies and solutions for the global Greentech market (D 8. 1 & 3).
Communications will strive to demonstrate how co-designed and co-developed experimental projects could significantly reduce exposure to risk and advance socio-ecological-economic resilience, by providing (i) explicit decision-space and uncertainty estimates for (ecological) processes affected by climate change, (ii) comparative capability, (iii) diverse modeling platforms and tools for ecological forecasting and (iv), effective information flow management and common standards. Bearing in mind intellectual property rights and sovereignty issues inevitably arise from working across geopolitical borders, it will also belong to the Communications team to leverage its pan-European nature and the diversity of its stakeholder community to spark such collaborations.
List of Websites:
http://www.anaee.com/
WP2: A survey of AnaEE potential stakeholder characteristics and expectations was conducted and the services AnaEE should deliver were listed at workshops with all AnaEE participants. An AnaEE Vision document was produced, the basis for the AnaEE communication tools. Sustained interactions between WP2 and the other work packages allowed mutual feeding and a coherent overall development of the various aspects of AnaEE. In order to launch a call for the nations that would host the supra-national entities, the objectives, tasks, organisation and personnel of the Hub and the three Service Centres (Technology, Data&Modeling, Interface &Synthesis) were detailed. Finally, the AnaEE Strategic Plan and Integrated Roadmap were written for an immediate efficient start of the Pre-Operational Phase which will lead to the signature of the ERIC and the long-term running of AnaEE.
WP3 provided analyses and documentation based on a dialogue and discussion with the scientific community and stakeholders. A multidimensional matrix of drivers, platforms and responses was used to identify the infrastructure requisites and requirements. This was chosen to ensure that the European infrastructure spans a necessary range in types of ecosystems, soils, land management, land use and climate as well as cross-ecosystem interactions. Workshops involving users and stakeholders of ecosystem research together with scientist from key disciplines identified, in coordination with WP2, key research questions (drivers, pressures and responses), services and structure needed from ANAEE within different regions/countries and how the infrastructure can provide most optimal and efficient facilities to address scientific questions and service needs within key areas on the short and the long term. Survey of existing ecosystem research infrastructures – identification of gaps Major and significant existing experimental facilities at the national and European level as well as outside Europe were examined and used to define and optimize requirements and guideline for the ANAEE infrastructure. A focus was made particularly on the experimental service provision, interdisciplinary integration and distribution of results, to ensure high quality and development of experiments as well as significant added value from the integration with projects and different experimental and modelling facilities and approaches. Development plan for the construction and implementation of ANAEE Technical document on construction and development highlighting coordination and development of existing and construction of new infrastructures to implement ANAEE in the construction phase.
WP4 has delivered an analysis of stakeholder requirements using input from the research community and policy frameworks for: how intellectual property will be managed; how access to the different platforms and to the data they generate will be organised using the best practises in data sharing; for how the quality of data will be managed; how computational models and associated simulation datasets can be made interoperable with experimental data. Finally, WP4 proposes a plan for organisation of data services as a basis for future operation of the Data and Modelling Centre.
WP5 deals with Innovation and the impact on industry and the economy of AnaEE activities and services. In particular, the WP has outlined the organization, competencies and contractual means whereby knowledge produced inside the AnaEE organization may be beneficial to a vast array of stakeholders. These include: environmental scientists, policy makers, business and ecosystems. In the last year the WP also contributed to the elaboration of the AnaEE business plan and the marketing and communication strategy of AnaEE construction phase.
WP6: Following the end of the Preparatory Phase, AnaEE will enter the Pre-operational Phase to further enable development and implementation. The governance for this phase will be aligned to the long-term framework for AnaEE which will take on the form of an ERIC (European Research Infrastructures Consortium). The ERIC will come into effect once statutes are finalised and signed by at least five countries.
WP7 worked on the financial planning and human resources of the AnaEE ERIC. We developed the cost calculations, principles for ERIC funding including host and member contributions, and the Business sustainability plan. The funding principles were consolidated with the consortium and the shareholders. Staffing and human resources planning for the centers were considered over both the pre-operational and operational phases.
WP8: As of 2013, a Communication Plan was designed to outline AnaEE goals, target audiences, key messages, tools, activities, timelines and human and financial resources. Tasks 8.1 to 8.5 involved updating the AnaEE website and representing the RI at international conferences. Special attention was given to the lobbying aspect of the overarching project goals, as well as defining Higher Education, Communications and Marketing strategies for future operations.
Project Context and Objectives:
The sustainability of agricultural, forested, freshwater and other ecosystems is under threat due to climate change, loss of biodiversity, disturbance of biogeochemical cycles and land use changes. In order to meet the challenges of preserving or improving ecosystem services, securing food supply and building a 21 century bioeconomy, we need to understand and forecast how ecosystems will respond to these changes.
AnaEE is a research infrastructure for experimental manipulation of managed and unmanaged terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It will strongly support scientists in their analysis, assessment and forecasting of the impact of climate and other global changes on the services that ecosystems provide to society.
AnaEE will support European scientists and policymakers to develop solutions to the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability, with the aim of stimulating the growth of a vibrant bioeconomy. AnaEE will accomplish this mission by building permanent and substantial links among researchers, science managers, policy makers, public and private sector innovators, and citizens.
Project Results:
Task 2.1 The Vision of AnaEE Services (deliverable 2.1)
A Vision document has been produced which describes the environmental and societal context of AnaEE and the challenges AnaEE is addressing. The AnaEE infrastructure allows to address these challenges through experimentation on ecosystems in order to predict the impact of global changes (figure 1).
The AnaEE will adopt an experimental approach built around Manipulation, Measurements, Modelling, Mitigation and Management (figure 2).
The AnaEE stakeholders and the services to be provided have been identified: Stakeholders are i) scientists (researchers, technicians, students), ii) national and European policy makers, iii) educators, iii) business, iv) society at large (NGO and citizens). Services are: a) access to infrastructures, b) harmonisation, c) data access, d) modelling, e) development of front edge techniques, f) analytical services, g) science development and integration, h) promoting interaction of users groups, i) general coordination. The added values of AnaEE for each of these services will be achieved through tools organized at supra national levels.
Task 2.2 Tools and Integration of AnaEE Components and Services (deliverable 2.2)
The scheme of AnaEE has been defined. The distributed national platforms are the fundamental building blocks of AnaEE. Four types of complementary platforms will compose the distributed part of AnaEE: 1. Open-air platforms that host well designed in-situ experiments. 2. Enclosed experiments platforms such as Ecotrons. 3. Analytical platforms that provide novel techniques and high-tech equipment 4. Modelling platforms that specialize in models building and in simulation.
However, the raison d’être of AnaEE is to provide added value to the scientists and other stakeholders using these platforms through services best or uniquely developed and delivered jointly at a supra-national level. These services aim at developing the visibility and optimum international use of the platforms, improving their technological and experimental capacities, enhancing the quality, accessibility and integration of the data, stimulating modelling activities, organising training, interfacing various stakeholders and delivering scientific syntheses (Figure 3). These services will be organised by 3 Service Centres and the Central Hub. The Hub, beside the management of the infrastructure, will run the AnaEE web portal which will promote the international access to the platforms and to AnaEE services and data. A Technology Centre will organise procedures harmonisation and technological development. A Data and Modelling Centre will manage access to data and stimulate modelling activities. Finally, an Interface and Synthesis Centre will promote foresight and transfer activities and deliver scientific syntheses. The activities of these Hub and Centres, coordinated by AnaEE appointed officers, will involve leading scientists and platforms engineers.
Task 2.3 Implementing the vision in the process (deliverable 2.3)
A report of the implementation recommendation was produced with contribution of all WP leaders. The feedback from the WP influence the further fine-tuning of the AnaEE vision, especially for the supranational structures to integrate the roles currently played by each WP (e.g. data management, technology transfer, funding and human resource).
Task 2.4 the AnaEE Strategic Plan and Integrated Roadmap (deliverable 2.4)
The supra-national entities of AnaEE (the Central Hub and the Service Centres) have been defined and thoroughly described in term of objectives, tasks, organisation and personnel. This description has been a central document for the launching of the call for countries to host these supra-national entities (summer 2016 for the Hub and fall 2016 for the Service Centres).
The recommendations for the follow-up of the Preparatory Phase (Pre-Operational Phase and Operational Phase) as stated by the various work packages, and which should be integrated in the implementation of the roadmap, have been recalled.
Finally, the immediate organisation of the Pre Operational Phase (which will lead to the signature of the ERIC legal status and the Running Operational Phase of AnaEE) as well as the timing of its milestones has been given.
WP3: ANAEE Technical Development Plan
The experimental dimension of AnaEE is essential and what makes AnaEE unique and complementary to any other research infrastructure in the ecosystem science domain, since it can reveal the mechanisms that underlie changes in ecosystem functioning in a way that cannot be understood by long term monitoring alone. However, to achieve its goal to build a world-class capacity in ecosystem science through state-of-the-art facilities, infrastructure with a clear identity and services at the highest level of excellence are needed. The platform and facility selection process is crucial in building that identity, since it determines the level of excellence and ultimately what kind of services AnaEE will provide, and therefore which users will be interested in using AnaEE. A Call for Expression of Interest was launched in June 2014 with the aim to identify platforms that can be part of AnaEE, as well as to identify optimal infrastructures. This allows AnaEE to offer state of the art technical and flexible solutions to manipulate the various drivers and monitor the resulting impacts. Only as such can AnaEE lift the experimental services in ecosystem science to a new level.
After the call for expression of interest, the corresponding focal point meeting in Copenhagen (November 2015) initiated a feedback process between AnaEE and the local platform owners. The feedback process clarified open issues regarding technical capabilities of the platforms and identified which investments are needed for platforms to be included in the AnaEE infrastructure. It also provided information on the current funding status for upgrade investments. The feedback process resulted in the definition of the final technical criteria for the experimental platforms. The AnaEE enclosed (formerly called in vitro) platform criteria remained unchanged after the feedback process with the focal points, while adjustments were made to the final criteria for open-air (formerly called in natura) platforms. In particular, regarding the initial criterion on obligatory climate change pressures, several national focal points expressed that it was too narrow/unbalanced compared to other important global change pressures.
Modelling and analytical platforms are equally important components to a successful AnaEE-infrastructure. The procedure for ensuring that the best analytical and modelling platforms will take part in AnaEE differed from that for experimental platforms, due to the unique and service supporting character of these facilities. In AnaEE, modelling services will be provided by distributed modelling platforms. Modelling platforms exist in two forms: modelling solution platforms and model factories. Both are used to exploit mathematical models to test and develop our understanding of the complex quantitative relationships between processes within ecosystems, the interactions with their environments, and their functioning and behavior under various pressures. Modelling solution platforms are implemented as self-contained software solutions that model specific aspects of ecosystem functioning and are centered on a well-established and supported model development team with a strong community of users. A model factory is a software platform with advanced and well-established facilities providing users access to general and extensible modelling resources. Key criteria for modelling platforms were developed in cooperation with the focal points.
Analytical platforms represent a specific group of platforms within AnaEE. Their main objective is to provide services to support the experimental ecosystem research, bringing added value to the AnaEE community. These services must be unique and otherwise unavailable to most experimental platforms. Uniqueness means that analytical platforms are equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation and use cutting edge methodologies with highest accuracy. Platforms should preferably provide integration of several analytical methods on one place or in one measuring process. Minimum criteria will be defined in a later stage for individual services selected according to relevance and availability by asking experts in individual scientific areas to define e.g. minimum resolution, spectral range, limit of detection etc. with the aim to ensure excellent level of services for the whole AnaEE community. Final criteria will be developed in close cooperation with the focal points and the platform owners.
Results – Open Air platforms
The analysis showed that the Open Air platforms suggested by the countries after the final criteria were set covered a total of 180 different currently existing installations with 57% of these installations in Forest and Agricultural platforms and another 15% in grassland ecosystems. The overall higher representation of these three ecosystem types compared to the remaining ones may be warranted by the direct ecosystem services they provide to society in terms of food and fiber. When inspecting the distribution of installations individually for the four climatic zones, the humid oceanic, humid continental and subarctic climatic zones still have installations within all seven ecosystem types, whereas wetland, rivers and lakes are missing from the Mediterranean climate zone. AnaEE should therefore pursue in particular to have these ecosystem types covered in this climatic zone as more countries potentially may join AnaEE after the end of the preparatory phase. According to the expert scores, the primary needs for pressures to be offered by such platforms should furthermore be prioritized towards especially warming, precipitation and hydrological changes, eutrophication and pests as well as biodiversity loss.
In terms of coverage of different pressures overall across climatic zones and ecosystem types, management is the most commonly applied pressure. However, it also covers a wide range of different types of management including e.g. grazing, tillage, fertilization, conventional vs. organic farming and crop rotation. Still, it does reflect that agrosystems are the dominant ecosystem type covered by the proposed platforms across all countries. The climate change related pressures (precipitation and hydrological change, warming and elevated CO2) are represented in all climatic zones but warming and elevated CO2 are offered at few platforms especially in the Mediterranean.
The detailed analysis of combinations of ecosystems/pressures/climate zones may be used to guide national focal points in their efforts to ensure the highest possible scientific relevance as well as complementarity of their national platforms within the Pan-European landscape. The analysis revealed that only 5 of the 71 missing important ecosystem/pressure/climatic zone combinations were covered by the current planned upgrades among the platform owners highlighting the need for a Pan-European coordination of infrastructure development if these gaps are to be better filled in the future. Similarly, even when including future planned pressures there are still 70 ecosystem/pressure/climatic zone combinations with above average importance, which are being addressed at only 1-2 platforms within each climatic zone, i.e. a low number platforms.
The analysis of currently existing and planned future combinations of ecosystem/pressure/climate zone therefore shows:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 1).
• Warming and precipitation/hydrological changes dominate among the climate-related gaps in combinations (missing in 18 combinations)
• Elevated CO2 is better covered and is only missing in 3 combinations (Humid Oceanic forests and Mediterranean forests and grasslands).
• Pests (missing in 12 combinations), habitat fragmentation (missing in 10 combinations) and biodiversity loss (missing 10 combinations) are the clearest gaps in current coverage.
The pressure categories UV, soil eutrophication, desertification and management are not missing at all.
Results – Enclosed platforms
Of the 28 platforms, 15 are situated in the humid oceanic, 6 in the (sub-)arctic, 4 in the humid continental and 3 in the Mediterranean climate zone. The results for enclosed platforms include both planned and existing platforms facilities.
The analysis showed that the 28 enclosed platforms in total covered 64 potential installations across different ecosystems (about 2 ecosystems per platform on average). 25% of the platforms covered agricultural ecosystems and 20% covered grassland ecosystems. 17% covered lakes, 16% covered shrublands (see Figure 4). When inspecting the distribution of installations individually for the four climatic zones, the humid oceanic climate zone has most of the installations, but lacks forest installations. Other terrestrial and lake ecosystems are well represented, river installations are rare. In the humid continental climate zone, wetland and river installations are lacking. In the Mediterranean, no forest, river and wetland platforms are present. In the (sub)arctic, all ecosystem types are represented, though aquatic facilities only have one platform for every ecosystem type. AnaEE will pursue in particular to have the underrepresented ecosystem types in future or upgraded platforms, as other countries potentially may join AnaEE after the end of the preparatory phase. According to the expert scores, the primary needs for pressures to be offered by such platforms should furthermore be prioritized towards especially warming, precipitation and hydrological changes, eutrophication and pests as well as biodiversity loss (see Table 2). Overall, climate zone location is in principle less important for enclosed ecosystems, since climate can potentially be manipulated within the platform. However, many enclosed systems are sunlit, which makes it difficult to simulate light intensities and daylengths of other latitudes. For this reason, similar European coverage is basically needed as with Open Air platforms. In general, river and wetland platforms are least represented in the current platform selection.
In terms of coverage of different pressures overall across climatic zones and ecosystem types (Table 3), warming is the most commonly applied pressure. In general, there is a broad cover of all major pressures except fire and desertification. Also habitat fragmentation, soil erosion and GMO pressure are relatively underrepresented. There are no facilities that cover hydrological changes in any ecosystem type in the humid continental climate. The same applies to soil erosion and fire in the Mediterranean and fire in (sub-)arctic.
From this analysis, it is clear that most important gaps exist for the Mediterranean and the humid continental climates, where a multitude of important combinations is now not covered by any facility. The large representation of humid oceanic facilities is reflected in the low amount of uncovered, relevant combinations, except for forest ecosystems. The same applies for subarctic facilities, where only 5 of the most relevant combinations are currently missing.
The analysis of currently existing and planned future combinations of ecosystem/pressure/climate zone shows:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 4).
• Wetland and river ecosystems are least represented currently, most wetland and river platforms (or planned platforms) are currently in the humid oceanic climate zone
• A multitude of important combinations is not covered by any platform in both the Mediterranean and the humid continental climate zone
• Fire, desertification, habitat fragmentation, soil erosion and GMO pressure are relatively underrepresented in the current platform selection
Results – modelling platforms
While terrestrial ecosystems are well covered by suggested models, there is a big lack for modelling the aquatic ecosystems. This lack needs to be compensated and we asked focal points and aquatic experimental site managers for suggesting some potential model platform candidates. There are also some other weaknesses that should be strengthened during the AnaEE implementation phase. These are:
• 3D representation at all levels (compartment to the ecosystem) is lacking.
• In most cases soil chemistry in the models is limited to the carbon/nitrogen cycles and should be extended to wider range of chemical components
• There are no real landscape models offering a comprehensive representation of the lateral energy, mass or gene flows between landscape components.
• Animal/plant interactions and in general processes dealing with interactions between animal and plant communities are poorly represented (only in the project of biodiversity modelling platform).
• A modelling factory dedicated to forests is missing.
We can also notice that agrosystems are represented by many platforms and some redundancies might occur. It would be wise to have a strong coordination between BIOMA, Vsoil and RECORD MF and maximize synergies and complementary services offered by other platforms (Ensembler Crop Modelling platforms, GHG).
It is worth noting that the models used by the experimental platform are very diverse (48 identified models and 18 own model developments). With the exception of the Coup model (cited 9 times), the other AMP are never cited more than 2 times. A survey to collect the experimental platform owner feedback on the 9 AMP is recommended.
Results – Analytical platforms
According to this results it seems that most valuable services for AnaEE community are trace gas analyses (PTR/MS, GC/MS), remote sensing services (hyperspectral and thermal imaging, LiDAR), isotope discrimination services iRMS, soil microbiology (qPCR, enzymatic activity), metabolomics (particularly LC/HRMS) and genomics (mass sequencing, flow cytometry, real time qPCR).
After the formation of the experimental platforms (both Open Air and Enclosed) within AnaEE the necessary step will be the quantification of needs for analytical services and gap analysis in order to identify potential needs for extending number of analytical platforms providing some specific services.
WP4: Access to ANAEE infrastructure and data and links with the wider community
In the first deliverable of WP4 (D4.1 “Access Requirements for General and Policy Users “) the outcome was reported from an online survey that was developed to capture information on the usage and access requirements from stakeholders in the agro-ecological sciences. The scientific community was identified as being the group most likely to have the largest interest and experience of ecosystem data/information and was thus targeted in the initial phase of information gathering, with a view to further refinement of the survey for other stakeholder groups. The information gathered from the survey and subsequent discussions with other stakeholder groups provided valuable insights into the challenges that the community faced over data access and this influenced the development of both policies relating to data and platform access (D4.3) and the priority areas that should be addressed in the implementation phase by AnaEE Service Centres when anticipating a wider community of users.
Results from the survey showed that the majority of ecosystem data/information sources used come from agricultural and temperate forest systems. Most researchers rely on existing academic collaborations to access datasets, with only 50% being able to make use of open access data resources. Multiple sources of data, including data from models, are important for many users but this can lead to significant challenges when integrating data. Problems encountered during data integration include inconsistency of experimental methods, incompatible temporal or spatial resolution, poor quality or missing metadata, inconsistent data definitions, and complex access permissions. Furthermore, most data standards are informal guidelines and there is a recognised shortage of meta-data and poor coverage by existing meta-data standards. The most important obstacles that users encounter when accessing agro-ecosystems data are in decreasing order of importance: knowing where to look, intellectual property and licensing issues, unsuitable data formats, financial cost, and poorly constructed websites.
Deliverable D4.2 sets out the AnaEE “Intellectual Property Framework” This document describes an approach to managing Intellectual Property within AnaEE which takes into account the need for AnaEE to foster the free-flow of data, ideas and knowhow among partners and stakeholders. It acknowledges the fact that while the IP framework must protect the rights of the AnaEE partners, this must not undermine the wider objectives of AnaEE as a research infrastructure which expects to receive most of its funding from the public purse through national research agencies whose remit will be to support research for public good. An IP framework is proposed based on the central role of the AnaEE Hub. The key elements include: that IP Rights will be maintained by generating parties; The AnaEE Central hub will be given widest possible rights to manage and license to third parties; owners and generators of IP should have priority access for use within the AnaEE partnership but would require licenses to use data for purposes involving external partners; use by third parties would be under clear terms with standard licenses for not-for-profit use (e.g. based on Creative Commons models preferred - see also D4.3). Use by for-profit organisations (industry) should be negotiated on a case-by-case basis by the Central Hub. No exclusive licenses would be granted; revenues generated by third-party use will be held by the Central Hub and used for the benefit of the Project; all publications by third-parties must acknowledge AnaEE and the party(s) generating the IP supplied to the third-party.
In Deliverable D4.3 a policy is proposed for how access to data (through the Central Hub and Data and Modelling Centre) and the research and analytical platforms will be supported. The nature of the different platforms within AnaEE means that there will be a variety of access mechanisms available to AnaEE users. Physical access will allow a user to visit the platform and set-up an experiment or collect samples themselves (with help). Remote access allows the user to request experiments or experimental services to be conducted on their behalf and Virtual access permits access to data or models or supporting information. The policy sets out a framework for management of platform capacity and the role of the Central Hub as management focus for this activity. Access to experimental platforms on most occasions is expected to go via the Central Hub using a transparent and open process intended to be as supportive as possible towards reaching the optimal experimental design taking into consideration both cost and delivery of maximum scientific impact.
As a Research Infrastructure supported by European national public research funding agencies, AnaEE will comply with the recently published Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data. This means ensuring that data collected on AnaEE platforms is made accessible as quickly as possible to potential users following any necessary steps to ensure research quality and to protect the rights of investigators to interpret project data and secure any potential intellectual policy. The Data and Modelling Centre will play a central role in managing the access to data and will maintain metadata catalogues and oversee the development of Data Management Plans and associated data access processes. Access mechanisms and Data Management Plans will respect the different release schedules needed for baseline data sets collected routinely, especially by open-air experimental platforms and project-specific data where investigators will need time to analyse and interpret results before they are made openly accessible.
It is recommended that AnaEE follows best practices in Open Access licensing and use standard CreativeCommons licenses. Given the role of AnaEE and its role as a publicly-funded research infrastructure the recommendation from WP4 and WP6 is that the CC3 (CC BY-NC-SA) would be the most appropriate license for the majority of data products. This does not, however, prevent other licenses to be use when the data are being used for non-research purposes. It is recommended that a subset of CC licenses will be selected that are most likely to be relevant to AnaEE to help simplify discussions for all stakeholders. AnaEE will be committed to promoting best practises in the open scientific data community and will facilitate this by supporting the deposition of partial or complete datasets from AnaEE platforms and projects in a publicly accessible repository. Data depositions will be accompanied by suitable metadata for automated data discovery and will use DOIs or similar emerging standards for persistent identifiers to provide permanently citable references to the datasets.
It is important to the success of AnaEE, that users recognise it as an RI with high standards of data and metadata quality. As a distributed research infrastructure, with many different platforms locations and types, it is important that there is a clear plan for, and commitment to, the management of data quality throughout and that responsibilities for quality assurance are clear. It is well recognised that there are multiple facets to the concept of data quality and each needs to be addressed by AnaEE. In deliverable D4.4 the “AnaEE Quality Framework for Data and Metadata”, the different aspects of data quality are identified and the reference model developed by the ENVRI and ENVRI-plus projects is used as a framework to structure the quality assurance processes that will be needed. In particular, the deliverable report provides a provisional mapping of the different quality assurance processes and the actors who should expect to have responsibility for these processes.
A very large number of mathematical and computational models have been developed in the agricultural and ecosystems research community and these play an important role in the both research methodology and the translation of research into practise. The number of different models, the range of technical implementations and their relevance to different aspects of ecosystem function, however, pose a challenge to users looking for the most appropriate modelling tool for any given question. Deliverable D4.5 “Models and Simulation Data Sharing” catalogues the range of models that are potentially relevant to AnaEE using the responses to questions that were in the calls for expressions of interest to become AnaEE experimental and analytical platforms. The primary objective of the modelling support activities in the AnaEE Data and Modelling Centre will be to make it easier for users to find suitable models with relevant datasets and then, by providing access to interoperable models and data, make it easier for users to use these models for their research or to develop new resources such as data syntheses, decision support tools or novel data products.
The development and use of suitable metadata standards for agro-ecosystem models and simulation datasets that are derived from them will make an important contribution to making these assets discoverable by users or by software systems. Consistent metadata annotation across models and datasets will also help users and modellers to identify sources of data and models that can be integrated or should be interoperable. The deliverable identifies some key issue in the development of the meta-data descriptions surround ecosystem models; and in particular highlights the importance of distinguishing between the meta-data for the software that implements a model and the model description itself. A review of potentially relevant metadata standards showed that there is no single standard for meta-data for ecosystem models and related software and so links to relevant meta-data standards from other domains are provided as the basis for future development of a compositional meta-data approach using multiple meta-data source. These are summarised as recommendations that could be used by the Data and Modelling Centre.
Reliable and sustainable management of the data and information generated by AnaEE sites will play an essential role in the success of AnaEE, i.e. its contribution to generation of an ecological knowledge base for better decision-making in Europe. Deliverable D4.6 “Data Services Plan” proposes how data services will be provided throughout the AnaEE infrastructure. AnaEE sites and Service Centres will generate a wealth of diverse data and information products. Data generation will start mostly at the experimental sites, though modelling activities will also use and produce output datasets. It is essential that the data, whatever their origin, are accompanied with metadata, and that all processes leading to the final products be fully documented by the use of persistent identifiers. Datasets will go through successive versions and these also need to be unequivocally identified. Similarly, datasets have to be associated with scientists involved in their generation and transformation. It is proposed all data products be tagged by using one of the current researcher identification schemes (such as ORCID ID, Scopus Author Identifier, Researcher ID, etc.)
The Data and Modeling Center (DMC) will play a central role, but it will also be assisted by data management teams at the local AnaEE platforms. The DMC is mainly responsible for harmonizing data and metadata generated or collected by the national platforms or hubs. Two different schemes are being proposed as to the localization of the data and metadata. In both options, the metadata will be maintained at the DMC and will facilitate ‘one-stop’ data discovery and retrieval. The datasets can be both stored and served from the DMC, or they may reside at the local AnaEE sites. In the latter case, it is still important that a backup mechanism be provided for reliability and availability. Data quality control processes will involve several stages and the tasks need to be distributed between data originating sites and the DMC.
The implementation of the proposed data services during the construction phase will have at its disposition a wealth of technological options/schemes that are being currently tested in similar large-scale projects. The implementation of these services will benefit from a standardization of software toolkits across the AnaEE infrastructure. The DMC will design and distribute software to local sites in order to facilitate data, metadata and dataflow standards. Also, European initiatives such as EUDAT can provide much needed data storage and backup services.
WP5: Innovation
The mission of WP5 consists of identifying and preparing the tools and the organization required to make available the results of AnaEE scientific investigation to non-science stakeholders. For clarity, we can distinguish them into (a) AnaEE scientific investigation, (b) results, and (c) non-science stakeholders.
(a) AnaEE scientific investigation consists of experimental, analytical and modeling exercises performed according to AnaEE standards, at facilities that are part of the AnaEE infrastructure.
(b) Results are data in crude or aggregate format; they need to be stored and made available free of charge. Results may extend to interpretation and exposition in languages, formats, or standards that make them usable by the intended audience. Results also include improvements, techniques and tools (hard and soft) supporting stakeholders’ concerns and activities, or providing answers to stakeholders’ problems. The choice of standards and interpretations should be consistent with that of complementary European Infrastructures (such as ICOS and LifeWatch).
(c) Non-Science stakeholders include agriculture, industry, educators, policy makers, and the civil society at large. Stakeholders may be local or global. Examples of local Stakeholders are SMEs, Regional Governments, and Educational institutions physically located in the neighbourhood of one or another AnaEE facility. Examples of Global Stakeholders are Multinational Corporations, the European Commission, a National Research Institution, and Agencies studying or protecting the Environment.
In the light of the above, the first task of WP 5 - Innovation was to perform a survey of the leading international standards of environmental experimentation, by surveying the agencies that issue and maintain them. The survey led to interesting results.
The WP5 Standards Report described more than 90 such organizations. Hence, rather than developing new standards, AnaEE should adopt established standards and best practices used by existing agencies and projects. In this regards, it can have been identified 6 recognizable levels of activity: i) measurement, ii) experiment setup, iii) data, vi) metadata and data analysis, v) modelling, vi) and interpretation. Each level has produced its own distinctive standards and best practices. However, standards are not equally developed across all activities. In particular, a survey conducted among 70 AnaEE researchers did show that consensus on common standards is strong in the design and execution of experiments, and weak in the analysis and interpretation of results.
Therefore AnaEE should adopt existing standards and best practices in the activities upstream (conducting experiments), while establishing its own standards in the activities downstream (interpreting results and their impact).
Results of the Standards Report were then used to feed into the AnaEE Report on Quality Policy, Vision and Mission (Deliverable 5.2). The Quality Report was discussed and finalized during a roundtable conducted by AnaEE with the participation of data generators and data users.
Its outcome was a set of guidelines addressing in particular (i) Data Access Policy (being a publicly funded institution, AnaEE data should be open, accessible and free of charge) (ii) Data Quality Standards, (iii) Data Management, and (iv) the promotion of all forms of knowledge transfer, as described in the next section, “Potential Impact”.
Specifically, the Quality Policy defined minimal requirements for an experiment to be AnaEE compliant. An “AnaEE Label” is considered a sort of certificate of compliance awarded to experiments and data that are conducted according to AnaEE quality standards.
However, AnaEE output is not limited to experimental results, which will mainly be used by external researchers to generate scientific literature. AnaEE output also includes interpretations, reports supporting decisions taken by policy makers, validation of products and services, and other forms of knowledge transfer to industry. These formats will require elaboration and interpretation of data and results (either by AnaEE in-house researchers or by guest researchers). Clearly, in order to be useful to policy makers, companies, educators, media, or the general public, the opinions expressed by AnaEE should be supported by strong experimental evidence, but also unbiased and transparent.
The second goal of AnaEE is to generate innovation which in turn creates income and employment, and promote a competitive European green economy. That goal will be pursued through a set of activities commonly known as Technology Transfer: they are described the next section on Impact, dissemination and exploitation of results
A third objective was added to WP5, in the form of a new Task: System Engineering and Business Process analysis. The need for an additional task emerged as a result of two independent pressures. On one hand, the International Scientific Advisory Board recommended a System Engineering approach on the ground of the complexity of AnaEE. On the other hand, the call for expression of interest for AnaEE platforms produced a response six times greater than foreseen (180 versus 30 respondents). Each platform had filled a long questionnaire, providing accurate descriptions of capabilities, competencies and instrumentation. The unexpectedly large amount of response data could not be handled without professional management tools.
A System Engineering approach was therefore added to the tasks of WP5, to order and analyse the call responses. WP5 was assigned the task of coordinating the collection, processing and interpreting that data. That major endeavour has produced a comprehensive digital map of measurements, pressures and ecosystems available at each experimental facility.
WP6: Legal and Governance
D6.1: Exploring legal and governance models for AnaEE
To explore legal and governance models of the infrastructure that allows the effective integration and operation of its components:
• Using existing documents such as from the AnaEE Design Phase project and materials available on the web, WP6 produced an initial analysis and report on the legal frameworks available for AnaEE;
• By looking at long-term governance models from other ESFRI projects and taking the development of the AnaEE vision into account, several draft governance models have been drafted and are continuously being refined to ensure that once AnaEE is in its operational phase, the structure will allow effective integration and operation of its components;
To deliver interim and long-term governances that respond to objectives and priorities of funding and research organisations participating in the report was used to make first recommendations for interim and long-term governance options via the Legal, Governance and Funding Advisory Group (LGF-AG) made up of representatives of funders and ministries where participants endorsed the need for an interim governance and legal model. Two models for interim governance and two options for long-term governance were presented.
The LGF-AG were consulted throughout the course of the AnaEE Preparatory Phase project to ensure the needs and requirements of ministries and funders were addressed and met to ensure AnaEE could continue to develop in the most suitable way.
D6.2: Interim Governance
WP6/7 formed a joint Working Group in order to progress issues relating to legal, governance and funding. The WG consisted of WP6/7 members as well as invited legal and financial experts outside of the consortium to help develop the legal and governance for AnaEE in a way that meets the needs of partner countries. The WG was made up of the following partners: BBSRC, DTU, UHEL, FEM, INRA, INRA Transfert CNRS, UTARTU, CzechGLOBE, BGU (EWI from Belgium also attended meetings and financed their own participation)
In order to achieve completing D6.2 monthly meetings were held with every other meeting as face to face between the WG. Work completed:
• Drafting the Letter of Intent (LoI) order to encourage continued participation and commitment from partner countries of the PP and beyond
• Develop evolution of AnaEE governance from PP to the Pre-operational Phase including bodies required to further implementation of AnaEE and identify next steps required
• Decide on what components the AnaEE ERIC will be made up on including an analysis report of whether the Service Centres should be in or out of the ERIC
• Begin drafting of AnaEE ERIC statutes
As a result of the work completed, the following outcomes were achieved:
• The LoI was circulated to partner countries for signature at the government level- so far 5 countries (BE,CZ,DK,FR,IL) have signed the LoI with more to follow;
• A decision was made on the interim governance model and evolution of governance from AnaEE PP to the next Phase. The next Phases will be known at the Pre-operational Phase and Operational Phase. Each phase will be made up of the required bodies needed for effective governance
• Following analysis on the Service Centres being in/out of the ERIC, a recommendation to the AnaEE SC that the Service Centres should be inside of the ERIC. As part of the process to identify host countries to host the supranational entities, applicants will get a chance to make the case for the entity to exist out of the ERIC which will be assessed
A writing group to draft the ERIC Statutes was created and met to discuss issues in developing the ERIC to be addressed in going forward.
D6.3: Long-term governance strategy
Further progress was made on the long-term AnaEE governance strategy following outcomes from D6.2. The LGF WG continued to work on a regular basis to:
• Create a proposal and framework for the transition of AnaEE from the PP to the Pre-operational Phase with a timeline
• Contribute to drafting the text for AnaEE host country call for its supranational entities
• Draft description of the main bodies required for the Pre-operational and Operational Phase
• Further develop long-term governance structure in line with recommendations from the AnaEE SC and LGF-AG
• Draft framework for ERIC statutes and identify issues and questions which will need to be addressed during the Pre-operational Phase
As a result of the work completed, the following outcomes were achieved:
• Host country for AnaEE identified as France
• Agreement of framework for transition from the PP to the POP: a Transition Team led by INRA/France will oversee the transition and will be responsible for creating the Central Hub Set up team and manage Programme of Work to ensure implementation of AnaEE towards the Operational Phase
• Agreement of bodies and structure required for governance of the Pre-operational Phase
• Further developed legal and governance framework for the Operational Phase
WP7: Financial and human resource planning
WP7 concentrated on the financial and human resources strategy issues. We analysed the global cost estimates for both pre-operational and operational RI, as well as the contribution principles and sustainable funding scheme which were proposed and validated by the consortium. In addition, we were compiling the Business plan (Figure 5) and human resources plan for the pre-operational and operational phase.
Financial and funding framework
AnaEE is a pan-European research infrastructure consisting of a central coordination body (AnaEE, which comprises a Central Hub and three Service Centres) with experimental, modelling and analytical facilities (i.e. national platforms), distributed across its Member States. Each Member State is independently responsible of funding the upgrades, maintenance and operation of its national platforms. The ERIC will be funded pro rata by Members and Hosts, while the research projects carried within the AnaEE RI and using the facilities will be funded through joint European research programs according to EU-defined strategies and objectives, through private-public partnerships, and national research grants. The funding framework will continuously be developed as AnaEE shifts from the Pre-operational Phase to Operational Phase and creates an ERIC. The final decisions regarding the funding model are made by the AnaEE Assembly of Members.
Pre-operational Phase investments for the central services
The hosting countries will be responsible of funding 100% of the investment necessary for the setup and activities of the AnaEE Central Hub and the Service Centres during the Pre-operational Phase.
Operational Phase funding model
The Central Hub and the Service Centres constitute the AnaEE legal entity, and their funding model is decided by the Assembly of Members. AnaEE operative costs are covered largely by the Member States’ public funding. The Member States need to agree on a five-year budget on annual basis. Figure 6 presents the suggested funding model for AnaEE.
The proposed minimum Host contribution is 50% of the hosted central facility costs, while the rest of the costs is covered by annual membership contributions towards AnaEE. Members with an observer status will not pay any contribution to AnaEE before becoming full Members. This exemption and the amount of the yearly membership contribution may be adjusted annually by the Assembly of Members in the end of calendar year.
Host contributions will be provided in-cash or in-kind, while membership contributions will be provided primarily in-cash to cover AnaEE expenses related to e.g. consumables, travel of staff, meetings, outreach, services (including legal, accounting, auditing, marketing, recruitment and subcontracting), equipment (software, licenses etc.) and the salary of the Director General. However, in-kind contributions in human resources from non-hosting countries can be considered and decided case by case in the Assembly of Members. AnaEE membership contributions will be allocated to the Central Services.
Regarding the membership contributions, combination of an equal share fraction, and GDP and platform number based fractions is recommended; 50% Equal Share + 25% GDP-based contribution + 25% platform number based contribution. The equal share component ensures that a certain baseline fee is paid by all Members, while the size of a state’s economy is also acknowledged by the GDP based contribution. In addition, each Member’s contribution to AnaEE is accounted for; the proposed model respects the added value of services that the Service Centres and the Hub provide to AnaEE platforms.
Platform-based fees shall cover 25% of the membership contributions. From this share, the price per AnaEE platform is determined. The platform price will naturally depend on the number of Members and platforms, and the number of platforms of each type. The platforms are divided into price categories according to the platform type and the manipulations done on the platform.
Since the activities of AnaEE will depend both on the number of Members and on the number of platforms, this will influence the costs. However, in order to avoid large fluctuations in the annual membership contribution, a constant median membership contribution of around € 50k/ year is proposed. To assure that the annual membership contributions are of similar magnitude throughout the years, regardless of the number of Members, a modular approach was suggested: increase in the activity level of the Central Services along increase in the number of Members.
Host and membership contributions shall cover the key operative costs of AnaEE. Any additional activities e.g. development of new technologies, special training sessions or hiring AnaEE post-docs for the synthesis activities will need additional funding. The application and use of these additional funds are decided case-by-case by the AnaEE Assembly of Members. Additional sources of income under consideration include access fees from physical access to the AnaEE platforms, consultancy services, licensing and industrial sponsors. AnaEE is eligible to apply for funding from EU framework targeted funding instruments for the research infrastructures and technologies.
AnaEE will provide most of the services to its Members and other stakeholders without a charge. However, some services such as consultancy services and others mentioned above may have a fee. Pricing policy of AnaEE regarding members and non-members is still under development. However, it is clear that the data will be free and open access for all users; the terms of data usage will be captured in licenses. Revenues coming from the services AnaEE provides to the stakeholders are expected from the second year on. These services possibly include e.g.:
• Technical consultancy services: to build sites in specific areas around the world (sensor networks); to develop observatories for specific applications (e.g. artificial ecosystems).
• Monitoring and data products: data collection and integration at specific sites provided as a service; Data systems, architectures and products.
• Decision support tools, synthesis products from data or technology
The governance structure and human resources affect the budget calculations to great extent, and as they are still evolving some of the assumptions used for these calculations are likely to change. The final global cost estimates and the value of the AnaEE infrastructure will become available after it is known which platforms exactly will be proposed by each Member as AnaEE components.
Pre-operational Phase starts in 2016 and runs until the beginning of 2018 when AnaEE is expected to be established (Operational Phase) AnaEE. The functioning costs of AnaEE will consist of i) personnel costs including salary and indirect employee costs, ii) other AnaEE costs related mainly to operations, and iii) costs to cover the premises.
Minimum operative costs of AnaEE to maintain Central Services at a proper level of operation are covered by ERIC Members’ public funding; Host and membership contributions. In order to ensure the financial sustainability, ERIC Founding Members need to commit to AnaEE for long-term, minimum for five years. Strong state-level financial commitments to AnaEE will provide sustainable base funding for ERIC activities and operation.
The minimum operational costs of the Central Services are likely lower with less Member States and increase with the number of Members towards full operation. As a rough estimate, with 7 Member States and fixed Host contribution of 50%, the total budget of the AnaEE is around € 1 million / year with median membership contribution of around € 50,000/ year. However, to maintain a proper level of operation in the Central Services, also the Host contribution can be adjusted if the Host is willing and the Assembly of Members so decides.
The Member contributions to fund the AnaEE Hub and Service Centres should not fluctuate significantly between the years – annual median contribution of € 50000 is targeted. Therefore, it is important that when planning the operations and activities of the Central Services, the number of Members using the services is accounted for. This is done by applying a modular approach (Figure 7). Modular approach means in this context increase in the activity level, i.e. the budget, of the Central Services with an increase in the number of AnaEE Members. Full operation of the Central Services is expected in the fifth year with sixteen Members with an annual budget of ca. € 2.15 million.
AnaEE Hub should become fully operational as soon as possible after establishing the ERIC and it is expected that the Service Centres will also enter in full operation as soon as possible during the first years, in order to provide the expected added value to the scientific community as well as to policy makers and society as a whole.
The goal of the financial management of the legal body of AnaEE is to run operations on a non-economic basis, efficiently and according to budget. Full transparency shall be applied on all financial matters of AnaEE. AnaEE will be run according to the Host legislation on accounting standards and principles. The AnaEE AoM decides on the RI strategic orientation, policies and objectives.
Documents defining policies and rules of the AnaEE resources are:
• ERIC statutes (to be developed among the founding members)
• RI Internal Financial Rules (to be developed among the hosting countries)
• ERIC procurement rules
• Other internal rules deemed necessary by the AoM
Human resources plan
The expertise needed for running an operational research infrastructure is different from scientific research. Research in temporary projects can produce important data and knowledge but it is the well-managed international research infrastructures that can provide data and knowledge for big science. The starting point in running AnaEE is to have qualified RI staff to enable researchers to do their research using the sustained high quality facilities. Note that the European Code of Conduct for Researcher Integrity presents general principles and requirements applicable especially to the researchers and their funders. Researchers represent the user group of the RI and hence are very important in the RI advisory and user boards.
Examples of needed skills from the staff of a European infrastructure are operational and human resource management, data management, data curation, and computing with big research data. There is increasing need for education in these emerging professions, e.g. infrastructure operators, research technologists with computational skills, and data scientists. This needs to be taken into account in career development issues. AnaEE aims to recruit the best RI professionals to provide the best services for its users. Hence, RI should not be run by the researchers nor post-docs or professors. AnaEE needs to provide competitive career opportunities for those who want to specialise in managing and operating a world class RI.
The establishment and staffing of the Hub is crucial. Especially, the recruitment of interim Director General to lead activities for AnaEE until a long-term Director General is officially recruited should have a formally approved process: the country selected to host the Hub will make a proposal to the Pre-operational Assembly of Members. In order to lead the AnaEE towards the Operational Phase the interim Director has to have the trust and mandate of the LoI signatories (Pre-operational Assembly of Members). The Director General of the ERIC is a key individual, and the success of the RI will, to a significant extent, depend on his/her abilities as a scientist, manager, spokesperson and diplomat. The Director General is an individual with experience and stature, chosen on the basis of reputation and excellence. To attract a person of sufficient calibre, it may be necessary to offer an employment contract of significant duration, especially if the Director General and his/her family will have to move from another country. To fully support the European dimension of the ERIC, it is recommended that the Director General comes from another country than the Hosting Country.
The recruitment process of the Director General for AnaEE needs to start during the Pre-operational phase, but the Director General’s contract will be only signed when ERIC is established by the Assembly of Members of the ERIC. All staff in the ERIC is recruited by the Director General and he/she is the superior for all ERIC staff. In the case all the Service Centres are in the ERIC legal entity, the Director General manages the recruitment of all staff, consulting with the Directors of the other Centres. The principle of Balance and Checks should be applied, whenever possible. There needs to be an open call for the positions in the ERIC.
A pan-European recruitment strategy is needed to ensure efficient management and operation of the AnaEE. The recruitment plan (level of activities and type of profiles) for the Operational Phase will be decided by the Assembly of Members based on the negotiated AnaEE budget and activities in the Service Centres.
WP8: Communication, Networking, education and training
As of December 2013, a Communication Plan was designed to outline AnaEE goals, target audiences, key messages, communication tools, activities, timelines and human and financial resources. The overarching goal was to organize and implement stakeholder relations as well as lobbying and public relations efforts, based on the following tools:
• key objectives and tasks;
• Key audiences;
• Messages;
• Tools and activities;
• Resources and timescales;
• Collaborative approaches to achieve communications goals;
• Evaluation procedures.
In order to articulate the communications goals of the AnaEE Preparatory Phase, a stakeholder mapping initiative was conducted. Echoing the AnaEE User Strategy, the Communications Plan concentrated its efforts on 4 priority stakeholders groups, each requiring a specific outreach approach:
1. Scientists and science managers;
2. Public and private sector innovators;
3. Policy makers and funding bodies;
4. Educators, the media and the broader public.
First and foremost, an attractive and coherent visual identity was devised for AnaEE, including a logo, templates and all other recognizable visual elements associated to AnaEE output.
AnaEE’s online presence materializes in the shape of website, which showcases the advancement of key projects, provides contact details to all relevant parties, regular news postings and events updates. This online content policy is reinforced through the publication of a quarterly email newsletter in HTML format, presenting all project advancements and relevant news to external audiences.
AnaEE will strive to be represented during all major ecosystems-related conferences, workshops and corollary research events discussing new developments in the fields of environmental and biodiversity studies. Indeed, the setup team prepared a toolkit containing the following:
• A concise A4 brochure, outlining key AnaEE talking points and arguments;
• A compelling 4-minute video, both posted online and played during AnaEE presentations at international conferences;
• A standard Powerpoint presentation will support opening statements for all types of audiences and meetings;
This external outreach policy will derive further strength from a targeted press relations effort, especially through special reports on key AnaEE publications. The goal will be to position AnaEE as a prime source of information and state-of-the-art tools to tackle issues such as food security and biodiversity.
Finally, a comprehensive stakeholder engagement plan was designed by AnaEE. Ongoing dialog is based on a Stakeholder Handbook, outlining key details on AnaEE, including (but not limited to) the preparatory phase.
As of June 2016, the WP leader and AnaEE Coordination launched a sub-task force aiming to reflect on how to establish AnaEE as a benchmark and key ally for industries and policy-makers looking to develop innovative technologies and solutions for the global Greentech market.
Indeed, communications initiatives will strive to demonstrate how co-designed and co-developed experimental research projects could significantly reduce exposure to risk and advance socio-ecological-economic resilience, by providing (i) explicit decision-space and uncertainty estimates for ecological processes affected by climate change, (ii) comparative capability, (iii) diverse modelling platforms and tools for ecological forecasting and (iv), effective data flow management and common standards.
As a result of Communications involving in Strategic planning – as highlighted by an incremental mobilization in the finalization of the AnaEE Business Plan – a materiality matrix was successfully presented and adopted by the Consortium. A questionnaire was devised to be shared amongst different stakeholders across Europe, to serve as a prioritization tool in AnaEE work and a lobbying tool to build industrial partnerships.
In short, tasks 8.1 to 8.5 all covered this period and included updating the website and publishing a quarterly newsletter, representing AnaEE at international conferences and chiefly focusing on lobbying aspects of the overarching WP mission, which lies in securing larger buy-in from new and existing Member States. An extensive learning module was also produced and posted online, generating positive feedback from all partners involved in the WP. This provided a sound stakeholder engagement tool in relations to educators and the broader public, highlighting strategic decisions regarding future AnaEE higher education activities and training, directed towards students, researchers and professionals alike. Furthermore, prospective marketing and communication strategy, materials and tools for the construction phase of ANAEE.
As described above, the societal and economic impact of the project were at the heart of new brainstorming sessions with the AnaEE coordination, so prepare the transition from PP to POP and set an ambitious vision for the RI as solution to global challenges and a valuable partner in innovative industrial partnerships.
Potential Impact:
WP2: Implementing the ANAEE vision
The Vision document and the description of the services to be provided by the supra-national entities of AnaEE have been the building blocks of the communication of AnaEE towards the scientific community, the institutional science managers and to a lesser extent so far, the industrial stakeholders.
These documents, completed by outputs of other work packages (platforms identification, governance, funding ...) composed the roadmap of AnaEE to implement the infrastructure during the Pre-Operational Phase and Running phase. It is during the running phase that the societal impact of the project, and in particular of WP2 will become significant.
WP3: ANAEE Technical Development Plan
The technical Development Plan and roadmap for ANAEE provides a strong basis for developing a coherent and complementary infrastructure with combinations of ecosystem/pressure/climate zones. For Open Air platforms this demonstrates:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 1).
• Warming and precipitation/hydrological changes dominate among the climate-related gaps in combinations (missing in 18 combinations).
• Olid basis for Elevated CO2 is better covered and is only missing in 3 combinations (Humid Oceanic forests and Mediterranean forests and grasslands).
• Pests (missing in 12 combinations), habitat fragmentation (missing in 10 combinations) and biodiversity loss (missing 10 combinations) are the clearest gaps in current coverage.
• The pressure categories UV, soil eutrophication, desertification and management are not missing at all.
And for Enclosed platforms this demonstrates:
• a need for Pan-European coordination with most needed gaps in at the Pan-European level being identified by the analysis (most prominent current gaps are indicated in Table 4).
• Wetland and river ecosystems are least represented currently, most wetland and river platforms (or planned platforms) are currently in the humid oceanic climate zone
• A multitude of important combinations is not covered by any platform in both the Mediterranean and the humid continental climate zone
• Fire, desertification, habitat fragmentation, soil erosion and GMO pressure are relatively underrepresented in the current platform selection
WP4: Access to ANAEE infrastructure and data and links with the wider community
WP4 has been developing the frameworks for how intellectual property, data and computational modelling will be managed in AnaEE. The framework and draft proposals for an intellectual property policy take into account the contributions that the research sponsor, the research project leader and the platform owners make to a project. It will be important for the potential economic impact of the project that each partner has a clearly articulated stake in the IP as this will facilitate collaboration among both academic and commercial users.
The work on data sharing policies and the proposals for the use of standards for capturing suitable metadata are all essential components for achieving impact from AnaEE. High standards of both quality and accessibility are required of the data from AnaEE to ensure that it becomes a trusted delivery partner for all the potential users. High quality data services and a strong technical and scientific reputation are also important to attract the best projects and the best platforms to become part of AnaEE. National agencies supporting AnaEE will also have expectations that the data access policies comply with national and international standards and expectations of open access. As these aspects of AnaEE operations have been developed by WP4 (with others) these have fed in to the definition of the role of the Service Centres – particularly the Data and Modelling Centre.
WP4 (and WP3) have been addressing how mathematical and computational models can provide added value to AnaEE and stakeholders. While WP4 has largely been concerned with how the use of standards can make data and models interoperate more effectively, the end purpose of this is to make the adoption and uptake of modelling more straightforward for users. Models are often the end product of ecosystem research and the use of models to forecast changes to ecosystems as a result of climate change and land use provide major mechanisms for realising impact – social and economic. Models can also have an impact through supporting the needs of policy makers to ask what-if questions and explore the ongoing and future impact of policy on ecosystems.
Access to data and analytical tools will also have an impact through their use by educators who need well-developed datasets as part of their teaching materials to train the next generation of quantitative ecosystem science researchers and engineers. AnaEE also considers that impact in education and training an important part of its role.
WP5: Innovation
WP5 main task was to evaluate the impact of AnaEE on industry and the economy in general. In particular, WP5 described which quality standards should be adopted by each experimental facility in order to generate reliable, replicable information for the benefit of external shareholders. WP5 also dealt with the forms to convey that information to industry, decision- makers communities and society at large.
The early activity of WP5 did focus on identifying the stakeholders, their needs and their communication tools. WP5 issued or coordinated three deliverables:
• D2.1 (the Vision document) includes in PART III a Stakeholders’ survey, involving 117 respondents to 22 questions out of 561 contacts. The Survey was conducted by WP5.
• D5.1 is a Map of standard agencies and leading standards. Its primary purpose is to identify the standards and the languages AnaEE should use to communicate result to non -scientists. The third deliverable,
• D5.2. (Quality Vision and Mission) is a definition the quality assurance principles that should guide the issuance of data, and of its interpretations.
In addition, WP5 has been assigned a new task: organize the collection and analysis of data provided by facilities in response to the call for expression of interest according to system engineering practices. A deliverable D5.5. Key Criteria for Site selection process was delivered in January 2015.
In order to implement its vision, WP5 tried to identify and generate genuine consensus on the managerial tools, and the organization that will provide long term resilience to AnaEE. In particular:
• In October 2013, at the first Stakeholders meeting in Venetia, the AnaEE Scientific Advisory Board (ISAAB) emphasized the complexity of AnaEE distributed infrastructure and invited AnaEE to employ organizational tools such as SYSTEM ENGINEERING to handle it. As a result, a new Task 5.6. was assigned to WP5.
• Meanwhile WP5 organized the dataflow from Facilities applying to the Call for Expression of Interest within an MCDA framework (Multi Criteria Decision Analysis). Main purpose of the MCDA exercise was to provide AnaEE with convincing arguments to direct the allocation of resources provided by National Authorities.
• In October 2014, at a Workshop on data quality in Antwerp, Werner Kutsch described the rich infrastructure needed to manage data at ICOS. Similar level of complexity may be expected at AnaEE, both in the area of naked data and in the area of elaborations and interpretations, supporting decision makers.
During the period from 2013 to 2016, WP5 has contributed four building blocks to the AnaEE construction:
• System engineering techniques and industrial management approach, following the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Board;
• Ecosystem Services Accounting and Natural Capital Accounting as means to communicate scientific syntheses to administrators and policy makers;
• Advanced data processing to manage and analyze over 180 platform applications in response to the call for expressions of interest (in cooperation with WP3), and techniques that will enable qualitative decision processes;
• Anticipation techniques and foresight methods, as ways to approach technology transfer and support decision processes by the Centers for Technology, Data and Modelling, and Interface and Synthesis.
It is important to remind that, according to a recent study on cost-benefit analysis of large research infrastructures , there are four classes of contributions direct to users: knowledge output (to scientists), human capital development (to students and young researchers), technological spillovers (to firms), and cultural effects (to society at large).
In the case of AnaEE, each contribution represents a form of technology transfer, although it may not be managed as such within the organization. In addition to benefits offered by infrastructures dealing with theoretical research, AnaEE displays two more positive effects: (i) it facilitates evidence-based decisions by policy makers about the use of ecosystem services; (ii) it provides industry with fact-based validation of innovations meant to reduce exploitation of ecosystem services, and to mitigate the impact of global change on human activities. In both cases, decisions informed by knowledge developed at AnaEE will ultimately lead to increased protection of the environment.
As known, AnaEE will be a research infrastructure for experimental manipulation of managed and unmanaged terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It will strongly support scientists in their analysis, assessment and forecasting of the impact of climate and other global changes on the services that ecosystems provide to society. In this context, WP5 will stimulate the achievement of AnaEE mission by supporting building permanent and substantial links among researchers, science managers, policy makers, public and private sector innovators, and citizens. Managing the multiplicity of relationships generated by those activities requires a flexible approach, particularly in the framework of a research infrastructure minutely spread over a whole continent.
WP5 also contributed significantly to the D 8.6 focuses on the marketing and communications strategy corresponding to the construction phase of ANAEE. WP 5, in close cooperation with WP2, WP6, WP7 and WP8, proposed the setting up of marketing and communications materials and tools, in order to increase and reinforce the visibility of AnaEE’s scientific excellence, highlighting the competitive advantage of AnaEE research centers and services to stimulate new research and innovation opportunities.
WP6: Legal and Governance
WP6 has worked closely with other project partners to ensure maximum potential impact as part of the wider aims and objectives of AnaEE. The potential impacts of AnaEE are documented in the AnaEE Business Plan due to be published and the summary of the Business Plan already published.
The key impact specific to WP6 is that the interim governance and long-term governance strategy developed will be essential to ensuring AnaEE can operate as a sustainable distributed research infrastructure and provide its services as effectively as possible.
WP6 has contributed to many dissemination activities including the monthly newsletter, responding to surveys, drafting of AnaEE publications e.g. leaflets and presenting on AnaEE to external audiences.
WP7: Financial and human resource planning
A sustainable funding model is a fundamental backbone for a successful, operational RI. WP7 worked towards this aim by designing several options with which the implications of selection of final funding model were possible to compare, and the final outcome was validated by PP partners as well as by the Shareholders of the PP. The impact of the sustainable funding model of AnaEE will be seen in the greater visibility of national platforms and their improved functioning as part of AnaEE ERIC. Economic and societal implications include advanced European-wide employment possibilities for trained experts in experimental ecosystem research and potential novel innovations and opportunities for SMEs specialized e.g. in observations, collection and storage of data from experiments.
The AnaEE Business model is the main dissemination tool and a central asset for creating a well-known brand from the AnaEE ERIC. Being one of the first in its category, it is also benchmarking the Business model concept for other research infrastructures which are underway and still developing their approach.
WP8: Communication, Networking, education and training
Communications plays a strategic role in setting into motion an ambitious vision for the AnaEE RI as a valuable partner in designing innovative solutions to face climate change. A vast array of traditional communication tools support the strategy in place (to be expanded upon as AnaEE transitions into its Pre-operational Phase). The Communications team will strive to seek out further ways of engaging new and existing users.
The crux of AnaEE’s dissemination activities at the national, regional, European and international levels lies in representing AnaEE at scientific conferences and relaying information on its proprietary website. Key tools – such as the quarterly newsletter – were also developed as a proactive communications and strategic thinking platforms. Pre-existing elements (the AnaEE PowerPoint presentation and leaflet notably) are widely disseminated as part of an intense conference attendance strategy (ICRI, AGU, EGU...) and further cross-cutting events (D 8.1 & 3).
The ecosystems research mailing list (2500 members) is also called upon to share news beyond the AnaEE network, to reinforce cohesiveness with other RIs worldwide. Through AnaEE’s online presence, extensive information is provided to external audiences in a way both accessible and visible by everyone and the 140 members of the AnaEE LinkedIn group of scientists, funding bodies, private sector and other stakeholders in particular (D 8.2 & 3). Additional concepts and innovative tools were eventually identified as part of a prospective vision for the AnaEE communications and marketing strategy. The goal was to effectively reflect on AnaEE’s medium to long-term impact for its stakeholders, expanding on the results of ongoing planning efforts and expanding the proposed outreach (D 8.6).
Educational activities and tools came first in line of these stakeholder engagement efforts. Indeed, an online training tool intended for school children and the broader public was produced thanks to the feedback shared by all partners (D 8.4). In order to expand on the latter and effectively increase integration between the AnaEE infrastructure and higher education programs, a plan was established regarding AnaEE’s higher education activities and training (D 8.5). The goal was to jointly increase knowledge and understanding of the role and importance of ecosystems research and of AnaEE as a key player in carrying out research projects at the European level. A series of training activities will be set up and delivered for different target groups, notably school children, teachers and the general public, but also for policy-makers at national and regional levels.
Finally, articular attention was paid to engaging innovative partnerships between AnaEE users and stakeholders, noticeably amongst small and medium-sized businesses, industries and decision-makers in general (D 8.3). There lies the condition for AnaEE to attract end-users far and wide, as they are instrumental in the AnaEE infrastructure’s ultimate capacity to provide its global community with new services and solutions. Communications would effectively activate the AnaEE brand as an international flagship for scientific probity and excellence (D 8.6). The aim is also to establish AnaEE as a benchmark and key ally for industries looking to develop innovative technologies and solutions for the global Greentech market (D 8. 1 & 3).
Communications will strive to demonstrate how co-designed and co-developed experimental projects could significantly reduce exposure to risk and advance socio-ecological-economic resilience, by providing (i) explicit decision-space and uncertainty estimates for (ecological) processes affected by climate change, (ii) comparative capability, (iii) diverse modeling platforms and tools for ecological forecasting and (iv), effective information flow management and common standards. Bearing in mind intellectual property rights and sovereignty issues inevitably arise from working across geopolitical borders, it will also belong to the Communications team to leverage its pan-European nature and the diversity of its stakeholder community to spark such collaborations.
List of Websites:
http://www.anaee.com/
