The LifeWatch ERIC Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience Conference
LifeWatch ERIC Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience Conference (BEeS) is back! This summer, we are pleased to invite you to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, for a four-day event, from 7 to 10 July. BEeS is LifeWatch ERIC’s flagship forum for eScience in biodiversity and ecosystem research, emphasising interoperable data, reproducible workflows, and reusable digital services.
LifeWatch Bulgaria hosts the 2026 edition of the conference at the Agricultural University-Plovdiv. Bulgaria joined LifeWatch ERIC in 2022 as one of its eight Distributed Centres. The event also showcases how LifeWatch ERIC services and communities support collaboration across the infrastructure.
BEeS 2026 will bring together scientists, experts, and innovators to explore challenges and emerging opportunities in biodiversity and ecosystem science. Through a series of high-level plenary sessions, the conference will address critical topics including biodiversity conservation and species extinction, ecosystem responses to climate change, the role of agroecology in sustainable systems, and the latest frontiers in eScience technologies.
The programme is complemented by thematic sessions aligned with LifeWatch ERIC Thematic Service Working Groups, focusing on practical methods, workflows, and service-enabled science.
This event promotes dialogue across disciplines and highlights the importance of integrating ecological knowledge, technological innovation, and policy frameworks, acting as a platform to explore collaborative solutions for understanding, protecting, and managing biodiversity. A key aim is to accelerate uptake of decision-relevant evidence products that are transparent, traceable, and comparable across regions.
Registrations are open!
ENVRI-Hub NEXT at BEeS 2026
7-10 July 2026 | Plovdiv, Bulgaria
The ENVRI-Hub NEXT team is providing two training activities at BEeS 2026, focusing on the upgraded ENVRI-Hub:
- ENVRI-Hub tools and VREs for researchers #1: an introduction. Trainers: Zhiming Zhao, Eleonora Parisi, Koen Greuell, Gabriel Pelouze | LifeWatch ERIC
Description: Environmental and Earth sciences rely on diversity data from different infrastructures: from ocean temperatures to biodiversity records, from climate indicators to geological observations. This diversity, however, poses challenges for data science and AI practitioners: datasets use different metadata standards, come in varied formats, and are hard to access and link across research infrastructures. This training session will explain how the ENVRI-Hub, a software platform unifying multi research infrastructure in Environmental and Earth sciences, address these challenges through tools such as Knowledge Base (Search engine) and LLM-powered Environment Expert agents. It will also highlight the contribution from LifeWatch, such as analysing datasets through a Jupyter based Virtual Research Environment. - ENVRI-Hub tools and VREs for researchers #2: hands-on practice.Trainer: Koen Greuell | LifeWatch ERIC
Description: In this hands-on NaaVRE workshop, you’ll explore pre-built cloud workflows and tailor one to your research needs.
Select a workflow, adjust its parameters, and enhance it by designing and implementing your own modifications in the source code.
Run your updated workflow and share it with peers, gaining hands-on experience in collaborative and scalable research.
This workshop requires some experience in scripting in R or Python.