COMBINATION OF COLLABORATIVE PROJECT AND
COORDINATION AND SUPPORT ACTION:
INTEGRATED INFRASTRUCTURE INITIATIVE (I3)
Work programme topic:
INFRA-2011-1.2.2: Data Infrastructure for e-Science
Data e-Infrastructure Initiative for Fisheries Management and Conservation
of Marine Living Resources
iMarine
Date of preparation: 23 November 2010
Version number: 0.2
Participant no.
Participant organisation name
1 (Coordinator)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
GEIE ERCIM
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
European Organisation for Nuclear Research
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA
University of Strathclyde
Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas
Terradue s.r.l.
Trust-IT Services Ltd.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
Fishbase Information & Research Group Inc.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO
Centro de Referencia em Informacao Ambiental
Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement
13
14
Name of the coordinating person: Jessica Michel
e-mail: jessica.michel@ercim.org
fax: +33 4 92385011
Name of the scientific coordinator: Donatella Castelli
e-mail: donatella.castelli@isti.cnr.it
fax: +39 050 3153464
Part. short
name
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
Country
CRIA
IRD
BR
FR
FR
IT
GR
CH
IT
UK
GR
IT
UK
IT
PH
FR
FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2011-2
CP-CSA proposal
iMarine
Proposal abstract
Marine life plays a vital role in the Earth’s ecosystem. Wise and judicious management of all relevant resources is
of paramount importance to ensure that all forms of marine life remain sustainable. However, efforts in this
direction are severely hindered by extreme compartmentalization and heterogeneity at all levels and sectors: the
global, national, and local organizations active in the field; the different scientific disciplines involved; the
methodologies used to acquire, format and present data; the procedures used to analyze the data; and several
others. The main goal of the iMarine project is, thus, to launch an initiative aimed at establishing and operating an
e-infrastructure supporting the principles of the Ecosystem Approach to fisheries management and conservation of
marine living resources. iMarine has three main objectives: (i) the establishment of an iMarine Board, formed by
representatives of international organisations involved in this domain, which will define a sustainability-driven
data-centric e-infrastructure governance model and organizational and technological policy recommendations; (ii)
the management and operation of this e-Infrastructure offering user-level and application-level services that
support the recommended policies and provide relevant functionality to the stakeholders; (iii) the extension,
adaptation and deployment of a rich set of software components that implement these services. Instrumental in the
activities of iMarine will be the establishment of an active set of collaborations with other international initiatives.
The aim will be to reuse and render interoperable existing policies, technologies, and e-infrastructures. By
leveraging on these collaborations and by taking advantage of additional funding that these organizations invest in
the project, the number of available resources brought into play will be maximized.
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Table of contents
Section 1:
Scientific and/or technological quality, relevant to the topics addressed by the call ....5
1.1 Concept and objectives .................................................................................................................................5
1.2 Progress beyond the state-of-the-art..........................................................................................................10
1.2.1 The Ecosystem Approach and the Emerging EA-CoP .............................................................................10
1.2.2 Infrastructures for the Emerging EA-CoP ...............................................................................................11
1.2.3 Enabling Software Technologies ............................................................................................................13
1.3 Methodology to achieve the objectives of the project, in particular the provision of integrated
services ...................................................................................................................................................................15
1.3.1 Linking the Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice .....................................................................15
1.3.2 Infrastructure Development and Operation ..........................................................................................19
1.3.3 Technology Development ......................................................................................................................24
1.3.4 Realising Community Business Cases.....................................................................................................26
1.3.5 Outreach ................................................................................................................................................30
1.3.6 Proposal Activities Overall Strategy .......................................................................................................31
1.4 Networking Activities and associated work plan......................................................................................33
1.4.1 Overall strategy ......................................................................................................................................33
1.4.2 GANTT Diagram ......................................................................................................................................34
1.4.3 Detailed work description ......................................................................................................................35
1.4.4 Pert diagram...........................................................................................................................................53
1.4.5 Risk Analysis and Contingency Plans ......................................................................................................54
1.5 Service Activities and associated work plan .............................................................................................57
1.5.1 Overall strategy ......................................................................................................................................57
1.5.2 GANTT Diagram ......................................................................................................................................59
1.5.3 Detailed work description ......................................................................................................................60
1.5.4 Pert diagram...........................................................................................................................................73
1.5.5 Risk Analysis and Contingency Plans ......................................................................................................74
1.6 Joint Research Activities and associated work plan ................................................................................76
1.6.1 Overall strategy ......................................................................................................................................76
1.6.2 GANTT Diagram ......................................................................................................................................77
1.6.3 Detailed work description ......................................................................................................................78
1.6.4 Pert diagram...........................................................................................................................................96
1.6.5 Risk Analysis and Contingency Plans ......................................................................................................97
Section 2:
Implementation ..................................................................................................................98
2.1 Management structure and procedures ....................................................................................................98
2.1.1 Project Structure ....................................................................................................................................98
2.1.2 Project Governance................................................................................................................................99
2.1.3 Project Management ...........................................................................................................................100
2.1.4 Procedures and Tools...........................................................................................................................101
2.2 Individual participants .............................................................................................................................104
2.2.1 GEIE ERCIM (ERCIM), France (Coordinator) .........................................................................................104
2.2.2 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy ...................................................................................104
2.2.3 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece .......................................................105
2.2.4 European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland.....................................................106
2.2.5 Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA (E-IIS), Italy ..........................................................................107
2.2.6 University of Strathclyde (US), United Kingdom ..................................................................................108
2.2.7 Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), Greece .....................................................109
2.2.8 Terradue s.r.l. (Terradue), Italy ............................................................................................................109
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2.2.9 Trust-IT Services Ltd. (Trust-IT), United Kingdom ................................................................................110
2.2.10 The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Italy ......................................111
2.2.11 Fishbase Information & Research Group Inc. (FIN), Philippines ........................................................112
2.2.12 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – UNESCO (UNESCO), France .....113
2.2.13 Centro de Referencia em Informacao Ambiental (CRIA), Brasil ........................................................114
2.2.14 Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD), France ............................................................115
2.3 Consortium as a whole ..............................................................................................................................116
2.3.1 Objectives of Consortium setup................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.3.2 Consortium Synthesis...........................................................................................................................118
2.4 Resources to be committed .......................................................................................................................123
Section 3:
Impact ...............................................................................................................................130
3.1 Expected impacts listed in the work programme ...................................................................................130
3.1.1 Expected Impact Listed in the Work Programme ................................................................................130
3.1.2 Added Value of Implementing the Action at European Level..............................................................133
3.1.3 External Factors Determining Achieved Impacts .................................................................................133
3.1.4 Impacts in the Context of Other National or International Research ..................................................134
3.2 Dissemination and/or exploitation of project results, and management of intellectual property ......135
3.2.1 Dissemination Measures ......................................................................................................................135
3.2.2 Exploitation of Project Results .............................................................................................................138
3.2.3 Management of Intellectual Property .................................................................................................139
3.3 Contribution to socio-economic impacts .................................................................................................140
3.3.1 Socio-Economic Impacts ......................................................................................................................140
3.3.2 Environmental Impacts ........................................................................................................................141
3.3.3 Promoting Innovation and Developing Appropriate Skills in Europe ..................................................141
Section 4:
Ethical Issues ....................................................................................................................143
References .................................................................................................................................................144
Appendix A Profile of the iMarine Board..............................................................................................145
Appendix B Acronyms ............................................................................................................................151
Appendix C Letters of Support ..............................................................................................................153
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Section 1: Scientific and/or technological quality, relevant to the topics
addressed by the call
1.1 Concept and objectives
Marine life plays a vital role in the well being of humanity and the entire Earth ecosystem. Wise and judicious
management of all relevant resources is of paramount importance to ensure that biodiversity in the oceans of the
world remains rich and that all forms of marine life remain sustainable at the necessary levels. Any effort in this
direction, however, is severely hindered by extreme compartmentalization and heterogeneity at all levels and
stages: the global, national, and local organizations involved; the scientific disciplines enlisted in formulating the
relevant problems and participating in solving them; the accuracy of data collected and reported; the formats in
which the data is presented; the models and other software used to analyze the data; and several others. The main
goal of the iMarine project is to support the application of the principles of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) to
fishery management and conservation of marine living resources through the establishment and operation of a data
infrastructure and, in so doing, to facilitate the emergence of a unified Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice
(EA-CoP). This will contribute to sustainable environmental management with invaluable direct or indirect benefits
to the future of our planet, from climate change mitigation and marine biodiversity loss containment to poverty
alleviation and disaster risk reduction. To reach its goals, iMarine has established three main objectives and has
organized its efforts around them: First, establishment of a project board of community representatives that will
define a sustainability-driven data infrastructure governance model and will formulate organizational and
technological policy recommendations. Second, management and operation of a data infrastructure that will offer
user-level and application-level services that support the above policies and realize functionality (especially data
and knowledge integration functionality) that is required by EA-CoP to step up its EA implementation in line with
the deadlines and targets adopted by the 10th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in
Nagoya, in October 2010. Third, extension, adaptation, and deployment of a rich set of software components that
implement the above services. The results of several European and other projects will be the starting point for
iMarine.
Europe will emerge as a two-fold beneficiary of this effort. First, European scientists, managers, policy makers, and
other stakeholders will play a central role in the EA-CoP to emerge, e.g. involving members of the International
Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Regional Advisory Councils (RACs). They will exert
significant influence on the data-related policies to be formed and recommended, and will be the initial users of the
resulting data infrastructure, taking advantage of unprecedented computational power and information richness and
addressing their problems with several new methodologies thus afforded. Second, their counterparts around the
globe are likely to adopt the policy recommendations made, will be drawn to the data infrastructure for their own
work, and will form other such infrastructures locally based on the techniques developed in the project, if not the
iMarine data e-Infrastructure and software itself. This will increase and reinforce the European leadership in the
relevant political and technological arenas as well as the impact and global relevance of the iMarine data
infrastructure (and its ancestor infrastructure) as a unique platform for supporting science as well as fisheries and
environment policy development.
Key Concepts
There are four main conceptual pillars on which the iMarine project is built:
(Data) e-Infrastructures: Electronic infrastructure are environments where various resources (hardware, software,
middleware, networks, and data) are integrated and can be readily shared and accessed by user communities for
effective collaboration in scientific research, policy development, and many other societal activities. Data
infrastructures are special cases that focus on their data resources and offer advanced services dealing with data
integration, management, discovery, analysis, processing, presentation, etc.
(Data) e-Infrastructure Federations: Interoperation of existing, autonomous, heterogeneous (data) e-Infrastructures
lead to the creation of (data) e-Infrastructure federations, where the individual resources are harnessed and
aggregated for a multiplicative effect on information availability, processing power, and scientific perspective.
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Ecosystem Approach (EA): According to the Fifth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) in 1992, the Ecosystem Approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water, and
living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. Its operational meaning is
better specified in the 12 “Malawi Principles” adopted by the CBD in 1998.
Community of Practice (CoP): According to cognitive anthropologists, a community of practice is a group of
people of various backgrounds (e.g. scientists, practitioners, managers, fishers) who share an interest (i.e. the
implementation of the EA), a craft, and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the members'
common interests, or it can be created specifically with the goal of gaining specialized knowledge. Through sharing
information and experiences, the members increase their knowledge, improve their performance, develope a body
of best practices, and develop themselves personally and professionally.
Background and Detailed Motivation
ong tradition. It rests on a solid scientific foundation and a network of nested national, regional and global
institutions. The people that interact in the assessment and decision process come from a broadening set of horizons
(scientists, managers, lawyers, industry leaders, unions, fishery operators). Interconnecting these actors around
common knowledge-building, fostering e-meetings, developing of knowledge repositories (case studies) and etraining facilities would accelerate its emergence.
An EA-CoP may include, intersect with, a number of smaller groupings of interests such as ecosystem modelling,
ecological economics, small-scale fisheries, spatial planning, fisheries assessment, coral reefs,, MPAs, marine
debris, ecolabelling, large pelagic fish, seamounts, fishing rights, community-based management, common
property, etc., presently loosely connected or unconnected and uncoordinated. These may have developed
specialized websites but they are generally not supported by any formal infrastructure for data and
information sharing and integration. The fishery and environmental scientists interact quite often, use common
concepts, approaches and methods and are developing some consensus about the state of the fisheries and their
environment, the problems and the solutions potentially available to resolve them. Formal publications represent a
powerful but still too slow instrument of exchange and “integration” and the important grey information (including
policies, plans, legislations) is hardly accessible.
The various stakeholders of fisheries and conservation meet at national, regional and global levels, e.g. in interministerial mechanisms, Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs), Regional Seas Organizations
(RSOs), the European Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (ACFA), the Regional Advisory Councils
(RACs), the FAO Committee of Fisheries (COFI) or the UN General Assembly and related processes. None of these
components is homogenous and the level of exchange within and between the potential components of an EA-CoP
varies greatly between countries and between the developed and developing worlds. Constituting an EA-CoP is
therefore an opportunity, a challenge and a necessity.
Motivation for the Data e-Infrastructure: To progress in its implementation, the EA needs innovative technological
solutions to foster cohesion among its members, support the multidisciplinary tasks required, and greatly improve
the process of social learning while reducing costs. The requirements are particularly challenging. The
implementation relies on a set of knowledge and data sources much broader than that used respectively in
conventional and fishery management and conservation. In both arenas, the EA requires that monitoring and
assessment of target, emblematic, or vulnerable species be broadened to cover species assemblages, communities,
habitats, and ecosystems, and that socio-economics be also broadened to cover fisheries’ impacts on all goods and
services offered by those ecosystems.
The EA also demands better availability of close to real time up-to-date information, much more easily analysed,
and in shorter timeframes. This information is maintained in a large number of repositories, archives, and
databases, either institutional or personal. Thus, these data resources have different histories, and respond to
different policies, practices, and standards. From the technological point of view, they are represented in a large
variety of formats, which range from simple textual documents, to images and other multimedia content, time
series, geospatial data-products, code-lists/hierarchies, etc. They are processed using a range of specialised tools for
data management, analysis, publication, mapping and plotting, reporting, etc. The overall result is that these multidisciplinary data sources are scarcely compatible and can be made interoperable with difficulty, hence their
combination remains an ad hoc and painful process.
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In recent years, several efforts aimed at aggregating and integrating existing data sources of interest to EA have
been launched. Particularly significant in this context are some initiatives to document European and global
biodiversity (several of which supported by the EU), like Species 2000 Europa and i4Life, aimed at building the
ultimate register of taxonomic names, and PESI, providing standardised and authoritative taxonomic information.
Several initiatives collate biodiversity information on a global scale: OBIS is a global network assembling and
integrating biogeographic data; WoRMS and the Catalogue of Life aim to compile reference lists of taxonomic
names; the Encyclopedia of Life is a portal pulling togetherall freely accessible information on species. Regarding
Fisheries data, one can cite the FAO Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS), and IRD’s Ecoscope. The EA
process, however, is not benefiting as it should from these excellent initiatives. Its comprehensive application in
both fisheries and conservation is still slowed down by the limited amount of information exchange between
disciplines, institutions and areas. In addition, data heterogeneity is too high for single applications and data quality
is often inadequate to produce reliable analyses and assessments. These resources are often incomplete, show
discrepancy or distortion introduced by various actors along subsequent layers of data aggregation. Finally, in
many cases the information production process is too slow and decision makers do not have access to up-to-date
information.
For all the above reasons, it is imperative that an open, dynamically-expandable, and well-regulated data
infrastructure is established, operated, maintained, and enriched to provide the necessary support to a concrete
implementation of the EA through an active EA-CoP.
iMarine Objectives
Main Objective
To support the application of the principles of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) to fishery management
and conservation of marine living resources through the establishment and operation of a data
infrastructure and, in so doing, to facilitate the emergence of a unified Ecosystem Approach
Community of Practice (EA-CoP).
Relevance to the call:
“Progress towards the vision of open and participatory data-intensive science.”
Instrumental in the work of iMarine towards the above goal will be the establishment of a rich set of collaborations
with other EU and international organizations, initiatives, and projects as well as national centres of excellence.
Existing policies, technologies, and infrastructures will be reused and rendered interoperable by iMarine. By
leveraging these collaborations and by taking advantage of additional funds that some of these organizations are
willing to invest in the project activities, the number of resources available to the entire effort will be maximized,
the e-Infrastructure deployment process will be speeded up, and the overall cost of building and operating the
infrastructure will be reduced. To achieve its main goals, iMarine has established three main detailed objectives
and has organized its efforts around them.
Detailed Objective #1: Policy Development
To develop community-driven data-related policies on governance and operation of a data
infrastructure, sharing of data and other resources, and processing data to support the EA-CoP in
implementing EA to fishery management and marine living resource conservation.
Relevance to the call:
“Progress towards the vision of open and participatory data-intensive science.”
“Increase of the user base and bridging across disciplines, enabling of cross fertilization of scientific
results and stakeholders knowledge and favouring innovation, improving the knowledge elaboration
processes in support to decision-making”.
The main instrument for policy development will be the iMarine Board, composed of two bodies:
 a main body called “Steering Board”, comprising info system specialists, managers-“mediators”
between users and technologists, and representatives of data-holding institutions involved in EA, e.g.,
FAO, FIN, GENESI-DEC, ICES, UNESCO (IOC-OBIS), IRD, NEAFC, VLIZ, Species2000.
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 a subsidiary body called "Advisory Council", comprising high-level representatives of selected EA
initiatives, as the users of the infrastructure, e.g., FAO’s EAFNet, the 2010 Galway Conference follow-up
group, the “High Seas, Deep Seas Fisheries” discussion Group, the Global Oceans Biodiversity Initiative
(GOBI), or the NSERC Canadian Capture Fisheries Research network.
The primary goal of this Board will be to define the data infrastructure governance model, with a sustainability
focus, and to formulate a set of organizational and technological policy recommendations regulating the resources
shared and services provided by the infrastructure. In particular, the policies developed by the iMarine Board will
define plans, methods, and guidelines regulating the management and operation of the infrastructure and the
development and deployment of its services with the aim of promoting the sharing of data, application and other
resources, and the development of trust. These policies will be identified by analysing the needs of the community
and the recommendations issued by leading organisations at international level. Particular attention will be
dedicated to policies related to the adoption of emerging standards (e.g., SDMX for statistical data, OWL-RDF for
concepts, COST for fishery sampling data, Darwin Core for species distribution data) and their possible application
to the representation of observation records, provenance information, quality assessment, harmonisation, etc. that
promise to largely facilitate iMarine data exchange and usage. Policies will also tackle issues of sharing within data
confidentiality requirements in an attempt to promote use of sensitive data at acceptable aggregation levels.
The iMarine Board will collaborate with other major boards in the sector to validate and promote its
recommendations within the community at large. Given the leading role of the iMarine Board member
organizations it is expected that the policies defined will have a large impact not only on the services made
available by the iMarine data infrastructure, but also on those developed by all those interacting with it to form an
even further expanding iMarine data infrastructure federation.
Detailed Objective #2: Data e-Infrastructure Management and Operation
To manage and operate a data infrastructure that will serve the application-building and applicationusing needs of the EA-CoP members. To establish this data infrastructure by largely leveraging on
resources and services from existing infrastructures.
Relevance to the call:
“Increase of the scale of federation and interoperation of data infrastructures, better exploitation of
synergies with the underlying e-Infrastructures, reduction of costs”
The iiMarine data infrastructure will operate as a facilities/commodities/services provider to support the analysis
and decision processes in the entire data production-consumption life-cycle of the EA-CoP, simplifying and
expediting the exchange, consumption, and analysis of cross-domain data collections and improving the quality of
decision-forming data. In particular, through its long-standing collaboration with Eurostat and in coordination with
other stakeholders of the EA-CoP, FAO has established several business cases that will be supported by the
iMarine data e-Infrastructure. These range from statistical management of socio-economic data and specialized
portals for information management of aquatic ecosystems and monitoring of vessels, fleets, and activities, to
specialized data management, transformation, and monitoring. Each business case will benefit from the
applications made available for the others, and the EA-CoP as a whole will inherit a rich set of facilities to support
its business. Third-party users (members of the EA-CoP) will be exploiting these facilities programmatically or
through innovative applications on-demand, reducing the effort and investment in ad-hoc implementations,
operational and maintenance tasks, and provision of the necessary resources. The e-Infrastructure will be operated,
monitored, and maintained as a 24/7 service based on policies established by the iMarine Board.
As an open environment, the iMarine data e-Infrastructure will profit from existing infrastructures and available
services & other resources. It will be based on the technology developed for the D4Science infrastructure
federation and will actually interact with it as well, thereby accessing resources managed and orchestrated by EGI,
GENESI-DEC. VENUS-C, FARM, AquaMaps, FIGIS, Geonetwork, OpenAIRE, and Driver,It will also
interoperate in a systematic fashion with other information sources maintained by major EA authoritative
organisations, e.g., UNESCO (IOC-OBIS), FAO (TechDataCDR), ICES, NEAFC, IRD (Ecoscope) and projects,
e.g., i4Life and PESI, but also commercial computing and storage resources provided by private data centers (ENG
at Pont Saint Martin, Italy) or even public clouds (Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure). The breadth and depth of the
data infrastructure thus created will ensure exploitation and broad take up of the iMarine e-Infrastructure and its
long-term sustainability.
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Detailed Objective #3: Service Enrichment and Deployment
To extend, enrich, and deploy a broad set of services that exploit, harmonize, improve the quality, and
integrate the large variety of heterogeneous data required in applying EA to fishery management and
conservation of marine living resources, .enable new cost-effective applications aidng the production
of knowledge required by policy makers, and support the policies established by the iMarine Board.
Relevance to the call:
“The generic tools and services developed under the infrastructure part of the programme can be
used for the further development of research infrastructures in Europe and in particular for the
implementation of clusters of ESFRI projects”. In particular, this proposal is particularly relevant for
the ESFRI Environmental Cluster.
This suite will include support for data generation, provenance, quality assessment, certification,
curation, annotation, navigation and management of data. Mechanisms for facilitating
interoperability across- infrastructures, not only at the level of metadata but also at the level of data,
will be introduced. These will exploit standards, ontologies and new mediation and harmonization
approaches.
To support the business cases established, the project members as well as external members of the CoP will deploy
all the necessary services for the iMarine data infrastructure. These will be obtained primarily by relying on,
integrating, and enriching open software developed in the framework of other projects funded by EU and EA-CoP
Relevant examples are gCube and OpenSDMX. Developed in the context of the Diligent, D4Science, and
D4Science-II projects, the former makes available a large variety of services for managing, manipulating, and
processing data and metadata within an autonomously-managed infrastructure. It also provides a suite of generic
service frameworks for supporting data production-consumption life-cycle. An initiative of FAO, OpenSDMX is
backed by the FIGIS and FAOSTAT infrastructures and offers components and a web application for producing
SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange) data and metadata in a RESTful way. Furthermore, exploiting the
synergies between FAO, IRD, NEAFC, and ICES, additional services will facilitate the export, use and diffusion of
statistical data according the new SDMX standard, completed by services for heterogeneous source harmonisation
and discovery, for observation records with confidentiality requirements (e.g., COST standard), and for interactive
mapping.
New services and specific process workflows will be designed to solve major pending issues, like heterogeneity,
low quality, lack of standardization, and lengthy and demanding production phases, especially services facilitating
the life-cycle of the socio-economic data resources of the EA-CoP that are used today in producing reports for
policy makers. Despite their importance in the management and conservation processes, the tools available to
operate on such data types are often limited in functionality, isolated, and not interoperable. By overcoming these
limitations for data collections organised as statistical time series, registers, and geo-referenced records, new forms
of automatic data quality improvement will be enabled.
Bringing high-resolution environmental data within the same framework as biogeographic, distribution data on
species will facilitate better modelling of species distributions, and novel approaches to quality control of the
existing bio-geographic information. Algorithms will be developed to automate the detection of outliers in
environmental space. Several algorithms modeling species’ distribution ranges will be made available and will
operate on the same data; this will constitute both a refinement and an expansion of the Aquamaps Virtual
Research Environment operated within the D4Science data infrastructure federation. Tools developed by OBIS and
the PESI and i4Life projects will be used to harmonise taxonomy and nomenclature with global registers, such as
Catalogue of Life and WoRMS. Additional data flow from IRD Ecoscope will enrich the above knowledge about
species distribution.
The services developed aim beyond the goals of the project. They will also enrich the exploited open source
software initiatives with enhanced versions and new software packages. In so doing, they will be also enrich the
suite of open source data services available to ESFRI projects, e.g., ESFRI environmental projects, which often
have to deal with a level of data heterogeneity similar to the one addressed by the iMarine project.
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1.2 Progress beyond the state-of-the-art
The objectives of the project are best understood in relation to the political and technological status quo in the
target domain. This Section gives a selective overview of ongoing initiatives and available services with a view to
showing the advances that the project will bring about.
Section 1.2.1 summarises recent activities towards the implementation of the EA, illustrates the core challenges that
limit overall progress, and advocates the importance of large-scale infrastructural support in meeting those
challenges. It then outlines high-level requirements for an effective infrastructure, linking the success of the project
as well as one its core outcomes to, respectively, the involvement and promotion of the emerging EA-CoP.
Section 1.2.2 focuses on the loose infrastructure of information sources and services that are currently available to
the emerging EA-CoP, illustrates its actual strengths and inherent weaknesses, and relates the paradigmatic shift in
infrastructure building pursued by the project to the delivery of data integration and processing foundations for the
implementation of the EA.
Section 1.2.3 motivates the technological and deployment choices that the project makes for its target data eInfrastructure and discusses their implications for the EA-CoP and the development of data e-Infrastructures at
large.
1.2.1 The Ecosystem Approach and the Emerging EA-CoP
The EA is formally understood as an extension of conventional fishery management, encompassing new features to
deal with a more comprehensive mandate in relation to the ecosystem. The same holds true for resource
conservation, as the “old” concept of emblematic or vulnerable species protection (e.g. through area protection) is
extended to cover the maintenance of ecosystem biodiversity and the sustainable use of its goods and services. The
conventional planning and management cycles are common to fisheries management and conservation, and both
are required to use the best scientific information available to inform decision-making processes.
During the last decade, the EA implementation has been progressing through a number of activities, including:
drafting of conceptual and operational guidelines and plans (by FAO, WWF, CBD, etc.); developing ecosystem
models and better understanding of ecosystemic impacts of resource uses; developing catalogues of ecosystem
indicators; promoting the application of risk analysis, management and communication; testing of marine protected
areas; reducing fisheries impacts; developing inter-agency collaborations, e.g. between FAO, CITES, UNEP and
the CBD; developing ecolabelling; building capacity through dedicated field projects. Research has evolved
significantly, increasing focus on collateral impacts of ecosystem use, ecosystem protection devices, food chains,
resilience, valuation of ecosystem goods and services, and more generally on the interactions between the human
and natural sub-systems of the ecosystem. These activities have generated a range of small “clusters of interest”
(e.g. formal or semi-formal working groups and email groups) around EA-related subjects (sea mounts, coral reefs,
high seas, marine protected areas)1 or methodologies (e.g. modelling, mapping, atlases).
Despite these results, the EA implementation is still rather slow and will not be able to meet the deadlines adopted
by the World Summit on Sustainable Development for 2012. The overall activity remains fragmented and
chaotic, and an EA-CoP is only slowing emerging; the clusters function asynchronously and in a fashion that is
uncoordinated at best, resulting in slower than possible progress, incoherence and a large gap between endowed
and low-capacity areas.
Three factors among others are slowing down or complicating the implementation:
1. the greater amount of data needed to deal with the larger range of issues in scope, within tighter
timeframes and respecting higher quality standards. In line with the precautionary approach, the use of risk
1
Many of these groups function as “stealth” epistemic communities, or pressure groups, with definite agendas,
focussing on “hot” issues such as the state of world fisheries, their impact on ecosystems, the role of marine
protected areas (MPAs), protection of emblematic species, some forms of ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF)
or of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), co-management, fishing rights and individual transferable
quotas (ITQs), etc.
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analysis is proposed as a way to cope with the resulting growing uncertainty. In addition, where capacity does
exist, ecosystem modelling can be used to develop and compare management scenarios;
2. the difficulty to predict with accuracy the outcome of management measures in complex social-ecological
systems. In line with “good governance” principles, an adaptive management process is proposed as a way to
proceed with the information available and adapt the management set-up as new knowledge is obtained. In the
context of EAF, a monitoring capacity based on the ability to follow the trends of “live indicators” as a basis for
corrective actions would provide a response. Also the way to limit costly errors in this trial-and-error process is
to use tested best practices and exchange information, as rapidly as possible, on successes and failures. The need
to work on as many comparable ecosystems as possible implies establishing such exchange at regional and
global levels;
3. the insufficient research and management capacity available, not only in the developing world, to deal
with the large range of fisheries and ecosystem types and jurisdictions. This calls for simplified access to a
large range of information resources and analytical methods, and for relief from the burden of maintaining
complex systems.
It is widely agreed that tackling these challenges requires the support of a large-scale, distributed infrastructure of
information resources, from data sources to information services, which can address three key requirements for
science-based decision-making: (i) access to basic or reference data; (ii) availability of tools for data processing;
and (iii) diffusion of results beyond the strict decision and publication processes. In particular, the expectation is for
an infrastructure that can: facilitate the federation, access, validation, and processing of data and information at
ecosystem level at the required scale; accelerate the exchange of information, tools, experiences, and best practices;
compensate the reduced capacity available in some areas/fisheries through better information exchange and
catalogues of best practices between more and less endowed areas.
As it sets out to build and operate a data infrastructure that meets these requirements, the project acknowledges that
its success rests on the involvement of existing clusters of interest around the EA, hence its reliance on information
system specialists for governance (the Board) and on representatives from interest groups for validation and
promotion within the broader community (the Advisory Council). Conversely, as the result of building and
operating an infrastructure that meets the requirements above, the project will provide an opportunity and a
strong incentive for existing clusters of interest to rally around concrete data and processing foundations, to
exert influence on their governance, and to form in the process a more functional, multidisciplinary, and
influential nucleus out of which a European and a global EA-CoP may organically grow.
In particular, the project will assist in organizing for the EA-CoP a wide range of data and information in
interoperable databases and knowledge bases, ontologies, glossaries, digital libraries (with as free access as
possible) and other repositories. It will provide facilities to help organize the assessment-and-decision process,
including e-meeting facilities, wikis, and e-training, thereby improving over the present image of a fragmented,
chaotic, and poorly accessible collection of information resources. It will offer simultaneous access to many data
sources, improving over the present use of conventional search engines. It will enhance the role of portals dedicated
to the EA, promoting the elaboration of coherent fisheries and conservation policies and strategies. It will also
facilitate the participation of sector representatives or actors to a more public and transparent debate. Last but not
least, the project will promote scientific collaboration across disciplines and ecosystems, pooling the rare
competencies available at regional level and worldwide.
Overall, the project will provide a forum where key representatives of the diverse communities that support the EA
will develop policies for sharing data, applications, and hardware resources within a single infrastructure. In doing
so, the project will also provide a kernel and a catalyst to the emergence of a unified EA-CoP, and possibly the
foundations of its information and knowledge exchange partnership component.
1.2.2 Infrastructures for the Emerging EA-CoP
Today, the EA can leverage network access to a substantial amount of relevant data sources and information
services.
Some of the traditional data types are relatively well represented online, most noticeably those that concern the
classification, naming, description, spatiotemporal distribution, and natural environment of marine species. Popular
online services give access to a large body of biodiversity data (cf. OBIS, Fishbase, SeaLifeBase, FIGIS), others
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publish bathymetric data (e.g. Virtual Ocean, GEBCO, ETOPO), yet others disseminate oceanographic and
atmospheric data (such as ICOADS, US NODC with WorldOcean Atlas and World Ocean Database); some
services offer interactive interfaces to mapping tools (e.g. IMAPS). In some case, the services federate data
collated at different scales or around different themes, moving data or queries under standard protocols and
formats. Often they participate to broader federations in turn, feeding their data to global services further upstream
(e.g. GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life). Collectively, these services form the architecture of an infrastructure of data
providers and data publishers that align on metadata standards (e.g. CSGDM, GCMD, OceanPortal), service
discovery and query protocols (e.g. DiGIR, TAPIR), data exchange formats (e.g. ABCD, Darwin Core, OBIS
Schema), and data dissemination protocols (e.g. WMS, WFS).
A large number of ongoing projects and initiatives contribute to the constant expansion of the infrastructure in
terms of coverage, services, tools, and data exchanges between services. Species 2000, Species2000 Europa and
the Catalogue of Life – a collaboration between Species 2000 and the Integrated Taxonomic Information System
(ITIS) – are building the ultimate register of taxonomic names, including classification and synonymy. i4Life is an
initiative to create tools to automate the integration of species lists from different sources. The Pan-European
Species directories Infrastructure (PESI) provides standardised and authoritative taxonomic information by
integrating and securing Europe’s taxonomically authoritative species name registers and nomenclators (name
databases) and the associated expert(ise) networks that underpin the management of biodiversity in Europe. The
World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) was developed to support the data management needs of the MarBEF
Network of Excellence and built on the information collated by another European Project, the European Register of
Marine Species. Aquamaps builds on OBIS and GBIF data, to create range maps of aquatic species by
extrapolating known occurrences to an area with suitable environmental conditions.
For other types of data, online accessibility, aggregation and exploitation are considerably more limited. To varying
degrees, this is true of open-access bibliographic data (but see ASFA, Aquatic Commons, OceanDocs), expertise
records (but see OceanExpert) and - most crucially to the vision of the EA - of statistical data, assessment data,
and socio-economic data, where the main problems are less to do with coverage and consistency than with
timeliness of publication, systemic interoperability, provenance recording and overall data quality across
consolidation chains. The premises for infrastructural support towards collation and exchange of statistical data do
already exist, from data sources available at local, regional, and global levels – such as FIGIS, ISTAM, and
FIRMS – to widely endorsed standards for data exchange, publication, discovery, and notification, most noticeably
the Statistical Data and Metadata Standards (SDMX). Infrastructural developments in this direction are still in
their infancy, however, and there are pressing issues related to streamlining the adoption of standards and the
reuse of standards-based service implementations and tools – from registry implementations to data
conversion, ingestion and presentation tools – across both providers and consumers of statistical data.
Even where the infrastructure is most developed, however, the bottom-up and uncoordinated approach that
characterises its deployment curtails the possibilities for cost-effective, transparent, and innovative exploitation. Its
services are portals, are typically designed to disseminate a particular type of information, and share data
opportunistically on the basis of metadata and protocol standards. This leaves little room for true back-end services
with general-purpose and reusable data management functions, including storage, description, annotation,
provenance, mediation, indexing, retrieval, transfer, and transformation. Similarly, it dispenses altogether with
standard middleware services, including: (i) resource management services, which are key to optimised,
transparent, and cost-effective use of the available resources; (ii) resource publication, notification, and discovery
services, which are key to defining applications that make dynamic use of the available resources; (iii) process and
workflow execution services, which are key to synthesizing applications out of existing functionality; and (iv)
security services, which are key to bringing sensitive data (e.g. Abundance Assessment or Control and Surveillance
data) within the infrastructure, where it may be aggregated, qualitatively analysed, or otherwise “anonymized”
towards the synthesis of Open Access artefacts.
Thus the primary mode of data access is currently interactive and there is little support for building
applications and workflows that integrate, cross-reference, post-process, analyse and more generally
synthesise new knowledge from the available information. Without such applications and workflows, it is
unclear how to achieve the automation, transparency, and timeliness that are required to turn the
infrastructure into a credible platform for support to policy development and decision-making. It is equally
unclear how goals of cost-effectiveness, sustainability, performance, and scale may be successfully addressed
if the scope for resource sharing within the infrastructure is limited to data and excludes applications,
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services, computing resources, and human resources dedicated to the governance and administration of the
infrastructure.
These observations motivate a more integrated approach to infrastructure building, one in which the infrastructure
is conceived as a set of dedicated hardware resources, cross-application software services, and domain-specific
data sources which are made available: (i) to a broad class of stakeholders, (ii) under the strict governance of a set
of policies and the routine administration of dedicated human resources, and (iii) for the implementation of a class
of related processes. This is an e-Infrastructure and the project will deploy and operate one whose policies and
services are strongly oriented towards governance and support of data management processes, i.e. a data eInfrastructure. In particular, the project will integrate the strengths of the existing infrastructure – data
sources, information services, metadata and protocol standards, sharing policies – into a data eInfrastructure of shared resources which may serve as a suitable platform for the implementation of the EA.
1.2.3 Enabling Software Technologies
Initiatives for the deployment of general-purpose e-Infrastructures are well underway across the globe, and so have
been for a number for years. Long-term national and international deployment efforts may be found in Europe
(GÉANT, EGEE/EGI, DEISA, NGS, D-Grid, NDGF), the United States (TeraGrid, OSG), China (CROWN), Japan
(NAREGI), India (Garuda), Australia (APAC), and the countries of the Pacific Rim (PRAGMA).
Efforts may differ pair-wise in terms of available resources, scope of resource distribution, resource topology, and
application domain. Yet they are all built on the common assumption that the infrastructure pools its resources from
a number of diverse and autonomous administrative domains, in accordance to the principles of controlled resource
sharing that characterize Grid systems [6]. From Grid computing, most infrastructures inherit an orientation
towards computation-intensive and data-intensive batch processes, i.e. tasks, such as those required in modern,
large-scale scientific research. Data management is then concerned with federation and optimal placement of large
data sets, and this reflects into services for distribute storage, transfer, and replication of data.
A notable exception is D4Science, an e-Infrastructure that adopts the federative model of Grid systems but differs
substantially from such system in terms of service offering. In particular, D4Science relies on the services of
gCube, an open-source distributed system specifically designed to operate of data e-Infrastructures with the
following key properties:
 a strong orientation towards service-oriented applications. Applications in the infrastructure take the form of
Virtual Research Environments, i.e. dynamically and interactively defined aggregations of data collections and
services with interfaces towards a variety of actors, from end-users to administrators. Collections and services
are drawn from longer-lived resource pools allocated to Virtual Organizations, i.e. virtual domains with
dedicated administrative interfaces. Virtual Research Environments and Virtual Organizations define scopes
within the infrastructure, and resources may be confined to scopes or selectively shared across scopes.
 the provision of a rich array of general-purpose data management services, associated libraries, and interactive
interfaces ready for inclusion in Virtual Organizations and Virtual Research Environments. This includes
services for importing, storing, indexing, accessing, searching, transforming, describing, and annotating data.
Collectively, these services support a high-level, application-oriented notion of data infrastructure.
 the ability to deploy Virtual Organizations and Virtual Research Environments on demand, and the ability to
manage the lifetime of their services in an autonomic fashion. There are middleware services that compute the
dependency closure of selected services, find the best match between service requirements and hardware
capabilities, and deploy accordingly a number of services instances. They then monitor the activities of the
deployed instances, distribute their load, and deploy new instances in response to failures or overload.
Collectively, these services support a model of resource management that aligns with the service-orientation of
the infrastructure and departs from conventional management models found in task-oriented infrastructures.
 the ability to stage, execute, and monitor declarative specifications of sophisticated workflows, where individual
execution steps may entail the invocations of services or the execution of scripts, binaries, and tasks. Most
noticeably, the infrastructure can dynamically outsource the execution of individual steps to external
infrastructures so as to exploit the task-orientation of their resource management regimes. In this sense, the
infrastructure reconciles tasks and services as equally important models of process execution.
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 the ability to adapt to a wide range of community-specific requirements, both in terms of presentation and backend logic. The infrastructure offers a range of extension and customization mechanisms in addition to, and at
lower-cost than, the development of new application services. All pre-defined services and service front-ends
can be dynamically configured; where appropriate, services are designed as execution engines of declarative
specifications (e.g. for process execution, as discussed above) and some services can be dynamically extended
with service plug-ins. Effectively, the infrastructure offers an open development platform to its communities of
adoption.
 the ability to extend its core functions beyond the boundaries of the infrastructure. Key middleware and data
management services are built with interoperability mechanisms that allow new functionality to be dynamically
plugged within existing services and service frameworks, and which capitalize on relevant standards to
maximize reach and exposure outside the infrastructure.
Collectively, these properties identify gCube as a suitable technological substrate for the class of data-oriented
processes that characterize the implementation of the EA. Thus its services are selected as primary components for
integration within the data e-Infrastructure that the project sets out to build and operate. This selection extends
naturally to the context in which gCube is currently deployed. Based on the interoperability mechanisms built
within some of its key services, D4Science acts today as the enabling component of a federation of eInfrastructures that includes, among others, EGEE, DRIVER, GENESIS-DR/DEC, and INSPIRE. Within the
federation, resources that originate in individual infrastructures propagate to the others on demand and at a
contained cost; this complements the strengths of each infrastructure, broadens its coverage, suggests innovative
exploitation, and accelerates adoption. The project will thus leverage the same interoperability mechanisms to join
its own data e-Infrastructure to the D4Science federation, thus partaking of its continuous cycle of mutual exchange
and benefit. In particular, its data e-Infrastructure will make available to the EA-CoP computational, content,
and functional resources that are available in the federation as a whole (e.g. Earth Observation datasets
aggregated in GENESIS-DR/DEC or the computational resources pooled in EGEE). Conversely, the data eInfrastructure will expand the overall capacity of the federation to include the content and functionality that
will be directly or indirectly published from within its own data e-Infrastructure.
The implications for the EA-CoP of a gCube-based data e-Infrastructure that operates within a federation of eInfrastructures are well illustrated by three Virtual Research Environments in D4Science:
 the Aquamaps Virtual Research Environment generates species distribution maps through sophisticated analyses
of data integrated from a variety of relevant sources. In doing so, it mirrors the activity of the popular Aquamaps
service, but it relies on the infrastructure to integrate data sources available in the D4Science ecosystem and to
outsource the execution of computationally intensive algorithms. As a result, the Virtual Research Environment
can feed into the external services more precise, accurate, synthetic and predictive maps than those currently
disseminated by the service.
 The FCPPS Virtual Research Environment (for Fishery and Country Profiles Production System) generates
balanced and synthetic reports of the status of fisheries and aquaculture in a given country. The reports support
decision-making processes within the sector and promote advocacy in the sustainable use and conservation of
aquatic resources. Their generation hinges on complex aggregation and editing of continuously evolving multilingual data from heterogeneous sources. The infrastructure makes available additional data sources to the
process and reduces dramatically the time required for report generation, to the extent that updates can be
computed and disseminated as often as the community requires.
 The ICIS Virtual Research Environment (for Integrated Capture Information System) integrates regional and
global capture and distribution information of aquatic species from Regional Fishery Management
Organizations (RFMOs) and international organizations (FAO, WorldFish), and it exposes it to interactive and
programming access. ICIS allows for the configuration of algorithms and filters for parameters such as area,
species distribution and habitat, providing a harmonized view of catch statistics and allowing the community to
overlay according to pre-defined reallocation rules. To ensure broad interoperability, ICIS makes use of existing
international standards including those agreed at the Coordinating Working Party (CWP) on Fishery Statistics
and the Open Geospatial Consortium's ISO 9115.
While these Virtual Research Environments serve as convincing proofs of concept – and are rapidly evolving into
production-class tools for the emerging EA-CoP – much development and integration work is required to extend
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and adapt the service-based framework provided by gCube towards the data types, policies, and processes that are
key to the implementation of the EA. The precise nature of this work is outlined in Section 1.3.3, but it is clear that
the information services mentioned in Section 1.2.2 – and the open-source implementations already available
within the EA-CoP for the protocols, data standards, metadata standards and profiles that pertain to the operation of
those services – become key candidates for integration within the data e-Infrastructure. This is the case, for
example, of FAO’s OpenSDMX implementations of SDMX standards for modeling, accessing, and discovering
statistical data; in this sense, the data e-Infrastructure will be able to interface external SDMX infrastructures
and will act as an SDMX-based infrastructure in its own right. This is also the case for existing
implementations in the domain of geo-spatial data modeling, accessing, searching and publication (e.g. the
GeoNetwork catalog and its map generation and visualization services) and for the management, dissemination,
and consumption of structured data in “semantic” forms, such as RDF/N3, OWL, and Linked Data (e.g. the Triplify
plugin for web applications and the DR2 server, the Virtuoso semantic store, the Silk Linking Framework, the
Sparallax browser of Sparkle-compliant search servers, again GeoNetwork’s Ontology service, and others).
In summary, by integrating gCube with services and components already available within the EA-CoP, the project
will make advances in both problem domain and solution domain. As far the first is concerned, the project will
develop and integrate technological solutions – services and applications – which are essential to the
implementation of the EA in the context of its data e-Infrastructure. As far as the second is concerned, the
project will consolidate and enhance the capabilities of gCube as an enabler of general-purpose data eInfrastructures. In turn, this will increase the returns on investment in building the e-Infrastructures that
make or will make use of its services, directly (as for D4Science) or indirectly (as for the infrastructures in
the D4Science federation).
1.3 Methodology to achieve the objectives of the project, in particular the provision
of integrated services
In order to meet its objectives, the proposed project will put in place a set of activities that will globally lead to an
innovative data infrastructure supporting the Ecosystem Approach introduced in the previous sections. These
activities range from those dedicated to define its governance model to those aimed at implementing it. This section
elaborates further on the methodology that will be followed to achieve the project objectives by describing the
proposed activities and how they are related. The section is organized as follows. Section 1.3.1 introduces the
iMarine Board, i.e. a body conceived to ensure an extensive participation and involvement of the major
stakeholders active in the EA domain. Section 1.3.2 describes the approach driving the deployment of the iMarine
data infrastructure, including the characteristics of existing providers that will contribute to it. Section 1.3.3
describes the methodology put in place to develop the technology needed to deploy and operate the iMarine data
infrastructure. Section 1.3.4 describes relevant business cases faced by the EA-CoP. The project will vertically
integrate services deployed in the iMarine data infrastructure to offer support to these business cases through
dedicated Virtual Research Environments. Section 1.3.5 describes the methodology and actions that will be put in
place to promote the iMarine outcomes. Finally, Section 1.3.6 provides an overview of the work packages that will
implement these activities and of the main interactions that will take place among them.
1.3.1 Linking the Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice
The project’s expected impact is an enhanced connection between information and decision making in Fisheries
management and conservation of Marine Living Resources. Such an endeavour requires an active participation of
EA-CoP actors to project orientations and decisions. To facilitate this participation, an iMarine Board will be
established as part of the overall project governance. The primary goal of this Board will be to define the iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure governance model with a view to sustainability, and to formulate a set of organizational and
technological policy recommendations regulating the resource sharing and services provided by the new iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure. This objective will be fostered by the conception of concrete applications serving three EA
business cases (cf. Section 1.3.4) and by their validation.
1.3.1.1 Nature of the EA-CoP
The structure, membership, responsibilities, and relationships of the Board with the other project’s bodies respond
to the nature of the concerned EA-CoP, its expectations with regards to the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure, and the
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expected interactions between the project and the broad User Community (UC). These aspects are introduced first
with reference to the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Community of Practice (EAF-CoP).
The EAF-CoP aims at involving the broad range of practitioners required to reach EAF objectives in a common
dialog, i.e. those developing the knowledge necessary to support decision making as well as those involved in the
implementation steps. Three relevant clusters can be identified in relation with project goals:
1. Epistemic communities such as stock assessment scientists, socio-economists, biodiversity specialists, fishery
managers regularly meet in scientific working groups, networking meetings, or statutory committee meetings.
2. As part of EAF initiatives, representatives of these epistemic communities cluster and work together in ad hoc
or statutory meetings, under the leadership of “EAF champions” (policy makers or fishery managers and their
advisors). In complement to meetings, they set-up networking facilities such as discussion groups.
3. Data managers and information system specialists are tightly associated in the work of the communities for
each of the above levels. On the one hand, they are very familiar with the specific user community
requirements, and on the other hand are the experts primarily concerned by standard exchange protocols,
systems specifications, standard vocabularies and code lists, data security, workflow process management,
user-friendly interfaces. They also are the ones who can contribute business oriented software components that
will constitute parts of the shared data e-infrastructure resources. This positioning designate them as the
mediators between the core providers of the data infrastructure and the thematic practitioners, hereby called
User Communities Mediators (UC Mediators).
The iMarine Board will consist of:
 a main body composed of information system specialists (UC Mediators) having generally managerial level
responsibilities in their agencies infrastructure, such that a broad range of EA business domains be represented.
The Members of the Board are those belonging to institutions formally involved in the project; the Board also
cater for Observers from institutions not formally involved in the project.
 a subsidiary body called “Advisory Council”, members of which are high level leaders / champions of EA
initiatives selected in the context of the project. This Advisory Council will orient the work of the iMarine
Board.
In order to ensure strategic communication with the other project bodies, the iMarine Board will also include as
observers the chairs of the Steering Board and of the Technical Board (cf. Section 2.1). The composition of the
Board is presented in Appendix A.
Main responsibilities and tasks of the iMarine Board
The iMarine Board will elaborate the iMarine data e-infrastructure governance model with a view to ensure its
sustainability, and will formulate a set of organizational and technological policy recommendations regulating
the resource sharing (hardware, data, applications and services) provided by the new e-Infrastructure.
The Board will steer activities regarding interoperability standards, and ensure the translating of policies into
implementation guidelines and best practices. The Board will ensure an effective connection between the
realisations of the project and the final user community beneficiaries (i.e. the concerned EA initiatives and
epistemic communities).
The Board will formulate recommendations to the Steering Board for matters which require executive decisions at
project level.
The iMarine Board’s membership, structure, and relationships with the other project’s boards are designed to fulfil
these responsibilities. While the high level profile and domain diversity of the UC Mediators composing the Board
will favour emergence and ownership of cohesive policies and implementation guidelines, the Advisory Council
will favour the live connection with the existing EA initiatives and the broader support from UC’s managers. The
participation as Observer in the Board of the Technical Director (chair of the Technical Committee) aims at
alignment with the IT developments undertaken by the SA and JRA work packages, while that of the Scientific
Director (chair of the Steering Board) aims at streamlining iMarine Board’s recommendations into project’s
implementation decision. This later goal will also be supported through the participation as full member in the
Steering Board of the chair of iMarine Board.
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1.3.1.2 Operation of the iMarine Board
The operations of the iMarine Board will be supported by the project for what regards travels, meetings
organization, secretariat and technical function. FAO will hold the Secretariat responsibility. The Board will hold
its meetings twice a year for duration of 2 to 3 days, and invite attendance of the Advisory Council during one day
every two sessions (i.e. once a year). During the intersession the work of the Board will continue through on-line
meetings as required. The Board will operate according to the following TORs.
Terms of References of the iMarine Board
 Elaborate recommendations for a post-project data e-Infrastructure governance model;
 Formalise high level data e-Infrastructure policies and develop the implementation guidelines and best practices;
 Identify and review interoperability standards and protocols; formulate recommendations to project’s strategic
boards regarding their adoption and implementation priority;
 Identify need for, review and advise on functional requirements and data management / workflow facilities;
 Review services and user interfaces made available, and formulate recommendations thereof;
 Review outreach activities and feedback from user communities, and advise on outreach plans
 Review exploitation and sustainability plans and formulate sustainability strategy;
 Review recommendations of the Advisory Council, and present project developments/achievements to the
Advisory Council;
 Review opportunity for new Members or Observers that would contribute to the goals of the project, including
the conditions under which they can join project activities, and advise project’s strategic boards accordingly;
 In general make decisions according to its rules of procedures within the scope of this project;
Membership: the initial membership consists of UC Mediators from agencies formally involved in the project, as
listed in Table 1. They will nominate their alternate.
Chair: FAO;
Secretary: UC Technical leader (FAO);
Observers: UC Mediator from institutions not formally involved in the project but identified in the project
document as fulfilling an important role; UC Mediators from other institutions which application to the Board have
been endorsed through Steering Board; representatives of strategic Project bodies (Technical Committee, Steering
Board, Executive Board). Observers have no “voting” power regarding responsibilities within the realm the
iMarine Board.
Meetings: it will meet physically twice a year, and continuously lead on-line discussions.
Rules of procedures: these will be elaborated and adopted at the first meeting of the iMarine Board, on the
understanding that the Board will take decisions on a consensus basis.
Relationships with other project bodies: formulates recommendations to Steering Board.
Individual members responsibilities:
 support and contribute in their individual / agency capacities to the work of the CoP Board;
 spearhead project outreach by attending EA-CoP’s workshops;
 promote actions which contribute to iMarine Data e-Infrastructure exploitation and sustainability.
The iMarine Board’s Advisory Council as a whole:
 contribute high level guidance regarding data and application sharing policies and project developments;
 review the policies and advise accordingly;
 review the sustainability plans and advise accordingly;
 provide general knowledge regarding existing activities relevant to the work of the Board;
 provide general advice with respect to user communities feedback.
Membership: the start-off membership consists of 4 EA champions having high level influence in EA-CoP; these
members have an active role in the EA initiatives concerned by the business cases (cf. Section 1.3.4) as listed in
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Table 1 below. At the beginning of the project, the identified Members might transfer this role to other persons
from their community.
Individual members responsibilities:
 provide active support regarding outreach activities;
 contribute to promote sustainability plans in their respective sphere of influence;
Note: iMarine Board Members are from agencies which are formally part of the project consortium or identified as
subcontractors; Most Observers are not identified at individual level at this stage.
Table 1. List of members of the iMarine Board and Advisory Council
Concerned
institution
e-Infrastructure
or Service /
competence
iMarine Board
Member
Member/
Advisor/
Observer
FAO
Serge Garcia /
Gabriella
Bianchi
A
GOBI
Patricio Bernal
A
X
NEAFC
Kjartan Hoydal
A
X
University
Wageningen
Martin
Pastoors
A
CRIA
Vanderlei
Perez Canhos
M
X
X
X
X
X
X
High Seas
Deep Seas
VMEs &
EBSAs
African
pelagic LME
EAF
X
X
FIGIS
Marc Taconet
M
FAO
TechCDR
Karl Morteo
M
X
FAO
AGRIS-AP
Johannes
Keizer
M
X
Neil
Holdsworth
M
X
X
Terradue
Earth
Pedro
Observation
/ Goncalves
Geospatial data
M
IRD
Ecoscope
Julien Barde
M
UNESCO
IOC-IODE
OBIS
Edward
Van
den Berg
M
FIN
Aquamaps
Nicolas Bailly
VLIZ
PESI
Species2000
4D4Life
EU
Common
Fishery
Policy
X
FAO
ICES2
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
M
X
X
X
Yde de Jong
M
X
X
X
Frank Bisby
M
X
X
X
O
X
EC3
(DG- MARE
2
EA Business Cases (cf. Section 1.3.4)
-
See in appendix Letter of Support C.2.
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X
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Concerned
institution
CP-CSA proposal
iMarine
e-Infrastructure
or Service /
competence
iMarine Board
Member
Member/
Advisor/
Observer
IMR Bergen
Fridtjoff Nansen
information
system
-
MAAP
ISFA
VLIZ
EA Business Cases (cf. Section 1.3.4)
High Seas
Deep Seas
VMEs &
EBSAs
African
pelagic LME
EAF
EU
Common
Fishery
Policy
O
X
X
Olivier Forner
O
X
X
X
EMODNET
Tjess
Hernandez
O
X
X
X
GENESI-DEC
-
O
IMAP
-
O
X
X
and/or
Eurostat)
UNEPWCMC
1.3.2 Infrastructure Development and Operation
In order to support and realise the Ecosystem Approach envisaged by the CoP, iMarine will deploy and operate its
own e-Infrastructure. This e-Infrastructure will not work in isolation but it will benefit from and rely on resources
and services operated by existing infrastructures and service providers of various types.
Many of these existing infrastructures are available under the D4Science Federation. This federation of
infrastructures is providing access to a large set of multi-type heterogeneous resources coming from different
research and scientific domains (humanities, high energy physics biodiversity, environmental science, and others).
Relevant examples of such infrastructures are: GENESI-DR, AquaMaps, EGI, etc.
3
"any eventual involvement of European Commission representative as observer will ensure that the participation
rules in FP7 are followed"
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Figure 1 – iMarine Data Infrastructure and Interoperable Infrastructures
The infrastructures interoperable with iMarine Data Infrastructure will provide resources of different types which
can be clustered in: computing and storage resources (red in Figure 1), community-specific resources (blue in
Figure 1), and other relevant resources not directly produced within the EA domain (green in Figure 1). Also
represented in Figure 1 (solid dark blue circles-lines) are the infrastructures currently belonging to the D4Science
Federation.
The iMarine Data Infrastructure will be a completely new infrastructure, deployed for the first time by the project
Service Activity, to address the Ecosystem Approach vision and needs. It will collect and provide access to the
resources identify by the EA-CoP. From the hardware point of view, the infrastructure will offer a minimum of 250
servers (17 TB storage space linked by 1 GB network connection) available to host and operate the communities’
resources which will be made available through a number of well identified Virtual research Environments. These
nodes will run the gCube software and other community specific applications and tools to deliver all capacities
required to store, transform, curate, process, and access the communities’ data resources.
The Federated Model adopted to manage the interconnection with many of the cited infrastructures and systems
will rely on: (i) Utility Services: services and applications common to all entities participating to the federation, and
managed by the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure for all agencies and infrastructures to improve service and/or reduce
costs; (ii) Shared Services: services and applications required by more than one participating entity, and managed
by the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure to improve service and efficiency; and (iii) Agency-Specific Services:
applications and services of a highly specialized nature for which there are no opportunities to add value through
central management but that can use the other services of the federation at no-cost for the agency.
As explained, besides the resources hosted in iMarine Data e-Infrastructure itself, iMarine will establish close
interoperability links with other infrastructures, many of them already available in the D4Science Federation. This
collaboration will be based on a Research Collaboration Model where resources of one infrastructure can be
consumed or accessed by another infrastructure and vice-versa through an agreement community-based approach
under the control of the infrastructure’s middleware.
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Infrastructures providing Computing and Storage Resources
EGI (European Grid Infrastructure) is a project willing to create and maintain a pan-European Grid Infrastructure
in collaboration with National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) in order to guarantee the long-term availability of a generic
e-infrastructure for all European research communities and their international collaborators. The European Grid
Infrastructure will (1) Operate a secure integrated production grid infrastructure that seamlessly federates resources
from providers around Europe, (2) Coordinate the support of the research communities using the European
infrastructure, and (3) Work with software providers within Europe and worldwide to provide high-quality
innovative software solutions that deliver the capability required by user communities.
EGI provides storage and computing resources, distributed across hundreds of sites worldwide and is based on
different interoperable grid middleware solutions such as Globus, gLite, Arc, and Unicore. The resources offered
by the EGI infrastructure will significantly extend the storage and computing capacity available under the
D4Science Federation. These resources will be accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure under a Research
Collaboration Model.
VENUS-C (Virtual multidisciplinary EnviroNments USing Cloud infrastructure) is focused on developing and
deploying a Cloud Computing service for research and industry communities in Europe with the aim of: (1)
creating a platform that enables user applications to leverage cloud computing principles and benefits, (2)
leveraging the state of the art to bring on board early adopters quickly, incrementally enable interoperability with
existing Distributed Computing Infrastructures (DCIs), and push the state of the art where needed to satisfy onboarding and interoperability, and (3) creating a sustainable infrastructure that enables cloud computing paradigms
for the user communities inside the project and new communities.
VENUS-C offers an industrial-quality service-oriented platform based on virtualisation technologies by providing
an open and generic Application Programming Interface (API) at platform level for scientific applications. The
VENUS-C platform is based on both commercial and open source solutions underpinned by the Engineering data
centre, Microsoft through the Windows Azure and its European data centres, and two European High Performance
Computing centres: The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Sweden) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center
(BSC, Spain). The resources offered by VENUS-C will significantly extend the storage, computing, and service
hosting capacity available under the D4Science Federation. The VENUS-C abstraction allows the immediate access
to a concrete set of resources providers (Engineering Data Centre, Microsoft Windows Azure, KTH, BSC). These
resources could be made accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure initially under a Research Collaboration
Model and afterwards under a commercial Cloud Model.
Infrastructures providing Community Resources
OBIS allows users to search marine species datasets from all of the world's oceans. It allows to identify large-scale
ecological patterns, analyze dispersions of species over time and space, and plot species' locations with
temperature, salinity, and depth. The OBIS schema is a list of data fields with names, descriptions, and format
notes. It is an extension to the Darwin Core Version 2 standard. Darwin Core is a Biodiversity informatics data
standard that consists of a vocabulary of terms to facilitate the discovery, retrieval, and integration of information
about organisms, their spatiotemporal occurrence, and the supporting evidence housed in biological collections.
Often abbreviated as DwC, it was originally created as a Z39.50 profile by the ZBIG Z39.50 Biology Implementers
Group. The Darwin Core profile is expressed as an XML Schema document for use by the DiGIR (Distributed
Generic Information Retrieval) protocol. A TDWG task group was created to revise the Darwin Core and bring it to
the state of a ratified metadata standard. Ratification of the standard occurred on 9 October 2009.
Darwin Core is based on the principles of Dublin Core and decouples the definition and semantics of individual
terms from application of these terms in different technologies such as XML, RDF or simple CSV text files. It not
only allows on sharing data through a dynamic DiGIR provider, but also offers RESTful, OAI and OGC services. It
will be used to enrich the data sets accessible through the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure with biodiversity metadata
and content from multiple research areas.
FAO-IOC/IODE The United Nations agencies of FAO and UNESCO-IOC/IODE collaborate to provide
information on standards and controlled vocabularies in oceanography, marine science, food, agriculture,
development, fisheries, forestry, natural resources and related sciences. They produced a customized version of
DSpace called OceanDocs for the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) of the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) and adapted it to the standards of the
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Oceanographic community. The OceanDocs Network, created in 2004, now has some 50 members. The FAO
customized DSpace using the AGRIS Application Profile (AP) and is developing a plug-in for the use of controlled
vocabularies for communities in food, agriculture, development, fisheries, forestry, natural resources and related
sciences such as AGROVOC.
The communities of FAO and UNESCO-IOC/IODE active in oceanography and food, agriculture, development,
fisheries, forestry, natural resources and related sciences will provide open access to their literature stored in those
repositories. They will use the same standards for metadata, thesauri and other ontologies ensuring advanced access
to the scientific publications in the field and the possibility to create new services for their researchers. The
resources will be accessible from the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure under a Federated Model
IRD focuses on data discovery by implementing different metadata standards like Dublin Core (RDF schema) and
ISO 19115/39 for spatial data as well as several TDWG standards that implement the GBIF profile of EML
(Ecological Metadata Language). The main datasets produced by IRD (Observatoire Thonier) are already described
with RDF Dublin Core metadata and tagged with URI. In 2011 the IRD these will also be described with ISO
19115/39 into a catalog (CSW server) and through TDWG standards by using IPT software. Also IRD reuses or
plans to develop ad hoc ontologies (OWL) and to use entities URIs in the ontologies to tag metadata. The GBIF
IPT is an open source, Java (TM) based web application that connects and serves three types of biodiversity data:
taxon primary occurrence data, taxon checklists and general resource metadata. The data registered in a GBIF IPT
instance is connected to the GBIF distributed network and made available for public consultation and use. These
resources will be accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure under a Federated Model.
FAO Corporate Document Repository maintains FAO documents and publications, as well as selected non-FAO
publications. It offers a standardised interface to access this repository of objects produced by FAO directly on the
Internet. The Aquaculture, Fisheries Management and Conservation, Fisheries Policy and Planning, Biodiversity,
and Climate Change collections are all relevant to the Ecosystem Approach envisaged by the CoP. Those
collections will become accessible from the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure under a Federated Model.
FAO Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS) was established to offer reliable, high-quality and relevant
information on the state of world fisheries and support the Code of Conduct For Responsible Fisheries that
represents the basis for policies aimed at sustainable fisheries. FIGIS is an information management tool that
interconnects groups of institutional partnerships to build up a network of subsystems. FIGIS, as part of the FAO
Fisheries and Aquaculture Department's regular activities acts as a framework with reference to FAO information
management policy. FIGIS delivers expert knowledge, a set of software tools, collaborative mechanisms, and
interoperability solutions to a broad range of needs in fisheries information. With the adoption by the Committee on
Fisheries of the Strategy for Improving Information on Status and Trends of Capture Fisheries (STF) on 28
February 2003, FIGIS becomes one of the privileged tools for its implementation. The services offered by FIGIS
will be integrated and made accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure under a Federated Model to offer a
web-integrated fisheries information system.
FAO GeoNetwork provides Internet access to interactive maps, satellite imagery and related spatial databases. Its
purpose is to improve access to and integrated use of spatial data and information.
GeoNetwork opensource is a standardized and decentralized spatial information management environment,
designed to enable access to geo-referenced databases, cartographic products and related metadata from a variety of
sources, enhancing the spatial information exchange and sharing between organizations and their audience, using
the capacities of the internet. These resources will be accessible from the iMarine data infrastructure under a
Federated Model to provide an easy and timely access to available spatial data and to existing thematic maps that
might support informed decision making.
FAO AgroTagger that is being developed by IIT Kanpur and ICRISAT in collaboration with FAO is an
automatic web-accessible tagging module for agriculture-related contents whose salient features are: language
detection; ability to process various document types (doc, docx, pdf, odp, html); ability to assign tags, named
agrotags, with or without a thesaurus or a training data set; ease of integration into the Drupal Content
Management System. Agrotags is a subset of keywords selected from Agrovoc, by IIT Kanpur and ICRISAT, and
acts as the “core” keywords that describe the domain, an abridged version of Agrovoc. This service will be
accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure under a Federated Model and it will be used to enrich textual and
structured data with agrotags keywords.
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PESI promotes correct use of names and their relationships as an essential step for biodiversity management while
the availability of taxonomically validated and standardised nomenclatures is fundamental for biological einfrastructures. PESI integrates and secures taxonomically authoritative species name registers. PESI is a joint
initiative of two Networks of Excellence: EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy, and MarBEF
(Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh
Framework Capacities Work Programme – Research Infrastructures – and is led by the University of Amsterdam.
The PESI data warehouse uses the Common Data Model (CDM) that follows the TDWG Ontology, but modelling
was influenced by other models and standards, such as the Access to Biological Collections Data (ABCD) schema,
the Taxonomic Concept Schema (TCS) and the Structure of Descriptive Data (SDD) schema. PESI is also building
a common intelligent name-matching device in consultation with principal initiatives like GBIF and LifeWatch.
This provides a unified cross reference system to all stakeholders optimising their taxonomic meta-data service
functioning. The services offered by the PESI infrastructure will be accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure
under a Federated Model to significantly improve the taxonomic disambiguation capacity and improve the quality
of the data sets.
eDAMIS (electronic Data files Management and Information System) s a modern communications management
system allowing easier and more accurate transfer of data between various national, EU institutions and Eurostat,
the central statistical office of the EU. Democratic societies do not function properly without a solid basis of
reliable and objective statistics. Most European Union (EU) statistics are aggregated from hundreds of competent
national authorities among whom the main ones are national statistical offices. The purpose of eDAMIS is to
provide a simple generic solution for a transparent and reliable exchange of data files using an advanced control
system with acknowledgements, notifications, content validation, monitoring and dispatching of data files towards
the relevant recipients (application or users). eDAMIS could be considered as an advanced post service which uses
the latest internet technologies to guarantee the easy, reliable and smooth transmission of all statistical data files
that have to be sent to Eurostat. It also offers tracking and monitoring reports that can be used as input to check the
respect of the legal obligations to transmit data. This service will be accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure
under a Federated Model to guarantee a proper interconnection to Eurostat to all participating institutions.
FISHSTAT Plus is a software for fishery statistical time series providing users with access to fishery statistics of
various sorts. Any data having time series structure can potentially be stored and processed by Fishstat Plus. It
provides access to approximately 600 species items included in the FAO International Standard Statistical
Classification of Fishery Commodities (ISSCFC) (commodity categories cover products derived from fish,
crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic animals and residues caught for commercial, industrial or subsistence uses,
by all types of classes of fishing units operating in inland, fresh and brackish waters, in inshore, offshore or high
seas fishing areas. This service will be accessible from the iMarine Data Infrastructure under a Federated Model to
guarantee a proper exploitation of the information available through FishStat Plus.
AquaMaps is a data service oriented to the marine environment that makes available species range maps plus a
variety of thematic maps (taxonomic, climatologic, invasiveness, etc.). Each map is a complex information object.
All the AquaMaps collections are open source. Currently, several different communities of scientists access these
collections, either through the AquaMaps user interface or through the interface of other systems (e.g. FishBase, the
most widely used biological information system with over one million visitors per month; other species information
systems such as SeaLifeBase and GBIF).
Infrastructures providing Other Resources
GENESI-DR (Ground European Network for Earth Science Interoperations - Digital Repositories), was an ESAled, European Commission (EC)-funded two years project, that together with several data provider institutions (e.g.
DLR, CNES, ASI) demonstrated how a distributed infrastructure can provide a reliable, easy, long-term access to
Earth Science data and associated on-demand processing resources via the Internet.
A total of 15 different Digital Repositories hosting more than 160 dataset series are integrated already in GENESIDR. Dataset series refer to heterogeneous and include satellite data, in situ data, images acquired by airborne
sensors, digital elevation models and model outputs. As an example, the SeaDataNet scenario includes discovery
via Web portal of heterogeneous data (satellite, in situ, maps), download of data, discovery of and access to
processing services (on-demand generation of Sea Surface temperature maps from satellite data).
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With the follow-on project EC FP7 GENESI-DEC started in May 2010, the work developed during GENESI-DR
will be pursued targeting the Digital Earth Communities with a strong accent on distributed infrastructures security,
semantics, ontology and advanced workflow management. GENESI-DEC aims to address Digital Earth
Communities; a first set of these have already been selected, while additional ones will be identified and addressed
during the project life. The communities that are now the focus of integration are: The Seafloor and Ocean
Observation Community; The Global Atmosphere Observation Community using Aircraft; The Global Change
Earth Observation Community; The Territorial development and spatial planning Community; The Black Sea
catchment observation community.
OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe) is responsible of supporting both the FP7 Open
Access pilot and the ERC guidelines for Open Access. OpenAIRE provides guidance and assistance to researchers
in publishing their research results in Open Access. The project sets up a helpdesk system in 27 European
countries, consisting of a network of experts and a portal with online tools. It also helps to raise awareness of Open
Access and the EC pilot in research institutions; it provides valuable information and statistics on the use of Open
Access publications; and explores scientific data management services.
OpenAIRE provides access to a distributed infrastructure of Open Access repositories focused in research
publications (peer-reviewed articles, pre-prints, conference publications, others) and associated tools and services
to manipulate these research datasets. The resources offered by OpenAIRE will extend and enrich the data
repositories available under the D4Science Federation by bringing publications content from multiple research
areas. These resources will be accessible from the iMarine data infrastructure under a Research Collaboration
Model.
1.3.3 Technology Development
The extent to which a data e-Infrastructure succeeds as an application platform is largely dependent on the tools
and services that it makes available to develop and execute the broad class of applications for which it is intended.
For the iMarine infrastructure, the target applications are those required to implement the EA and thus to execute to
collate, access, integrate, annotate, transform, search, curate, and publish a variety of data types, including
statistics, biological records, environmental observations, and semantic structures. This calls for the systematic
integration of a large number of technologies across the services and tools offered by the infrastructure. Section 1.1
and Section 1.2 have, respectively, introduced and motivated the technological targets of the integration task. In
doing so, they have effectively characterised iMarine’s as a gCube-based Data e-Infrastructure with standardsbased interoperability bridges to a variety of information resources that are already available to the emerging EACoP, albeit in an uncoordinated manner. This Section overviews the main themes of the development and
integration task, including:
 the changes and extensions that will be applied to key gCube services and service subsystems;
 the use of software components already in the target domain for the implementation of those changes.
In essence, development activities will concentrate in four main functional areas4:




Consolidation and enhancement of the Enabling Services and Tools of the data e-Infrastructure;
Consolidation and enhancement of the Data Management Services of the data e-Infrastructure;
Consolidation and enhancement of the Data Consumption Services of the data e-Infrastructure;
Development of a set of Application Programming Interfaces (API) to key application-level services of the data
e-Infrastructure;
The Enabling Services will attend to the operation of the Data e-Infrastructure, encompassing functions that relate
to resource management (dynamic deployment, monitoring, brokering and match-making, resource publication,
discovery, and change notification), security and policy enforcement (authentication, authorization, accounting),
4
In addition, iMarine will develop application-specific services as well as interactive interfaces to such services.
This development effort is not described here, however, as precise application requirements will emerge during the
Service Activities of the project, from a selective analysis of the business cases of Section 1.3.4.
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and process and workflow execution. Orthogonal but conceptually related to the Enabling Services are the tools
that will support the development and execution of infrastructural services, i.e. application frameworks and service
containers. As enabling technologies are core gCube offerings, development activities in this area will concentrate
on extending and enhancing the suite of services and tools already available within that system. The design and
development themes here are varied, ranging from higher-level models of usage (e.g. for workflow specification,
composition, and reuse) and policy-driven management schemes (e.g. for resource publication and discovery and
for security enforcement), to systematic alignment with standards (across the full functional spectrum). The key
theme, however, is rooted in the expansion and re-organisation of the current model of shareable resource, with the
goal to extend resource management schemes, security enforcement regimes, execution capabilities, and
development support to a broader range of data and computational resources than those currently manageable in
gCube-based infrastructures. The main outcome will be a flexible integration model for services and other
components that were not specifically developed for the gCube system.
The Data Management Services will encompass functionalities to do with storing, accessing, describing,
annotating, moving, and curating data sources that will be published, directly or indirectly, in the data eInfrastructure. Again, gCube offer services that cover large portions of the functional spectrum. It also defines
extensibility mechanisms to adapt general-purpose functions to domain-specific requirements, both at architectural
level – within subsystems designed as service frameworks (such as the Content Management subsystem) – as well
as within individual services (dynamic plug-in components). Exploiting such mechanisms, however, is matter of
intensive development. While an important theme in this area is to do with general-purpose functionality relative to
data curation (such as harmonisation, quality assessment, supervision, certification, and verification), the unifying
development theme is undoubtedly related to interoperability, a requirement that descends from the rich variety of
domain-specific data types that are expected to flow through the data e-Infrastructure (statistics, environmental data
of various types, data related to biodiversity, and data ready for ontological reasoning and other forms of
“semantic” processing). This is where development will capitalize on the flexibility of integration models endorsed
by the Enabling Services so as to reuse software components produced in autonomy from gCube, from simple
format conversion algorithms and standard implementation frameworks (e.g. OpenSDMX), to client libraries for
external services. The activities will result in new services (e.g. outer types for content dissemination, multiprotocol data transfer mechanisms, distributed storage interfaces) and new service plug-ins (e.g. content access
plug-ins for a number of document-oriented and data-oriented models). At a more abstract level, development
activities in this area will most visibly root the infrastructure in the domain for which it was intended.
The Data Consumption Services will be strictly concerned with the manipulation, analysis, and rendering of the
datasets managed in the data e-Infrastructure. Functionalities in scope are those to transform data representations,
index and retrieve parts of the data, detect structural and content-based patterns within the data, visualise the data in
ways that are germane to its type, and process the data with statistical methods for simulation and forecasting
purposes. Some of these functionalities, such as those related to data transformation, indexing, and retrieval, are
already supported in gCube. Yet the wide range of data types available in the infrastructure – particularly
ontologies and other forms of semantic data, as well as data with spatio-temporal features – requires a re-thinking
of the query language and calls for novel filtering, query pre-processing, indexing, and data transformation
algorithms. Equally, the target domain demands interoperability with new query distribution protocols and result
formats, while the possibility of uncooperative search engines requires new approaches to data indexing (e.g.
query-based sampling). Some of these changes will rely on extensibility mechanisms built-in the gCube framework
for search, but support for data mining, visualisation, statistical analysis, and semantic analysis will require
development and integration of services and algorithms that are lacking in gCube. Like for Data Management
Services, development activities in this area will rely on the integration models supported by the Enabling Services.
Conversely, the resulting services will yield powerful “primitives” for workflow and process execution services,
thereby maximising their usefulness within the infrastructure. More than elsewhere, the development effort here
will align the infrastructure to the processing requirements associated with the implementation of the EA.
The last area of development will focus on providing an integrated set of APIs to the services available in the
infrastructure. The expected outcome is a toolkit of client libraries that offer programmatic abstractions to simplify
and optimise interactions with remote services, including high-level bindings of service inputs and outputs;
linguistic facilities and design patterns (e.g. type-safe structures and familiar producer/consumer patterns);
sophisticated interaction strategies (e.g. best-effort strategies); remote failure handling; uniform approach to crosscutting requirement (e.g. security and scope management); and a range of pre-processing and post-processing tasks
aimed at reducing latencies and service load across multiple service invocations. Collectively, these transparencies
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address a fundamental concern in infrastructure building, namely the excessive complexity of using its services.
Without adequate interfaces to its functionalities, the infrastructure fails altogether as an application platform or
else puts excessive burden on its development team. Accordingly, development activities in this area are key to the
adoption as well as the sustainability of the infrastructure as a whole.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that, orthogonally to the various activities, the methodology of choice is based
well-proven Agile Development principles [3], Software components will be developed and released in short and
continuous iterations, each release addressing the need of new functionality or the need to revise existing
functionality.
1.3.4 Realising Community Business Cases
The EA-CoP aims to promote the Ecosystem Approach to Management of Marine Living Resources, a holistic
approach to management and conservation that recognizes more explicitly the interdependence between human
well-being and ecosystem health, and the need to maintain ecosystem productivity for present and future
generations.
The iMarine project aims at serving actual needs of this community in implementing this approach. This section
presents three challenging real life EA business cases that will be specifically addressed in the course of the
project. These will serve to demonstrate to the EA-CoP the effectiveness of the data infrastructure in support to real
situation.
It must be clarified that the project does not pretends to respond to the entire spectrum of needs of the underlying
initiatives, but instead that it will provide key (and complementary) solutions to specific unresolved problems
through the development of a number of Virtual Research Environments specifically conceived to serve these
scenarios. However by responding to different facets of EA-CoP’s needs expressed under each business cases, the
project will end-up covering a broad range of EA-CoP’s generic requirements as discussed in Section 1.3.3. The
connection to live initiatives also intends to exploit external co-funding synergies in order to expand the scope of
data and services delivered through the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure. From the EA-CoP’s view point, the project
will provide resources to the “glue” necessary for the connection of the various initiatives, and by doing so it will
really contribute to the EA-CoP’s realisation . It should finally be noted that the distributed nature of the proposed
data infrastructure favours this approach. The following description presents for each business case: (i) some
background illustrating the context where the business case takes place; (ii) who are the actors involved; (iii) the
facilities that the iMarine is expected to offer to support the business case; (iv) the planned approach for providing
these facilities, and finally (v) the synergies which the project will build on.
1.3.4.1 Support to the European Common Fishery Policy
Background: As a member of FAO, the EU has adopted the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries
(CCRF) and one of its key instruments, the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries, has become one of the drivers of the
European Common Fishery Policy (CFP). The implementation of this EU CFP requires a complex flow of fishery
data and information from fishing industry activity, through member states, to supporting EC agencies. As overall
picture, the statistics which result of fishery data workflow are exploited together with other thematic information
flow, in order to formulate scientific advice on the basis of the assessed biological state of resources and socioeconomic performance of the fishing sector. In turn, DG-MARE uses this scientific advice to elaborate its
management and policy advice. Recently, the overarching need to have more integrated and higher quality data
including in coverage, timeliness, resolution and accuracy has been stressed by DG-MARE and a substantial
revision of the entire information workflow and supporting tools has been engaged since 2009. Concerned work
streams and priority levels are (i) Activities database: forwarding of daily fishing vessels activity data, including
VMS, log books, landings; (ii) Fleet registry – Fishing licenses database: work flows from member states to EU;
(iii) Legal data; (iv) Scientific data for fixing quotas.
The EA-CoP Group: The CoP is broad and includes many actors, but the EU has organized them in a range of EC
agencies institutions which strongly interact: DG-MARE for control and surveillance data, and management
recommendations; Eurostat for fishery statistics; JRC-ISPRA for Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data; scientific
working groups under ICES (for biological advice) and JRC-ISPRA (for socio-economic advice); Regional
Advisory Council (RACs) for the contribution of fishermen communities in the development of knowledge and the
formulation of management decisions. FAO interacts in particular with Eurostat and ICES in scientific and
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statistical data exchange as part of the Coordinating Working Party on fishery statistical standards (CWP)5, and the
Fishery Resources Monitoring System partnership (FIRMS).
The Goal: The iMarine data infrastructure will acquire an advanced capacity to exchange, curate, harmonize,
aggregate and manage structured socio-economic data including fishery time series, fishing activity observation
records, and VMS data. For the latter, this capacity will address demanding confidentiality requirements. By
integrating this capacity as part of its complementary analytical, mapping and reporting services, it will offer a
unique set of features able to contribute to EC decision making workflow, as well as that of other national or
regional institutions.
The Approach: Advanced implementation of the SDMX protocol has already been achieved by Eurostat, and FAO
is building on these efforts to develop OpenSDMX. Leveraging on these efforts, iMarine will integrate this
OpenSDMX capacity and complement it with semantic services for harmonization of various sources of statistics.
The capacity thus developed will serve as foundation for application to other data exchange protocols supporting
structured data, such as the COST model for fishery observation records. Finally, consideration will be given as to
how best these different protocols can be combined to exchange and process VMS data with utmost care on
confidentiality requirements.
The Synergies: The project will build on initiatives developed under regular programmes of a number of
institutions associated in the project. These on-going initiatives (thereafter summarised) will be assembled and
operationalized in the context of iMarine technology deployment.
The Eurostat SDMX initiative has been brought in March 2010 to the attention of the CWP. Under this cooperation
channel, FAO and Eurostat have decided to strengthen their collaboration by sharing expertise, software and
services. In 2011, FAO will publish its authoritative code lists according to the SDMX format as per Eurostat
request. The Eurostat e-Damis SDMX validation engine will be assessed in 2011 regarding its possible reuse and
adaptation as part of FAO’s Open SDMX initiative which will grant FAO with advanced SDMX facilities. This
collaboration is supported (including financially) by FAO’s on-going projects aiming at modernizing its FAOSTAT
system.
Regarding exchange and processing of fishery observation records and VMS data, various initiatives are worth
mentioning on the EU and international side. These include: ICES publishing of the COST format for handling data
exchange and quality improvement of sampling, landings, and effort data from Commercial fisheries, including for
Observers on board; commitment by IRD to test COST on its Tuna Observatoire and ObsTuna data; an XML
schema and data dictionary for control data developed by DG-MARE; recommendations by the ICES Study Group
on VMS data (SGVMS, 2010) on approaches for the more systematic use of VMS data, encompassing the delivery
of anonymized aggregated data with VMS linked to logbook information; NEAFC and ICES collaboration
regarding VMS data processing algorithms.
Finally, it is anticipated that the “EAF dashboard” features which will be developed as part of the third business
case identified (cf. Section 1.3.4.3) will be of interest in the context of DG-MARE’s general objective of an
integrated system including scientific data and knowledge from fishing industry.
1.3.4.2 Support to FAO’s deep seas fisheries programme: balancing use of marine resources and
protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the high seas
Background: in 2009, FAO established international guidelines for the management of deep seas high seas
fisheries with the aim to protect deep sea fragile ecosystems. In support to the implementation of these guidelines,
FAO has formulated a programme of action entitled balancing use of marine resources and protection of vulnerable
marine ecosystems (VMEs) in the high seas (DSF programme). One key component of this programme is the
development of a VME Mapping Information System which will facilitate the registration, description, analysis and
publications of all forms of information related to VMEs, in support to the management of High Seas Deep Seas
Fisheries (DSF).
In parallel, the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI), an international partnership advancing the scientific
basis for conserving biological diversity in the deep seas and open oceans, was launched in late 2008 in support to
5
CWP - see http://www.fao.org/fishery/cwp/en ; Eurostat is member of CWP
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CBD’s goals of identifying Ecologically and Biologically Sensitive Areas (EBSAs) in the Deep Seas. GOBI’s work
is supported by various sources of scientific data including OBIS and various other scattered information bases.
The EA-CoP Group: in the context of High Seas Deep Seas, such call for action can only be successful if the
various groups work as one EA-CoP. The group is relatively well circumvented: an industry limited to about 285
vessels worldwide and concerning 27 flag states, 6 established Regional Fisheries Management Organisations
(RFMOs) concerned in the management of deep sea fisheries and in the protection of VMEs, and a few
international organizations such as FAO promoting sustainable fisheries together with the protection of VMEs, or
UNEP, IUCN, and CBD promoting the protection of Ecologically and Biologically Sensitive Areas (EBSAs). As
follow-up to the Busan workshop (May 2010), a DSF Discussion Community6 has been launched, involving fishery
managers, fishery biologists, lawyers, biodiversity scientists, data managers, fishermen representatives.
The Goal: To realise a first version of a VME mapping information system. This will support the registration,
description and publication of global information on VMEs, including through documents, maps, and tabular data.
It will also provide access to Emerging scientific information regarding biological and ecological criteria relevant
to the definition of VMEs.
The Approach: the VME mapping information system will be realised by federating and leveraging within
iMarine a number of applications and services developed respectively within the FIGIS, Aquamaps, OBIS, and
CRIA infrastructures. FIGIS will develop the VME database including an inventory of legally defined VMEs, and
this application will be part of iMarine building on already achieved interoperability between FIGIS and gCube, in
particular regarding Fact sheet and Geospatial services. By generalizing the species distribution modelling
capacities developed in the D4Science-II Aquamaps scenario, developing more interactive mapping and analytical
services (“R”), and interoperability with OBIS and CRIA, iMarine will strongly contribute to the identification of
key biodiversity criteria required for the identification of VMEs. Other sources of environmental information will
be added as required (e.g. predictive map of coldwater coral distribution in the South Pacific) through
interoperability services with other systems (eg UNEP-WCMC’s IMAP, EMODNET, or International Seabed
Authority), or by using the iMarine Virtual Research Environment for loading relevant data sources and maps (e.g.
Seamounts on line).
The Synergies: The VME database development will start in January 2011 funded by FAO project
GCP/GLO/309/FRA, a funding component of the FAO DSF programme. Other funding synergies with Global
Environmental Fund (GEF) in support to FAO DSF programme and CBD-IUCN programmes on deep seas are
expected to support the development of interoperability with other relevant systems as required.
In the north east Atlantic area, the VME mapping information system will also benefit from availability of
processed VMS data made available by NEAFC (cf. Section 1.3.4.1) in order to assess fishing activity in relation
with established VMEs and areas suggesting patterns of VMEs. In this regard, the iMarine project will further
strengthen the ICIS module developed during the D4Science-II project.
As part of the FAO-European Space Agency (ESA) collaboration, the opportunity of an additional module for
tracking through satellite imagery the location of fishing vessels in the high sea will be considered. Once the
imagery products will be developed through ESA funding sources, such products will be made available to the
iMarine data infrastructure by Genesi-DEC which already has developed such capacity in D4Science-II.
1.3.4.3 Support to regional (Africa) LME pelagic EAF community
Background: EAF sets as principle that fishery management objectives should strive to reach an optimum balance
between the fishery resource productivity, the biodiversity and habitat preservation, and the social and economic
goals. The EAF implementation methodology addresses these principles at the level of a selected fishery and
strives to ensure that the above mentioned values are given key focus in a management plan. As described by the
EAF planning and implementation steps [5], the objectives for the fishery under consideration have to be specified
and prioritized for each of these values, following which a set of multi-disciplinary indicators and reference points
can be defined. These indicators are monitored through various approaches including scientific assessments, catch
or effort monitoring systems, rapid appraisal surveys with participatory methods. The scientific indicators build on
spatially explicit models on the distribution of fisheries activity, the socio-economic structure of fishing
6
see http://dgroups.org/Community.aspx?c=4e5f440c-9ac2-4b51-895f-2e9f62f2a05c
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communities, the concentration and abundance levels of commercially desirable fish stocks, the distribution of nontarget species and vulnerable aquatic habitats. For an effective management response, such monitoring across
disciplines and levels of data/information/knowledge elaboration requires a well organized (often institutionalized)
workflow which orchestrates the inputs of the EA-CoP actors vertically (from the data manager, through the
scientist and up to the fishery manager and policy maker) and horizontally (across concerned disciplines).
The EA-CoP group: consists of the various actors involved in support to the (yet to be selected) EAF regional
project on pelagic ecosystems in the context of African tropical or sub-tropical Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs).
These are fishery policy makers and managers, fishery scientists, ecologists, data providers, and fishermen
representatives, representing national or regional institutions, among which FAO, IRD, UNESCO, FIN, Terradue
and the Regional Fishery Body which will be selected (IOTC, SWIOFC, CECAF, GFCM).
The Goal: The iMarine Data e-Infrastructure has the capacity to offer a shared virtual environment integrating
multi-disciplinary data sources, and supporting cross-cutting scientific analyses, generation of live reports, handling
of business workflow, and social communication among EA-CoP’s actors. Such capacity will be exploited as a live
dashboard in support to the EAF implementation and planning steps. The “EAF dashboard” will offer an interface
showing in organic way the complete data/knowledge/decision making workflow and its feedback loops,
highlighting the actors involved at each step (from data managers through scientists, managers and decision
makers), the implementation status of each step. It will offer a capacity to relate the actors vertically or
horizontally with social tools, as well as links to and live summaries of the data and knowledge they are responsible
for.
The Approach: The project will not pretend to comprehensively address the requirements of the selected CoP, but
it will set the “EAF dashboard” framework for the selected context and expand some of its most promising
branches. It is expected that additional funding will be articulated around such kernel.
As first development goal, the “EAF dashboard” capacity will be set-up to reflect the Organizational level of an
EAF initiative, building on interoperability with IOC’s ocean expert system, and FAO’s fishery institutions
database (FIGIS). The use of the FOAF semantic model such as implemented by IRD in its Ecoscope system will
be assessed in support to interoperability among these resources and other dashboard agents such as the data
collections. In order to enhance the cohesion of the EA community, the actors will be also connected through social
media tools. In the organic “boxes” where they fulfil a role, the actors will be able to load documents, organize and
archive indicators and reference points, write reports, etc.
As second development goal, and following the fractal’s metaphor, some of these organic “boxes” will exploit the
full capacities of iMarine’s Virtual Research Environments where access to rich data collection sources will be
granted. Indeed, iMarine’s technologies offer excellent services to continue the development of such an integrated
environment and will contribute to leverage the capacities of the information systems currently supporting these
EA-CoPs by making them part of the whole process and offering new perspectives to the analysts using them. As
example, Virtual Research Environments will be set-up for scientific information on Tuna fisheries, including
catch, effort and by-catch indicators, building on SDMX and/or COST interoperability protocols (developed under
business case 1, cf. Section 1.3.4.1) with IRD’s Observatoire Thonier Tropical (OTT) and ObsTuna. Other “boxes”
will be activated as virtual laboratories according to the most relevant co-funding opportunities.
As third development goal, semantic based services will assist the work of EA-CoP users throughout the EAF
dashboard and its virtual research environment by enabling the discovery of resources available in the iMarine data
e-Infrastructure. This will be achieved by mapping linked open data published by the various infrastructures
partaking in iMarine, in particular IRD’s Ecoscope (which supports discovery of and access to IRD’s impressive
collections of scientific data sets on almost all the information scope of the EAF), and FAO’s FIGIS and TechCDR
systems.
The Synergies: EAF CoPs are active and supported by a few key research programs and information systems in
the following LME frameworks, and a final choice will be made upon further consultation: the Canary Current
LME (CCLME), the Benguela Current LME (BCLME), and the Agulhas and Somali Current LME (ASCLME). As
a matter of fact, FAO, UNESCO, and IRD are involved in various aspects of the implementation of the EAF in
these LMEs through established Regional Fishery Commissions (IOTC, GFCM, CECAF, SWIOFC) and their
supporting EU or GEF projects.
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Depending on funding opportunities and needs expressed by the EA-CoP, other data sources already identified will
be added: ESA’s established satellite imaging for SST, Salinity, Primary productivity, and new ESA products for
monitoring the location of fishing vessels; StatBase [4] which provides the core statistical support tool on coastal
artisanal fisheries to SWIOFC (Commission); Fritjoff Nansen database on species abundance and related mapping
applications; FIGIS which holds the global inventory of resources and fisheries; GOOS Africa with many compiled
environmental maps; and OBIS with distribution of vulnerable species.
1.3.5 Outreach
Outreach will play a key role in promoting the exploitation of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure by the members of
the EA-CoP. To this end, the project will implement its strategy for Communication, Dissemination and eTraining,
taking as a starting point dedicated value propositions and core messaging to EA-CoP stakeholders, policy
makers and society at large. The project will thus aim to ensure that communication and promotional activities
cater to the real-world needs and interests of each of the different target groups by defining iMarine “take-home”
messages for each one as the project develops over time. The ultimate goal is to widely disseminate three main
outcomes of the project, that is:
1. The iMarine Guidelines and Best Practices.
2. The iMarine data infrastructure and its Virtual Research Environments.
3. The enhanced services developed.
As most of the actors targeted operate in a market with clear objectives and business plans, carefully defined
strategies are key to capturing and retaining their attention throughout the life-time of the project and beyond. One
of the main ways in which the project will seek to pursue this goal is through the design and delivery of training
and live demos of outcomes, either face-to-face or remotely, in order to capitalize on opportunities for interaction
and knowledge exchange between the major actors involved. The live demos will be filmed and hosted on the
project’s website along with the remote training, so as to digitally capture content of relevance for re-use.
To underpin this approach, the website will be an integrated and interactive Knowledge Management Channel
with tagged multimodal content, enhanced wiki services and discussion forums, as well as a dedicated area for the
iMarine Board (document uploading and sharing facilities with the possibility of one-to-one interaction). The
Channel eTraining Environment (Virtual Classroom, Meeting and Mini Conference facilities: one-to-one, one-tomany with Moodle Chat and Just-in-Time) will host eCourses chiefly targeting EA-CoP application end-users,
application developers and infrastructure managers, with potential sustainability beyond the project.
To maximize outcomes and broaden the scope for knowledge exchange, iMarine will aim to forge alliances with
relevant initiatives and associations for the co-organization and joint promotion of outreach activities. To this end,
EU project meetings, scientific conferences, and especially EA-CoP meetings and data-Infrastructure events, will
be monitored in order to establish appropriate synergies. Strategic alliances will also be sought to reinforce
outreach across all key iMarine outcomes, offering a gateway across disciplines and geographical boundaries to
support the expansion of the user-base and sustainability. Such alliances will leverage strong partner networks and
target related ESFRI projects, particularly the Environmental cluster, as well as European and international
initiatives related to fisheries and marine ecosystems, including those connected with the EC’s Innovation Union
Flagship.
The Channel will serve as a key reference point for the EA CoP, as well as for policy makers and society at large,
by offering access to iMarine Board interviews, insights and testimonies related to Guidelines and Best Practices,
as well as a showcase for the major benefits delivered by the data e-Infrastructure, its services and role in
underpinning Virtual Research Environments to broaden engagement, integration and interoperation of different
communities and Research Infrastructures, primarily conveyed through the eyes of end-user communities.
A Final Event will serve to strategically underpin the specific policy and technology outputs of iMarine by
bringing together all the major stakeholders and policy makers from Europe and globally. Plenary, parallel
sessions, round-table debates and interviews will shine the spotlight on sustainable governance and
recommendations by defining clear “take-home” messages for the diverse stakeholders, along with the distribution
on an eBook on iMarine Board Insights (interviews and primers) for the wider community and an eBook on Policy,
Resources and Standards for the EA CoP and policy makers. Key features of the event will be digitally captured
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for content re-use and media partnerships, press invites, packs and conference will seek to enhance the
dissemination of outcomes.
1.3.6 Proposal Activities Overall Strategy
The objectives of the project will be achieved through the cooperation of Networking, Service and Joint Research
Activities.
The overall objective of the iMarine Networking Activities is to (i) develop the governance mechanisms of the
iMarine data infrastructure and formulate a set of organizational and policy recommendations regulating resource
sharing and service provision; (ii) make concrete steps towards the harmonisation of data, metadata and aspects of
application level semantics as a basis for achieving higher interoperability levels; (ii) define and implement an
effective communication and training strategy within and outside the EA-CoP. This objective will be reached by:
(i) operating a iMarine Board involving representatives from major organizations working in the Fisheries
Management and Conservation of Marine Living Resources, some of which already taking part in relevant EA-CoP
Committee; (ii) performing activities aimed at enhancing coherence at data, schema and application level, with a
special focus on reference data management, geospatial data, statistical data exchange and semantic technologies;
(iii) disseminating project outcomes to major EA stakeholder groupings, policy makers and society at large as the
project develops over time; (iv) designing and delivering training and live demos of outcomes, either face-to-face
or remotely, in order to capitalize on opportunities for interaction and knowledge exchange between the major
actors involved.
The Service Activities aims at deploying and operating the iMarine data e-Infrastructure. Activities, procedure,
mechanisms and resources needed to guarantee a 24/7 service availability will be put in place in order to assure a
good quality service. These will take into account policies and guidelines established by the iMarine Board. The
iMarine data e-Infrastructure will not be a closed environment. Rather it will be obtained by exploiting other
existing infrastructures , other implemented services and other available resources. Many of these resources will be
provided by organizations of the EA-CoP, some of which are represented in the iMarine Board. This will facilitate
appropriate synergies with these organizations on provision of resources and on development of new services.
Service activities will also be responsible for supporting a number of Virtual Research Environments serving the
needs of the three business cases relevant to the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach which have been
described in Section 1.3.4.
Finally, the iMarine Joint Research Activities aim at delivering the system offering the rich set of functionality
required to implement the EA. This system will be obtained starting from the gCube framework, integrating
components provided by other open-software initiatives, like OpenSDMX, FishstatJ, and eDAMIS, and enhancing
it with new facilities.
Guidelines and best practices discussed and agreed in the context of the iMarine Board will be taken into account
in this process. Enhancement will be done at the level of: (i) gCube enabling services, by enhancing their capability
of interfacing external infrastructures, enforcing resource usage policies and distributing process executions among
several computational platforms; (ii) set of data management services, by making them powerful enough to
manage the large variety of data the EA deals with; (iii) set of services for data consumption, including data
mining and extraction of knowledge from raw data, data provenance, and data transformation; (iv) facilities, like
programmatic APIs and standard protocols, for enabling the consumption of the iMarine resources by thirdparties.
The three activities just described are organised into cooperating work packages whose interaction is depicted in
Figure 2.
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Figure 2. iMarine Overall Activities
The three activities will operate in synergy toward the achievement of the D4Science-II objectives. In particular,
the following work packages hold a critical role in linking the activities assigned to each area of the project:

NA2 Project Management: this work package organises the overall scientific and technical activities, monitor
the achievements and recommend appropriate actions enhancing the activities effectiveness toward the project
objectives;

NA3 Governance and Policy Development: this work package manages the iMarine Board which develops the
policies driving the iMarine data e-Infrastructure operation and the guidelines for its implementation;

SA1 iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Deployment and Operation: manages the iMarine data e-Infrastructure by
providing hardware resources, deploying and maintaining the infrastructure core services, providing
monitoring and accounting information, and defining procedures to manage the infrastructure;

JRA1 – iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Enabling-technology Development: enhances the gCube enabling
services by interfacing external infrastructures, distributing process executions to several external
computational platforms and enforcing resource usage policies defined by the EA-CoP;

JRA2 – Data Management Facilities Development: integrates, enhance, and develop a set of services for
managing statistical data (including but not limited to time series), marine biology, environmental data such as
satellite data and sensor data; taxonomies, ontologies, and code-lists; structured and semi-structured textual
data; and binary data;

JRA3 – Data Consumption Facilities Development: develops a set of facilities for supporting the data
processing tasks the EA-CoP faces, e.g. data discovery and retrieval, generation and manipulation of data,
mining and extraction of knowledge from raw data, generation of data provenance information, data
transformation, and visualization and simulation of scientific data.

SA2 – Virtual Research Environments Deployment and Operation: deploys and operates the Virtual Research
Environments running in the iMarine data e-Infrastructure by developing vertical solutions, integrating
community applications and services with gCube services, developing common interfaces and tools, and
providing community data resources.
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1.4 Networking Activities and associated work plan
1.4.1 Overall strategy
The objective of the Networking Activities (NAs) is to provide the overall project governance mechanism and to
promote the emergence of a sustainable data e-Infrastructure. This will be achieved by articulating the “classic”
project bodies taking care of project managerial, technical and administrative aspects with the forerunner of what
should eventually become the principal governing body of a sustainable data e-Infrastructure.
The NAs will place an emphasis on gaining support and trust by the EA-CoP through constant liaison, awareness
raising, training, and design and demonstration of effective solutions which can meet its expectations. While
achieving so, it will progressively develop and formalize a governance model and the policies which will enable
sharing of the infrastructure resources. To achieve this objective a set of activities are planned and organised into a
number of interacting work packages:
 NA1 – Administrative and Financial Management will be dedicated to the overall project administration and
finance, with a particular focus on quality assurance;
 NA2 – Project Management is designed to create the temporary management environment in which the iMarine
components will be met. It will coordinate the overall scientific and technical management of the project across
all activities by developing strategy, promoting an efficient collaboration environment, monitoring execution of
tasks and performing risks analyses;
 NA3 - Governance and Policy Development will aim at developing the key Governance and Policies assets for
long term sustainability of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure. This will be stimulated by active liaison with the
EA-CoP, notably through the iMarine Board, and by the conception and validation of concrete applications
serving the business cases;
 NA4 – Communication, Dissemination and Training will support broad awareness raising and actual use of the
iMarine data e-Infrastructure by the EA-CoP through an effective communication and training strategy which
will include an innovative, integrated communication system and e-training programme, as well as a final event.
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1.4.2 GANTT Diagram
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1.4.3 Detailed work description
1.4.3.1 Work package list
Work
package
No
Work package title
Type of
activity
Lead
participant
No
Lead participant
short name
Personmonths
Start
month
End
month
MGT
1
ERCIM
33
1
30
NA1
Administrative and
Financial Management
NA2
Project Management
COORD
2
CNR
27
1
30
NA3
Governance and Policy
Development
COORD
10
FAO
156
1
30
NA4
Communication,
Dissemination and
Training
COORD
9
Trust-IT
74
1
30
TOTAL
290
NA1 – Administrative and Financial Management
The first of the work packages under Networking Activities will ensure the overall project administration, while
guaranteeing that the level of quality meets the expectations raised by the project. It includes the work of the
project Coordinator, or Administrative and Financial Director (AFD), and the Quality Assurance Task Force.
Scientific and technical coordination activities are presented in a separate dedicated work package (NA2).
GEIE ERCIM will serve the role of Coordinator, interfacing with the European Commission and the iMarine
consortium members and iMarine Board. The Coordinator is responsible administering the Grant Agreement and
ensuring the fulfilment of contractual obligations and reporting, and carefully monitoring resources and
expenditures. Task NA1.1 is concerned with translating the project’s governing mechanisms into clear and efficient
administrative procedures that allow the project participants to focus on their main objectives. Task NA1.2 is for
the administering the European Union financial contribution and monitoring the effective use of human and
financial resources. The primary outputs of these two tasks are DNA1.2-4 for the production of the Periodic and
Final Reports of the project. Additionally, quarterly budget reports will be submitted to the Project Executive Board
for highlighting the effort declarations made by the beneficiaries across work packages as well as monitoring the
use of resources assigned for the development of the Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice. Operation of
the project’s Governing Board, which is responsible for decision-making on matters having a direct legal or
financial impact on project beneficiaries, falls under TNA1.1. The establishment of the Governing Board will be
the project’s first milestone to reach in month 1 (MNA1.1).
Quality assurance is an essential element of NA1. The objective of this task includes the operation of a Quality
Assurance Task Force to ensure that the project delivers the results as expected from the various stakeholders. A
task leader will coordinate the Quality Assurance Task Force (QATF) to ensure the delivery and adherence to a
Quality Plan that will define the project’s main quality processes, such as deliverable preparation and internal
review; periodic review preparation and post-review follow-up; activity-specific process; basic rules for iMarine
publications; practicalities concerning the functioning of the management boards; licensing issues; etc.; as well as
the tools and metrics that will be applied in many of these processes. Thus, the task dedicated to Quality Assurance
(TNA1.3) will measure the project’s progresses across activity areas (i.e., networking, service, joint research)
through a set of pre-defined quality indicators. As indicated, the QATF will be formed (MNA1.2) in month 1 of the
project and will begin activities by defining the Quality Plan (DNA1.1).
NA2 – Project Management
This work package will coordinate the overall scientific and technical management of the project across all
activities by developing strategy, promoting an efficient collaboration environment, monitoring execution of tasks
and performing risks analyses. Qualified scientific and technical coordination will be one of the key success factors
of the iMarine Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3) given the inherent diversity of the project’s stakeholders. As
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such, the activity performed in this work package will build on experience gained in the framework of the
D4Science projects. The tasks are split between high-level scientific coordination (TNA2.1), strategy formulation
(TNA2.2) and executive management (TNA2.3).
Within TNA2.3 lies the technical risks analysis and contingency planning. A report will be produced in month 9 of
the project lifespan, documenting the methodology defined to identify, evaluate and classify the actual and
potential risks of the iMarine consortium and related activities (DNA2.4). Risks will be reported according to the
methodology.
NA2 Project Management will be led by the Project Director (PD) whose role is to promote the project’s
imperatives, assume ownership of the project on behalf of the project teams, and seek to deliver a viable outcome.
She will supervise progress achieved as defined within the Description of Work and create and maintain the
necessary conditions for successful and effective collaboration among all partners (be they beneficiaries or external
collaborators). The Project Director will chair the iMarine Steering Board.
Within the project management structure are two managerial boards; one focusing on project strategy and the other
focusing on project execution. Working in tandem, the boards will guide the project toward the accomplishment of
common objectives. The Steering Board will formulate and lead the implementation of the overarching iMarine
strategy, including the creation of synergies and long-term sustainability within the iMarine launched Initiative.
The Project Executive Board will lead the diverse networking and technologically-oriented activities
encompassing the development and implementation of an iMarine data infrastructure. The formation of the PEB
with a schedule of anticipated meetings for the first half of the project (MNA2.1) is an important milestone to be
achieved in month 1.
The Project Director will be Dr. Donatella Castelli (Scientific Coordinator of the DILIGENT, D4Science and
D4Science-II projects). She will be strongly supported by a Technical Coordinator charged with the responsibility
of monitoring the day-by-day progress of the project’s technical activities (i.e., technical aspects across the
networking, service and joint research activities, including collaboration with the iMarine Board). The role of
Technical Coordinator is assigned to Dr. Pasquale Pagano (Technical Director of the DILIGENT, D4Science and
D4Science-II projects). Both Dr. Castelli and Dr. Pagano represent CNR (their research interests and backgrounds
are provided in Section 2.2.2).
This work package will produce six-monthly Management Reports (DNA2.1-3) to provide a snapshot of the state
of the project’s implementation across all activities. Additionally, report on the interaction with other projects and
programmes (DNA2.5) will be produced at the project’s half-way mark, and it will be updated on a regular basis
for reference by the consortium members and the collaborating scientific user communities.
NA3 – Governance and Policy Development
This work package’s primary objective will be to develop the data e-infrastructure governance mechanism, and
formulate a set of organizational and technological policy recommendations regulating the resource sharing and
services provided by the new e-infrastructure towards its sustainability. The achievement of this objective will be
stimulated by active liaison with the EA-CoP, notably through the iMarine Board, to built trust and support for the
long term sustainable exploitation of the data infrastructure, and by the conception and validation of concrete
applications serving the business cases. The work package includes the following tasks:
 TNA3.1: User Community mediation
o iMarine Board organization; Invite members, define tasks and strategic planning
o iMarine Board operation; Manage meetings, reporting and other secretariat activities;
o EA-CoP liaison including attending its workshops, to raise awareness and gather feedback
 TNA3.2: Data e-infrastructure Governance mechanism, Policies and Guidelines
o Development of Governance mechanism recommendations
o Development and adoption of organizational and technological Policies
o Development of implementation guidelines and best practices
 TNA3.3: Harmonisation of Metadata, semantics, and technologies
o Analyse data modeling for storage and exchange, and test their efficiency;
o Facilitate the use of data in a e-infrastructure by adopting standard schemas;
o Liaise with standardization bodies as required;
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Identify Task specific requirements with EA-CoP representatives;
Identify existing software that serve a requirement, and their usability in a data e-infrastructure;
Assess implementation costs to serve a requirement through the data infrastructure;
Negotiate the assignment of implementation and/or development tasks among partners;
Validate completeness of the assembled solutions.
The activities of this work package will be described and reported in three deliverables: the first documents the
establishment and operation of the iMarine Board (DNA3.1), the second describes the implementation of the
Governance, Policies and Guidelines defined by the iMarine Board (DNA3.2), and the last describes the validation
of delivered solutions by the iMarine EA-CoP (DNA3.3).
The results of the work package will be assessed in sixteen milestones including milestones for the establishment
and operation of the iMarine Board (MNA3.1, MNA3.2, MNA3.3), iMarine Board meetings (MNA3.10-13),
milestones for the Governance, Policies and Guidelines (MNA3.4-6 and MNA3.7-8), and milestones for the
validation (MNA3.9 and MNA3.14-16).
NA4 – Communication, Dissemination and Training
The main goals of NA4 are to mobilize the EA-CoP as major stakeholders and encourage cohesion across
disciplinary and geographical boundaries; foster knowledge exchange and build competences on policy guidelines
and best practices; empower user communities by facilitating the uptake of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure and
services developed; and communicating main outcomes to policy makers, the press and media and society at large.
The ultimate goal is to widely disseminate the three main iMarine outcomes: the Guidelines and Best Practices; the
iMarine data e-Infrastructure and its Virtual Research Environments and the enhanced services developed.
Core activities to achieve these goals include:
 Working with the Consortium to deliver regularly updated Communication, Dissemination and Training
Plans (DNA4.1) as the main reference point for iMarine outreach by setting action agendas along six-month
time-lines, defining value propositions and core messaging to target groups as the project evolves over time,
web content planning, ensuring the timely delivery of communication and promotional material and setting
metrics to gauge impact.
 Leveraging and expanding on strong partner networks and forging alliances with pertinent initiatives by
working in synergy with the Consortium and especially NA3.
 Developing and deploying an integrated and interactive website - Knowledge Management Channel
(MNA4.1) - with tagged multimodal content, enhanced wiki services and discussion forums as trusted,
professional environments.
 Delivering an eTraining Environment on the Channel (Virtual Classroom, Meeting and Mini Conference
facilities), supporting courses and demos on both policy guidelines and the data infrastructure by working with
NA3 and technical lead partners respectively.
 Hosting a Virtual Event (MNA4.2 M15) to connect the iMarine Board with relevant stakeholders irrespective
of geographical location, and gather feedback on policy issues, in synergy with NA3.
 Ensuring visibility and community engagement through EU project, EA-CoP, e-Infrastructure and scientific
event attendance, including possible joint organization through strategic alliances, in synergy with the
Consortium and relevant partners.
 Promoting the project’s goals and achievements underpinned by iMarine Board testimonies, interviews and
insights in synergy with NA3. Specific outputs include eNewsletters, Mini eBooks, press releases, articles for
ICT and technology media, as well as specialized, peer-reviewed journals, in synergy with relevant partners.
 Designing and distributing regularly updated branded promotional material (pop-up banners; fliers, posters,
event giveaways).
 Hosting a Final Event (MNA4.3 M28) bringing together the EA CoP and policy makers to showcase outcomes
spanning the iMarine Guidelines and Best Practices; the data infrastructure and Virtual Research Environments
and enhanced services deployed. Outcomes will also be convey through the circulation of two eBooks: one on
Policy, Resources and Standards, the other on iMarine Board Insights. A dedicated Strategy and Plan for the
event, including press and media activities, will be produced as part of DNA4.1. The event programme and
structure will be defined with the Consortium as a whole and the Advisory Board.
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Outcomes will be reported in DNA4.5-6 Communication, Dissemination and Training Report (M15, 30),
including impact gauging, as well as in DNA4.2-4 Production of Printed and Multimedia Promotional
Material (M10, 20, 30). Delivery of all Channel activities related to design, development, deployment; content
planning and provision will be reflected in MNA4.1 iMarine Web Channel.
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1.4.3.2 Deliverables list
Del. no.
Deliverable name
WP no.
Nature
Dissemination
level
Delivery
date
DNA1.1
Quality Plan
NA1
R
PU
M2
DNA1.2-3
Periodic Report
NA1
R
RE
M12,
M30
DNA1.4
Final Report
NA1
R
PU
M30
DNA2.1-3
Management Reports
NA2
R
RE
M6, M18,
M30
DNA2.4
Risk Analysis and Risk Response
NA2
O
PU
M9
DNA2.5
Report on inter-projects coordination
and collaboration
NA2
O
PU
M15
(ongoing)
DNA3.1-4
EA-CoP Operation
NA3
O
PU
M3, M12,
M24,
M30
DNA3.5-7
EA-CoP Governance
NA3
O
PU
M10,
M24,
M30
DNA3.8-10
EA-CoP Validation
NA3
O
PU
M8, M20,
M28
DNA4.1
Communication, Dissemination and
Training Plan
NA4
O
PU
M2
(ongoing)
DNA4.2-4
Production of Printed and Multimedia NA4
Promotional Material
O
PU
M10,
M20,
M30
DNA4.5-6
Communication, Dissemination and
Training Report
O
PU
M15,
M30
NA4
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1.4.3.3 Work package descriptions
Work package number
Work package title
Activity Type
Participant number
Participant short name
Person-months per participant
NA1
Start date or starting event:
Administrative and Financial Management
MGT
M1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
23
8
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
1
1
Objectives
This work package is dedicated to the overall project administration and quality assurance. The objectives
include interfacing with the European Commission and the iMarine consortium and Community of Practice
Board, administering the Grant Agreement and ensuring the fulfilment of contractual obligations and
reporting, and carefully monitoring resource and financial expenditures. Quality Assurance objectives include
the operation of a Quality Assurance Task Force to ensure that the project delivers the results as expected
from the various stakeholders.
Description of work
Work package leader: ERCIM;
TNA1.1: Administration of the Grant Agreement and Related Activities
Task leader: ERCIM; Participants: N/A;
This task is responsible for (1) translating the project’s governing mechanisms, i.e., Grant Agreement,
European Commission financial guidelines and conditions of the consortium agreement into clear and
efficient administrative procedures that allow the project participants to focus on their main objectives; and
(2) facilitating contact with iMarine for the Commission reporting requirements as well as non-contractual
requests. The task includes:
 Consortium evolution, including management of the consortium agreement;
 Contractual and ethical management, including EU reporting;
 Innovation management, including guidance concerning IPR issues;
 Leading the development of Memorandums of Understanding with other projects or organisations;
 Conflict resolution;
 Monitoring gender equality;
 Providing support for the organisation, scribing and follow-up of project meetings;
 Operation (including chairing) of the Members General Assembly.
TNA1.2: Resource Management
Task leader: ERCIM; Participants: FAO;
This task is to manage the project resources and specifically the project budget. It is to include:
 Administrating the European Union financial contribution;
 Monitoring the use of human and financial resources per beneficiary;
 Providing the Project Executive Board with effort reports at regular intervals for determining if
consumption is in line with activities performed;
 Proposing solutions for the transfer of funds between activities and/or beneficiaries when deviation occurs.
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TNA1.3: Quality Assurance
Task leader: CNR; Participants: CERN;
Quality Assurance is intended to ensure the production of concrete and high-quality results inline with the
project work plan. To achieve this goal, a Quality Assurance Task Force will be appointed to:
 Define and widely distribute a Quality Plan, to be a reference for all project participants;
 Encourage and verify that standards, procedures and metrics are defined, applied and evaluated;
 Perform monthly Quality Reviews and scribing the results of the review to the Project Executive Board for
appropriate action;
 Adopt a procedure for identifying, estimating, treating and monitoring risks;
 Define a statement on the “promotion of equality” within iMarine management practices.
Deliverables
 DNA1.1 Quality Plan (M2) describes how the project will collaborate to deliver a data e-Infrastructure
meeting the expectations of those who use it;
 DNA1.2-3 Periodic Report (M12, M30) comprises:
o An overview, including a publishable summary, of the progress of work towards the objectives of the
project, including achievements and attainment of any milestones and deliverables identified in Annex
I;
o An explanation of the use of the resources;
o A financial statement from each beneficiary together with a summary financial report consolidating the
claimed Community contribution of all the beneficiaries in an aggregate form.
 DNA1.4 Final Report (M30) comprises:
o A final publishable summary report covering results, conclusions and socio-economic impact of the
project;
o A report covering the wider societal implications of the project, including gender equality actions,
ethical issues, efforts to involve other actors and spread awareness as well as the plan for the use and
dissemination of foreground.
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NA2
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Project Management
Work package title
COORD
Activity Type
1
3
4
5
2
Participant number
ERCIM
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
CNR
Participant short name
6
18
Person-months per participant
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
3
Objectives
The NA2 work package is designed to create the temporary management environment in which the iMarine
objects will be met.
The objective of this work package is to coordinate the overall scientific and technical management of the
project across all activities by developing strategy, promoting an efficient collaboration environment,
monitoring execution of tasks and performing risks analyses.
NA2 accommodates the responsibilities of the Project Director and the managerial bodies referred to as the
Steering Board and Project Executive Board.
Description of work
Work package leader: CNR;
TNA2.1: Scientific Coordination
Task leader: CNR; Participants: N/A;
This task includes the work of the Project Director, Dr. Donatella Castelli. Her role is to promote the project’s
imperatives, assume ownership of the project on behalf of the project teams, and seek to deliver a viable
outcome. Dr. Castelli’s principle responsibilities include:
 Provide high-level supervision of the project from the scientific point of view;
 Create and maintain the conditions necessary for successful and effective collaboration;
 Promote cohesion within the project between the various actors;
 Represent the D4Science Federation to the scientific user communities and public at large:
 Interact with other 7th Framework projects and other R&D national/international programmes.
TNA2.2: Project Strategy
Task leader: CNR; Participants: FAO;
This task includes the operation of the project Steering Board who is accountable for the success of the
project. It is responsible for making sure that the expectations set out in the present Description of Work are
met. The Steering Board will engage in iMarine’s strategy development, in particular by placing
representatives of iMarine’s various stakeholders on the same team. Activities include:
 Providing means for empowering the Project Director to plan, co-ordinate and control the project;
 Authorisation of any significant changes to the work plan;
 Assignment of resources and subsequent coordination with the Project Executive Board;
 Addressing the sustainability of the iMarine data infrastructure;
 Adjudication of any conflict within the project while proposing solutions to problems between
beneficiaries or external organizations.
TNA2.3: Executive Management
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Task leader: CNR; Participants: NKUA;
This task includes the operational management of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure :
 Coordination of the technical aspects across all activities (e.g., Networking, Service, Joint Research);
 Monitoring the time schedule and the timing of the related activities;
 Technical risks analysis and contingency planning;
 Detailed technical effort re-planning to face project deviations;
 Alignment and contribution to standardization bodies;
 Operation of the Project Executive Board and Technical Committee;
 Assessment of work and achievements of the work packages.
Deliverables
 DNA2.1-3 Management Reports (M6, M18, M30) will provide a snapshot of the state of the project’s
implementation across all activities (e.g., Networking, Service, Joint Research);
 DNA2.4 Risk Analysis and Risk Response (M9) assesses the probability and impact of risks occurring and
to determine the appropriate type of risk response; define a contingency plan if re-planning is not sufficient
in face of the actual outcome of work performed and impact of related risks;
 DNA2.5 Report on inter-projects coordination and collaboration (M15-regularly updated) reports on
interactions with FP7 projects and other R&D national/international programmes on inter-project
coordination and collaboration.
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NA3
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Governance and Policy Development
Work package title
COORD
Activity Type
1
2
3
4
5
Participant number
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
Participant short name
6
8
5
4
Person-months per participant
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
8
9
10
11
12
13
12
14
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
59
5
23
13
14
7
Objectives
This work package’s primary objective will be to develop the data e-infrastructure governance mechanism,
and formulate a set of organizational and technological policy recommendations regulating the resource
sharing and services provided by the new e-infrastructure towards its sustainability. The achievement of this
objective will be stimulated by active liaison with the EA-CoP, notably through the iMarine Board, to built
trust and support for the long term sustainable exploitation of the data e-Infrastructure, and by the conception
and validation of concrete applications serving the business cases.
The WP will develop organizational recommendations and elaborate policies and their implementation
guidelines through operations of the iMarine Board, including its interactions with the other project bodies
and the external actors. The iMarine Board will be a key mechanism to guarantee constant interactions with
the EA-CoP initiatives involved in the project, to ensure a project that is in-line with EA-CoP current
activities and practices, while bringing these to a higher level (i.e. “beyond the state of the art”). The WP will
address EA-CoP’s expectations with regards to the Data e-infrastructure by detailing:
 the benefits of a data e-Infrastructure in supporting the business cases;
 the organizational, financial and policy constraints for the various resource sharing options;
 the opportunities of sustainable exploitation models of the data e-Infrastructure.
In close interaction with WP NA4, the WP will ensure awareness of / feedback from the concerned EA-CoP
referring to the applications serving their needs in order to gain trust and support. In general, the WP shall
fulfil its objective through:
 involvement of the EA-CoP in the formulation of its expectations with regard the data e-infrastructure;
 monitoring and control of implementation effort;
 awareness raising in the EA-CoP on the features available, on their potential for use and further
development.
Description of work
Work package leader: FAO;
TNA3.1: User Community Mediation
Task leader: FAO; Participants: ERCIM, CNR, Terradue, FIN, UNESCO, IRD;
This task ensures communication between the EA-CoP initiatives, and the iMarine data e-Infrastructure
development team, through active involvement in the iMarine Board (as well as at EA-CoP workshops) of
UC Mediators and leaders of EA-CoP initiatives. FAO provides the Secretariat of the iMarine Board and is
responsible for the:
 iMarine Board organization; Invite members, define tasks and strategic planning;
 iMarine Board operation; Manage meetings, reporting and other secretariat activities;
 EA-CoP liaison including attending its workshops, to raise awareness and gather feedback.
TNA3.2: Governance Mechanism, Policies and Guidelines Development
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Task leader: FAO; Participants: CNR, FIN, UNESCO, CRIA, IRD;
The sustainable exploitation of the iMarine data e-infrastructure requires that the EA-CoP is involved in the
development of Governance mechanisms and Policies which will drive its operation, and that guidelines be
available in support of its implementation. The guidelines should stipulate how the EA-CoP can benefit from
the data infrastructure services. These could be delivered as data services, but also as products, such as
documents, tabular data, dynamic reports, or specialized maps. Such governance encompasses advice on the
use and sharing of hardware, applications and services, and data resources. Three sub-tasks are envisaged
here:
 Development of Governance mechanism recommendations
o investigate state of the art in terms of Governance mechanisms of large data e-Infrastructures;
o analyze and record interactions performance within the iMarine Board, and between the Board and
other project bodies (e.g. TB, PMB) and external actors;
o discuss the options among partners and elaborate recommendations paper;
 Development and adoption of organisational and technological policies
o investigate state of the art in terms of policies, and list partners’ existing policies;
o discuss the policy components among partners and develop drafts for each component;
o finalise the drafts and bring these to the CoP for endorsement and adaptation;
 Development of implementation guidelines and best practices
This task translates policies into implementation guidelines and best practices. It takes into account
experience developed under TNA3.3, and encompasses the following tasks:
o Develop guidelines for eligible system architecture and for their exploitation as part of the data einfrastructure;
o Develop guidelines for appropriate usage of schemas, data modelling patterns, and exchange protocols
for specific context/goals;
o Develop methodologies and manuals for users;
TNA3.3: Harmonisation of Metadata, Semantics and Technologies
Task leader: FAO; Participants: CNR, NKUA, E-IIS, FORTH, Terradue, UNESCO, CRIA, IRD;
This task aims to bring coherence at data, schema and application level, where these are required for systems
integration, with particular focus on reference data management, geospatial data, statistical data exchange,
semantic technologies, and environment data tools. For sub-tasks TNA3.3.1 to TNA3.3.4, the following
common set of activities is planned with the understanding that these will be tailored to the needs of the
particular Task.
Coherence at data and schema level:
 Analyse data modelling for storage and exchange, and test their efficiency;
 Facilitate the use of data in a e-Infrastructure by adopting standard schemas;
 Liaise with standardization bodies as required.
For instance, in the SDMX context this will manifest in two activities: (i) analyse the DSDs schemas and (ii)
facilitate the use of reference data and code lists in a specific domain (such as Fisheries).
Coherence at application level:
 identify Task specific requirements with CoP representatives;
 identify existing software that serve a requirement, and their usability in a data e-infrastructure;
 assess implementation costs to serve a requirement through the data infrastructure;
 negotiate the assignment of implementation and/or development tasks among partners,;
 Validate completeness of the assembled solutions.
Sub-tasks will be defined during the project lifetime to articulate the effort of iMarine Board on concrete
working clusters. Likely working clusters are “harmonization of reference systems and referential metadata
across domains”, “semantic tools for discovery and publication of data”, “harmonisation of geospatial
services”, “harmonisation of statistical and environmental data services”.
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Deliverables
A general strategy will be to articulate the deliverables with Web pages (meetings or wikis) which reflect the
status of the work and are constantly evolving. The deliverables will consist of an Executive summary and
will be structured by main chapters which will essentially contain links to the Wiki pages including to
Reports. The Wiki content expected at key milestones (e.g. an approved Policy item) will be safeguarded in
frozen Reports loaded in Wiki.
 DNA3.1-4 EA-CoP Operation (M3, M12, M24, M30) documents the functioning of the EA-CoP. The
deliverable is a wiki articulated with a web based tool for managing the meetings, their reports and
progress reports, recommendations and conclusions. Deliverable chapters are Workplans and iMarine
Board meetings.
 DNA3.5-7 EA-CoP Governance, Policies and Guidelines (M10, M24, M30) documents the performance of
the project governance mechanism. Documents how iMarine policy guidelines and best practices will be
implemented. The Deliverable is a document articulated with a wiki. Deliverable chapters are “Sustainable
use of the data e-infrastructure”, “Governance mechanism recommendations”, “iMarine Policies”,
“iMarine guidelines and best practices”.
 DNA3.8-10 EA-CoP Validation (M8, M20, M28) documents status and issues on harmonization
approaches, and validates implemented policies and business cases, their functionality and conformance to
requirements. The Deliverable is a document articulated with a wiki. Deliverable chapters are structured
according to the main NA3.3 sub-tasks headers, differentiating for each data standards and application
aspects. Recommendations for future refinement/extension are also included.
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NA4
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Communication, Dissemination and Training
Work package title
COORD
Activity Type
1
2
3
4
5
Participant number
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
Participant short name
7
15
3
Person-months per participant
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
4
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
37
8
Objectives
The overall objectives of NA4 are grounded in the project’s core value of delivering a knowledge ecosystem
serving and empowering major stakeholders through a community-centric approach and training programme
fostering cross-disciplinary and cross-border cohesion; and communicating main outcomes to policy makers,
the press and media and society at large. Specific aims include:
 Leveraging and expanding on partner networks by forging strategic alliances in Europe and globally.
 Designing, developing and deploying a project website as a Knowledge Management Channel, an
integrated and interactive tool with enhanced wiki services, tagged multimodal content and focused
discussion forums.
 Developing an eTraining Environment and delivering multifaceted eCourses (policy guidelines; data
infrastructure and services) with a Virtual Event (M15), streamlining educational services and reducing
costs and time from learning to implementation.
 Promoting project goals and outcomes to the EA community, policy makers and society at large through
communication and promotional material; press and media activities.
 Delivering a Final Event (M28) to showcase and deliberate the main iMarine outcomes.
 Coordinating and monitoring activities and gauging impact; defining dissemination and training agendas
accordingly.
Description of work
Work package leader: Trust-IT;
TNA4.1: Communication and Dissemination
Task leader: Trust-IT; Participants: CNR, NKUA, FAO;
This task is responsible for defining, coordinating and monitoring dissemination, outreach and training
activities throughout the life-time of iMarine, fostering cross-disciplinary, cross-border community
mobilization and cohesion. Core activities range from setting action agendas in regularly updated Plans, to
defining value propositions and core messaging for the EA-CoP, policy makers and society at large and
planning Channel content provision. Specific tasks include:
 Mobilizing and extending EA communities by leveraging strong partner networks and forging strategic
alliances.
o The project will seek alliances among partner networks and iMarine Board member affiliations (e.g.
ICES, IOC-OBIS, NEAFC); ESFRI projects (especially Environmental cluster; PESI, i4Life,
LifeWatch); Earth Observation (GENSIS-DEC). Other potential alliances include pertinent ERA-NET
initiatives; Technology and Innovation Platforms; initiatives funded under the EC’s Knowledge-based
Bio-economy Programme; European and global initiatives (GLOBEFISH, EUROFISH); dissemination
and training support initiatives (e.g. eScienceTalk and Scientix).
 Expanding and regularly updating a press and media database, spanning ICT & technology media (e.g.
CORDIS News, ERCIM News, CERN Bulletin, HPC In the Cloud; Supercomputing Online etc);
specialized and peer-reviewed journals (e.g. ACM Communications, Marine Policy, Human Ecology,
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




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Marine Ecology Progress Series, Coastal Management, Fisheries Research, Marine Pollution Bulletin,
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS); Very Large Data Bases journal (VLDBJ); IEEE
Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE); Information Systems (IS) etc); newsletters of
strategic alliances, wherever feasible; EU national press associations; national press, TV & Radio;
scientific magazines for the younger generation; partner offices where existing.
Promoting the project’s goals and achievements through iMarine Board testimonies, interviews and
insights; eNewsletters, Mini eBooks, slideshows, press releases, articles for ICT and technology media, as
well as specialized, peer-reviewed journals, in synergy with relevant partners.
Coordinating and supporting the production of two Mini eBooks: one on Policy, Resources and Standards
for the EA-CoP and policy makers, the other on iMarine Board Insights (iMarine Board interviews and
primers) for the wider public.
Interacting with target communities and ensuring visibility and community engagement through EU
project, EA-CoP, e-Infrastructure and scientific event attendance, including possible joint organization
through strategic alliances (including but not limited to ACM International Conference on Management of
Data (SIGMOD); International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB); IEEE International
Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), etc).
Designing and producing branded promotional material, such as pop-up banners, fliers, posters, reflecting
project status with testimonies selected to match target group focus.
Hosting a Final Event (M28) bringing together the EA CoP and policy makers to showcase and deliberate
outcomes spanning the iMarine Guidelines and Best Practices; the data infrastructure and Virtual Research
Environments and enhanced services deployed. A dedicated Plan (as part of DNA4.1) will define activities
for promoting the event; distributing the eBooks, speaker and expert recruitment and management,
including position statements; programme features (invited talks, plenary and parallel sessions, round-table
debates); press and media activities and capturing key features and interviews digitally for content re-use
with the support of professional filming services.
Monitoring outcomes and gauging impact through pre-defined metrics; setting Key Performance Indicators
(percentage increases) for activities deemed important for successful outcomes.
TNA4.2: Knowledge Management Channel
Task leader: Trust-IT; Participants: N/A;
This task focuses on the design, development and deployment of a Knowledge Management Channel as an
integrated, dynamic, interactive, community-centric and semantic-based knowledge ecosystem serving as a
single access-point to learn, network and exchange information. Annotated multimodal content and
customizable services will be provided to meet the specific needs of the project’s stakeholder communities.
Channel features will include:
 User profiling and content tagging to deliver content on an automated basis responding to specific
community member interests and priorities.
 Dedicated area for the iMarine Board with personal pages, profiles, document upload and sharing facilities
and dedicated discussion forum as trusted, professional environments enabling the EA-CoP community to
fork conversations around specific topics, peer-to-peer and expert-to-epistemic community knowledge
exchange, highlighting eTraining opportunities and updates and on-line polls.
 Enhanced wiki services (mediawiki) with dedicated access boxes highlighting resources for communities,
infrastructure, technology and project overview with authorized access to create, edit, comment on and
update resources, services and tools available.
 eLibrary covering and documenting key developments in marine management from community-centric
and cross-domain perspectives; policy and technological policy issues and recommendations; relevant and
publishable external content; technological developments; standards and interoperability, etc.
 Media Room with interviews, articles, press releases, eNewsletters, promotional material, suite of videos
and podcasts.
 Web TV with “studio-type” project & community news and “watch/listen” & “read/listen” options, live
broadcasting from events and video newsletters together with a twitter messaging box and links to relevant
Linked In Focus Groups, SlideShare and mobile services.
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The is task will also be in charge of developing the iMarine eTraining Environment with Virtual Classroom,
Meeting and Mini Conference facilities (one-to-many, many-to-many tools, Just-in-Time, Moodle & Moodle
Chat), facilitating community-centric knowledge exchange and ensuring effective engagement across multiple
stakeholder groupings.
TNA4.3 User Community Capacity and Competence Building
Task leader: FAO; Participants: CNR, NKUA, CERN, US, Trust-IT;
By leveraging partner competences, networks, and strategic alliances, this task will aim to:
 Empower end user community capacities particularly at scientific and management level in order to
facilitate the usage of iMarine data e-infrastructure, Virtual Research Environment and services developed
(e.g. common interfaces and resource integration, Virtual Research Environment Operation and
Maintenance, etc).
 Enhance the competencies of EA-CoP information managers and specialists by facilitating structured
knowledge exchange to assist in formulating policy and technological policy guidelines and best practices
with consultation and feedback.
 Raise awareness of underlying technologies, standards and interoperability based on the real-world needs
of the user and wider EA-CoP.
 Streamline educational services, reduce costs and the time between learning and implementation through
“anytime, anywhere” training modules.
The eTraining Programme will deliver:
 eCourses and events that are one-to-one (Moodle; slideshows with embedded videos offering insights);
one-to-many (with Moodle Chat for interaction), Mini Conferences from selected partner institutions;
interim quizzes; Virtual Reading Lists indicating further reading suggestions and links to related articles
and user friendly glossaries and guides.
 A mid-term Virtual Meeting (M15) connecting the iMarine Board with relevant stakeholders through a
many-to-many tool with Moodle Chat and interaction facilities; Demo presentation aimed at exchanging
key information on the policy framework and defining priorities to set a clear action agenda moving
forward.
eCourse evaluation will aim to ensure tangible take-aways with entry points based on pre-course abstraction
levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced) leveraging current knowledge check-lists guiding trainees to the
right content. Course-exit test scores, self-/senior-assessment, check-lists for new knowledge acquisition at all
levels and certification.
Deliverables
 DNA4.1 Communication, Dissemination and Training Plan (M2, Regularly updated) Regularly updated
Plans defining iMarine branding, value propositions and core messaging along six-month time-frames,
pinpointing potential strategic alliances for dissemination and training, and setting action agendas for all
related activities, including channel content planning and metric monitoring to define future plans
accordingly.
 DNA4.2-4 Production of Printed and Multimedia Promotional Material (M10, 20, 30) Report on and
illustrate all promotional material produced and circulated by the project, including printed and multimedia
material.
 DNA4.5-6 Communication, Dissemination and Training Report (M15, 30) Report on outcomes achieved
for communication, dissemination and training, such as communication and training material produced
and distributed, eTraining courses developed and deployed; alliances forged, Channel content delivered;
impact reporting, such as metric and Key Performance (KPI) analysis.
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1.4.3.4 Summary of staff effort
Participant
number
Participant short
name
NA1
NA2
NA3
NA4
1
ERCIM
23
0
6
0
Total
person
months
29
2
CNR
8
18
8
7
41
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
33
6
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
0
27
5
0
4
0
12
7
0
59
5
23
13
14
156
15
3
0
4
0
0
37
8
0
0
0
0
74
26
4
4
4
12
7
37
71
5
23
13
14
290
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Total
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1.4.3.5 List of milestones
Milestone
number
Milestone name
Expected
date
Means of verification
NA1
M1
Web site profiles the members of
the Governing Board (along with
appointed Deputies).
MNA.1.1
Establish
Board
MNA1.2
Formation of the Quality
Assurance Task Force
(QATF)
NA1
M1
Web pages made available by the
QATF for the monitoring of
deliverables and milestones status
(internal review and submission).
MNA1.3
Second annual meeting of
the Governing Board
NA1
M15
Minutes of the meeting will be
made
available
to
the
Commission.
MNA2.1
Formation of the Project
Executive Board
NA2
M1
Public schedule of anticipated
meetings of the Project Executive
Board for Period 1.
MNA3.1
Establish Board at kickoff meeting
NA3
M1
The iMarine Board is established
and a dedicated page is published
through the iMarine Web Channel.
MNA3.2
Establish Communication
channels, wiki and other
tools deployed
NA3
M3
The iMarine Web Channel is
equipped with tools supporting the
cooperation among the iMarine
Board.
MNA3.3
Wiki
describing
workplan, requirements,
and tasks assignment
NA3
M5
The iMarine Web Channel is
enriched with these dedicated
pages.
MNA3.4-6
Definition of policy and
governance development
model;
NA3
M5, M13,
M26
The iMarine Web Channel is
enriched with these dedicated
pages.
MNA3.7-8
Definition of guidelines
and best practices;
NA3
M6, M24
The iMarine Web Channel is
enriched with these dedicated
pages.
Define
procedures
validation
NA3
M7
The iMarine Web Channel is
enriched with these dedicated
pages.
iMarine
NA3
M7, M13,
M19, M25
Information on the meetings
including main outcomes are
published through the iMarine
Web Channel.
MNA3.9
Governing
Work
package(s)
involved
MNA3.1013
Meetings
Board
MNA3.1416
Validation reports
NA3
M12, M20,
M29
The iMarine Web Channel is
enriched with these dedicated
pages.
iMarine Web Channel
NA4
M2
A project web site is publicly
available.
Delivery of Virtual Event
and Project Event
NA4
M18, M28
Web pages reporting on the
Virtual Events are advertised
MNA4.1
MNA4.2-3
of
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through the project web site.
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1.4.4 Pert diagram
The diagram below depicts the main relationships between the various tasks of the Networking Activities. In
particular, it presents tow the two work packages dedicated to the overall management (NA1 and NA2) interact
each other. Moreover it highlight the overall strategic role played by three tasks: TNA2.1 (Scientific Coordination),
TNA2.2 (Project Strategy) and TNA2.3 (Executive Management). For EA-CoP operation, the diagram depicts how
the tasks of NA3 interact each other to produce the policies governing the deployment of the iMarine data
infrastructure and how these policies are passed to the SA1 work package that is called to deliver the envisaged
infrastructure. In addition to that, NA3 tasks produce guidelines and requirements that are passed to the JRA tasks
and steers the development of software artifacts and services matching the expectations and approaches envisaged
by the EA CoP. The iMarine data infrastructure will be equipped with Virtual Research Environments resulting
from SA2 activities and aiming to demonstrate the effectiveness of the iMarine e-Infrastructure to serve the needs
identified in the three real life business cases the proposal decided to support (cf. Section 1.3.4). These Virtual
Research Environments as well as the overall e-Infrastructure will be exploited by NA3 activities to attract other
members and resources from the CoP as to enlarge the set of resources hosted by iMarine and transform it in the
“one-stop-shop” for the CoP. Finally, the diagram shows how the dissemination and training tasks support the
iMarine Board activities.
Figure 3. Networking Activities Pert Diagram
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1.4.5 Risk Analysis and Contingency Plans
A risk breakdown structure for the NA activities is presented in the following table.
Table 2. Networking Activities Risk Analysis and Contingency Plan
Risk
Evaluation and Description7
Lack of organisational Internal; Low; Medium impact
coherence
Could be caused by one or more
specific underlying reasons ranging
from communication difficulties to
particular staffing difficulties at
one or another of the member
organisations.
High staff turnover
Contingency Plans
We minimise the risk of this occurring
by implementing a project structure in
which the key main stakeholders are
identified at this point in time. We can
minimise this risk further by ensuring:
 Consensual values within the
project,
 Effective use of communications
technology, and
 Frequent planning control and
review.
Internal; Low; Medium impact
Project management should verify
training plans for the younger
Given the complexity of the
researchers/developers to ensure that
environment in which iMarine
they continuously evolve within the
operates, skilled staff may leave the
project.
project for longer-term and higher
paying positions within industry. Review staffing reports at PMB
The virtual nature of the meetings.
organisation may increase the
Plan two or three occasions per year
probability of this risk occurring.
where all project staff can get together.
Consider staff satisfaction
across the project.
Serious disputes between
consortium members
Internal; Low; Medium impact
review
Aim to minimise the chances of
disputes occurring by ensuring regular
and clear communication between
consortium members.
Work package leaders should aim to
follow an attitude of openness and trust,
wherever possible.
Where pre-dispute areas are suspected,
offline discussions should be initiated.
Where disputes become unavoidable,
conflict resolutions procedures will be
invoked as defined in Section 2.1.4.
Multi-disciplinary nature Internal; Medium impact
of the Consortium may
Lack of communication; limited
lead
to
disciplines
understanding of needs; difficulties
working in silos
in testing/feedback
Work Package Leaders must ensure
regular presence at the quarterly faceto-face meetings of the PEB in order to
prevent “silo” work packages.
Regular communication through virtual
7
Evaluation is expressed through keywords characterising the provenance (internal vs external), the probability
(low, medium, high), and the impact level (low impact, medium impact, high impact) respectively.
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means will prevent isolation.
EA-CoP
technologies External; High; Low impact
becomes obsolete
The CoP employs a wide variety of
technologies, often released many
years ago. They may need to
change them to become a viable
partner.
The gCube services do not depend on
these external facilities. If software
needs upgrade, this is beyond the
project scope. However, the data
infrastructure may offer solutions.
EA-CoP Software is not External; Medium; Medium impact
released on time
This risk is very common in any
project with a collaborative plan of
development
activities.
Late
delivery only affects EA-CoP
activities.
The Agile development approach
provides opportunities to assess the
direction of the ongoing activities, and
mitigate the impact.
Project software is not Internal; Medium; Medium impact
delivered on time or
NA3 translates the EA-CoP in
misses specifications
development goals that cannot be
achieved by JRA for any reason.
Representatives of JRA will be
included in the NA3 work package by
assuring the feasibility of the goals
according to JRA requirements and
effort.
Expected co-funding / External; Medium; Low impact
collaboration
is
not
The projects supporting external
achieved
applications
development
are
delayed or cancelled, and the inkind inputs from partners are not
delivered as promised. The risk is
medium since the core parts of the
use cases are designed to be tackled
with project funds or external
funding sources already approved.
The iMarine Board will mostly have to
face priority settings, so efforts will be
reported on areas where resources are
guaranteed.
EA-CoP
Policy
expectations are too
diverse
for
being
consistently developed for
iMarine
The iMarine Board will create clusters
of common interest in order to facilitate
negotiation; it will also have flexible
strategies for the development of
policies, bottom-up or top down or a
mixture of both depending on the
complexity. It will be aware that
progress on policies will be uneven
depending on the topics.
Internal; Medium; High impact
Too many expectations are
formulated, the opinions of
different members are too strongly
diverging on the solutions. The risk
is real but has been minimized by
attempting to being together actors
of the EA-CoP which share
common interests and standards.
Appropriate boards within the project
will continuously monitor this risk and
take corrective actions.
The Steering Board should make
decisions in the best interest of the EACoP
The iMarine Board are made up of
decision-makers who can certainly
influence co-funding opportunities.
Lack of motivation and/or External; Medium; Medium impact
participation
in
the
Recruiting
both
appropriate
Virtual and the Project
speakers and participants to attend
Events
this event involve skilled staff with
experience in developing marketing
and promotional strategies as well
as a vast network database of
competent names which focus on
benefits of the individual attending.
The iMarine partners boast high-level
networks specific contacts which will
be contacted according to the specific
event organised. The partners have
proved over the last 2 years are able to
obtain active participation from key
experts in the field. The involvement of
the existing CoP community and its
related contact network will also help
mitigate this risk.
Difficulty
The introduction of virtual tools is a
increasing External; Medium; Medium impact
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users’ participation to
To accelerate the adoption of the eengage
in
iMarine
infrastructure governance model, to
training activities
create awareness of the services
provided, etc., users’ participation
must increase.
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proven mechanism for engaging and
involving users in training activities
reducing costs and the learningimplementation process as users
may have their individual timeframe
to complete courses.
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1.5 Service Activities and associated work plan
1.5.1 Overall strategy
The objective of the Service Activity is to deploy and ensure the correct, continuous, and effective operation of the
resources shared through the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure. These distributed resources will be made available for
consumption to the EA-CoP members. In particular, a set of Virtual Research Environments envisaged to realise
real life business cases (cf. Section 1.3.4) will be developed by relying on the deployed resources.
The iMarine Data e-Infrastructure is not intended to be a closed environment. Rather, it aims at exploiting other
existing e-Infrastructures, other deployed services, and other resources. By following this objective, the iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure will become interoperable with the infrastructures of the D4Science Federation and others.
Through the D4Science Federation it will be possible to access resources managed and orchestrated by other
infrastructures, such as EGI, VENUS-C, GENESI, DRIVER, OpenAIRE, etc. EGI offers the organization,
management, and support to exploit storage and computational resources to organized communities that can
contribute their facilities through their National Initiatives. VENUS-C provides a common cloud PaaS access to
resources delivered by different providers. GENESI operates, validates, and optimises the integrated access and use
of Earth Science data. DRIVER provides access to 3 millions documents published and maintained by national
archives. OpenAIRE provides access to research results available in Open Access repositories.
The iMarine Data e-Infrastructure, and the running Virtual Research Environments, will be based on the gCube
system (developed in D4Science and D4Science-II project and further enhanced in this project) and on other
software systems such as EMI8 and Hadoop9 (developed and released by external projects). The gCube software
(which includes services, libraries, portlets) will provide the core functionality to operate the iMarine Data eInfrastructure and make available Virtual Research Environments, while the EMI and Hadoop software will
provide access to computing and storage capacity. The deployed Virtual Research Environments will implement
the resource sharing vision of the project EA-CoP by delivering an environment to explore the community
distribute data and tools resources.
The correct operation of the infrastructure is assured by the definition of clear operational procedures that identify
the activities required to manage the infrastructure and the involved actors. These procedures cover different areas
such as infrastructure downtimes, incident management, and others.
To achieve the Service Activity objectives described above a number of tasks have been identified and organised in
three highly interconnected work packages:
 SA1 – iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Deployment and Operation will manage the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure
by providing hardware resources, deploying and maintaining the infrastructure core services (gCube, EMI,
Hadoop), providing monitoring and accounting information, and defining procedures to manage the
infrastructure;
 SA2 – Virtual Research Environments Deployment and Operation will deploy and operate the Virtual Research
Environments running in the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure by developing vertical solutions integrating
community applications and services with gCube services, developing common interfaces and tools, providing
community data resources, and managing the Virtual Research Environments;
 SA3 – Enabling-technology Integration and Distribution will manage the software technology that enables the
iMarine Data e-Infrastructure by building, integrating, and testing the source code developed within the project,
and making available well-documented releases through appropriate distribution channels.
The software developed by JRA and SA2 is made available to SA3 using the project source code repository. SA3
integrates and tests the source code, and distributes certified releases using the project software repository. SA1
takes these releases to deploy and upgrade the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure. By relying on the deployed
infrastructure managements tools, SA2 deploys and operates the Virtual Research Environments that deliver the
functionality requested and developed by the CoP. Finally, to ensure a continuous service operation, SA1 monitors
8
9
http://www.eu-emi.eu/
http://hadoop.apache.org/
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the status and load of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure, SA2 monitors the status and load of the VREs, and all SA
work packages participate in the resolution of incidents that may affect the infrastructure availability.
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1.5.2 GANTT Diagram
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1.5.3 Detailed work description
1.5.3.1 Work package list
Work
package
No
Work package title
Type of
activity
Lead
participant
No
Lead participant
short name
Personmonths
Start
month
End
month
SA1
iMarine Data eInfrastructure
Deployment and
Operation
SVC
4
CERN
49
1
30
SA2
Virtual Research
Environments
Deployment and
Operation
SVC
2
CNR
139
1
30
SA3
Enabling-technology
Integration and
Distribution
SVC
5
E-IIS
27
1
30
TOTAL
215
SA1 – iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Deployment and Operation
The main objective of this work package is to operate the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure by providing all
necessaries facilities to organise the provided resources in a coherent distributed infrastructure. This includes the
management of the hardware and software resources deployed in the infrastructure, the monitoring the status of the
infrastructure service, the accounting of the infrastructure exploitation. This work package includes the following
tasks:
 TSA1.1: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Operation
o Define a complete set of procedures to manage the Data Infrastructure;
o Deploy and maintain the infrastructure core services and portal;
o Plan and execute the necessary upgrades of the infrastructure services;
o Provide support to infrastructure administrators and users for infrastructure incidents;
o Define interoperability agreements and resources sharing policy with other Infrastructures.
 TSA1.2: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Nodes Provision
o Identify the providers of hardware resources and plan their participation in the Data Infrastructure;
o Provide hardware resources to the Data Infrastructure (dedicated or on-demand nodes);
o Deploy and maintain nodes hosting the gCube hosting node (gHN);
o Deploy and maintain nodes hosting the EMI middleware services;
o Deploy and maintain nodes hosting the Hadoop system.
 TSA1.3: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Availability, Monitoring and Accounting
o Develop tools to monitor the status of the infrastructure resources
o Develop tools to account the infrastructure load at system level and the infrastructure usage by end-users;
o Develop tools to verify the availability of the major functionality offered by the infrastructure
o Monitor the infrastructure resources status and report incidents or defects;
o Monitor the infrastructure resources usage and prepare summary reports;
o Monitor the infrastructure functionality availability and report incidents or defects.
The activities of this work package will be described and reported in four deliverables: two deliverables to describe
the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure plans in terms of software deployment and procedures defined (DSA1.1-2), and
two deliverables to report on the activities performed on the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure (DSA1.3-4).
The results of the work package will be assessed in three milestones: two milestones for the deployment and
availability of the required infrastructure nodes and gCube core services (MSA1.1-2), and one milestone for the
deployment and availability of the infrastructure monitoring and accounting tools (MSA1.3).
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SA2 – Virtual Research Environments Deployment and Operation
The main objective of this work package is to develop and deploy Virtual Research Environments in the iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure to run applications and services identified and developed by the EA-CoP. These applications
and services will integrate and exploit facilities developed in the context of the JRA work packages and other data
and tools facilities provided by the EA-CoP. This work package includes the following tasks:
 TSA2.1: Virtual Research Environments Operation
o Define procedures to manage the Virtual Research Environments operation;
o Analyze the requirements identified by the EA-CoP;
o Identify the required Virtual Research Environments and the resources to be provided;
o Deploy and maintain the required Virtual Research Environments.
 TSA2.2: Virtual Research Environments Resources and Tools Provision
o Identification, registration, and maintenance of data resources;
o Definition and implementation of vertical solutions integrating community specific applications and tools
with the facilities offered by the gCube workflow management and the gCube APIs.
 TSA2.3: Virtual Research Environments Common Interfaces and Tools
o Development of common User Interface and tools tailored to serve the virtual research communities through
the integration of existing technologies;
o Development of Social Networking facilities;
o Development of Business Process workflows.
 TSA2.4: Virtual Research Environments Development Support
o Support for the exploitation of the APIs provided by JRA4;
o Support for the exploitation of the common interfaces and tools;
o Support for the integration of existing tools and resources.
The activities of this work package will be described and reported in six deliverables: two deliverables to identify
and describe the required Virtual Research Environments (DSA2.1-2), two deliverables to describe the
development plans for community tools and common tools (DSA2.3-4), and two deliverables to report on the
activities performed in the Virtual Research Environments (DSA2.5-6).
The results of the work package will be assessed in four milestones: two milestones for the development and
release of the identified community tools and common tools (MSA2.1-2), and two milestones for the deployment of
the identified Virtual Research Environments (MSA2.3-4).
SA3 – Enabling-technology Integration and Distribution
The main objective of this work package is to integrate, test and distribute the software (those maintained and
enhanced in JRA Activities plus the community tools being developed in the context of SA2 work package) that
enable the Data Infrastructure and Virtual Research Environments provided by the project by selecting, deploying
and enhancing existing open source tools. This work package includes the following tasks:
 TSA3.1: Software Integration, Testing and Release
o Define the procedures to manage the release of gCube and community software;
o Defining the model for self testing and the guidelines to provide automatable functional tests;
o Plan the required releases as defined by the project bodies;
o Produce major, minor, and maintenance releases according to the established plan;
o Test new releases from the deployment, and performance point of view;
o Maintain a testing infrastructure where to run the identified tests;
o Execute continuous integration and testing of the latest source code;
o Maintain the project official software repository updated with all latest releases;
o Maintain the necessary tools to support the integration and testing activities.
 TSA3.2: Software Distribution and Documentation
o Upload all releases to the project Software Repository;
o Document and link all releases in the gCube website;
o Prepare the identified gCube special packages;
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o Validate, enhance and build the source code documentation;
o Validate, enhance and build the documentation for users and administrators;
o Validate, enhance and build the guide for developers of gCube compliant services.
The activities of this work package will be described and reported in four deliverables: two deliverables to identify
and describe the procedures and tools used to integrate, test, and distribute the project software releases (DSA3.12), and two deliverables to report on the activities performed in the preparation of the project software releases
(DSA3.3-4).
The results of the work package will be assessed in three milestones: one milestone for the set-up of the project
software repository and other build and test tools (MSA3.1), one milestone for the definition of the gHN and gCube
APIs packages (MSA3.2), and one milestone for the availability of the produced documentation (MSA3.3).
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1.5.3.2 Deliverables list
Del. no.
Nature
Dissemination
level
SA1
O
PU
M1, M16
e-Infrastructure SA1
R
PU
M12, M30
Deliverable name
WP no.
Delivery
date
DSA1.1-2
iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Plan
DSA1.3-4
iMarine
Data
Operation Report
DSA2.1-2
Virtual Research Environments Plan
SA2
O
PU
M1, M16
DSA2.3-4
Applications and Tools Development SA2
Plan
O
PU
M3, M18
DSA2.5-6
Virtual
Research
Activity Report
R
PU
M12, M30
DSA3.1-2
Software
Tools
Procedures
and SA3
O
PU
M1, M16
DSA3.3-4
Software Release Activity Report
SA3
R
PU
M12, M30
Release
Environments SA2
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1.5.3.3 Work package descriptions
SA1
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
iMarine Data E-Infrastructure Deployment and Operation
Work package title
SVC
Activity Type
1
2
3
5
6
4
Participant number
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
E-IIS
US
CERN
Participant short name
13
4
8
20
Person-months per participant
8
Terradue
9
Trust-IT
10
FAO
2
11
FIN
2
12
UNESCO
13
CRIA
M1
7
FORTH
14
IRD
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to operate the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure by providing all
necessaries facilities to organise the provided resources in a coherent distributed infrastructure. This includes
the management of the hardware and software resources deployed in the infrastructure, the monitoring the
status of the infrastructure service, the accounting of the infrastructure exploitation, and the establishment of
links with the other infrastructures that compose the D4Science Federation.
Description of work
Work package leader: CERN;
TSA1.1: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Operation
Task leader: CERN; Participants: CNR;
The main objective of this task is to manage the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure and ensure the availability of
its resources to infrastructure administrators and users. A fundamental aspect in the management of the
iMarine Data e-Infrastructure is the clear definition of procedures to manage it. Operational procedures will
be defined for the following areas: node provision, deployment, upgrade, certification, downtime, accounting,
monitoring, availability, and incident management. Besides the definition of these procedures this task is also
responsible for the execution of the procedures related to the deployment and maintenance of gCube core
services (e.g. Portal, Information System, Resource Management), the infrastructure upgrade to new releases,
and the monitoring of incidents affecting the infrastructure availability. Finally, this task will also coordinate
the relationship between the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure and other infrastructures, some of them belonging
to the D4Science Federation.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Define a complete set of procedures to manage the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure;
 Deploy and maintain the infrastructure core services and portal;
 Plan and execute the necessary upgrades of the infrastructure services;
 Provide support to infrastructure administrators and users for infrastructure incidents;
 Define interoperability agreements and resources sharing policy with other Infrastructures.
TSA1.2: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Nodes Provision
Task leader: CNR; Participants: NKUA, E-IIS, FAO, FIN;
The main objective of this task is to provide the computational and storage resources (hereafter called nodes)
that compose the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure. The provision of nodes by each partner will be performed in
two possible models: permanent nodes fully dedicated to the project exploitation, on-demand nodes provided
for a pre-defined time not charging for their consumption. The participant partners will provide at least the
following nodes: CNR will provide 100 concurrent typical compute instances, 5 TB storage space, and 1 Gb
network for data transfer. ENG E-IIS will provide up to 100 virtual small server instances, 7 TB storage
space, and 100 Mb network. NKUA will provide 50 compute instances, 5 TB storage space, and 1 Gb
network.
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This set of resources will be used to deploy, operate, and demonstrate the capabilities of the iMarine Data eInfrastructure and Virtual Research Environments. Additional nodes may be added according to the project
requests for new Virtual Research Environments. These additional nodes will be limited to the hardware
availability of the providers.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Identify the providers of hardware resources and plan their participation in the iMarine Data eInfrastructure;
 Provide hardware resources to the Data Infrastructure (dedicated or on-demand nodes);
 Deploy and maintain nodes hosting the gCube hosting node (gHN);
 Deploy and maintain nodes hosting the EMI middleware services;
 Deploy and maintain nodes hosting the Hadoop system.
TSA1.3: iMarine Data Infrastructure Availability, Monitoring and Accounting
Task leader: CERN; Participants: E-IIS;
The main objective of this task is to define, develop, and exploit a number of tools to efficiently monitor the
status, usage, and availability of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure. These tools will provide to the appropriate
infrastructure users and/or administrators the information required to control the use of the infrastructure
resources and to make the infrastructure more reliable.
This task will provide tools to verify (1) the status of each infrastructure nodes, (2) verify the availability of
the core functionality provided by the infrastructure, (3) the usage of the infrastructure resources by the
infrastructure users, and (4) the infrastructure service-to-service communication load.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Develop tools to monitor the status of the infrastructure resources
 Develop tools to account the infrastructure load at system level and the infrastructure usage by end-users;
 Develop tools to verify the availability of the major functionality offered by the infrastructure
 Monitor the infrastructure resources status and report incidents or defects;
 Monitor the infrastructure resources usage and prepare summary reports;
 Monitor the infrastructure functionality availability and report incidents or defects.
Deliverables
 DSA1.1-2 iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Plan (M1, M16) defines plans for the provision of the
infrastructure nodes as well as the procedures and the tools adopted to ensure the correct and effective
operation of the infrastructure;
 DSA1.3-4 iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Operation Report (M12, M30) reports on the status of the Data eInfrastructure in terms of nodes available, software deployed, quality of the service, and usage.
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SA2
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Virtual Research Environments Deployment and Operation
Work package title
SVC
Activity Type
1
3
4
5
2
Participant number
ERCIM
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
CNR
Participant short name
15
41
Person-months per participant
8
Terradue
9
Trust-IT
10
FAO
33
11
FIN
18
12
UNESCO
12
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
13
CRIA
12
14
IRD
8
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to develop and deploy Virtual Research Environments in the iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure to run applications and services identified and developed by the EA-CoP. These applications
and services will integrate and exploit facilities developed in the context of the JRA work packages and other data
and tools facilities provided by the EA-CoP.
The deployment and operation of Virtual Research Environments will drastically cut down the time-to-market
related to data management tasks. In fact, the integration of heterogeneous resources will largely be simplified by
exploiting the tailored APIs for data discovery, transfer, curation (including harmonization), and transformation.
Different community-specific tools and applications will be easily integrated through the workflow management
commodities that allow to exploit several computational paradigms.
Description of work
Work package leader: CNR;
TSA2.1: Virtual Research Environments Operation
Task leader: CNR; Participants: FAO;
The main objective of this task is to deploy and maintain the Virtual Research Environments designed and
implemented to support the uses cases and requirements identified by the EA-CoP. In particular, it will focus on
three real life business cases (cf. Section 1.3.4). These Virtual Research Environments will integrate a well defined
set of resources (data collections, metadata schemas, EA-CoP tools and applications, gCube components).
This task will work in close collaboration with the NA3 work package to analyze the requirements from the EACoP and consequently identify the required Virtual Research Environments and the resources to be provided. The
CoP partners already employ vertically integrated software solutions, and want to bring these or parts thereof to the
infrastructure in order to overcome obstacles in their data flows. This task will analyse the re-use of existing CoP
resources, or identify cost effective alternatives.
Finally, this task is responsible for the deployment of the identified Virtual Research Environments in the iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure deployed by the SA1 work package, and the continuous maintenance of these environments.
These activities will be executed based on clearly identified operational procedures.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Define procedures to manage the Virtual Research Environments operation;
 Analyze the requirements identified by the EA-CoP;
 Identify the required Virtual Research Environments and the resources to be provided;
 Deploy and maintain the required Virtual Research Environments.
TSA2.2: Virtual Research Environments Resources and Tools Provision
Task leader: FAO; Participants: CNR, FIN, UNESCO, CRIA, IRD;
The CoP partners have made substantial investments in developing their systems, and seek integration models to
improve their services to their customers. A cost effective provisioning model that improves the current
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fragmented development efforts must be formulated to serve the different business cases.
The main objective of this task is to identify, develop, and integrate the data resources and tools required by the
EA-CoP to be exploited in the envisaged Virtual Research Environments. These resources are key to the success of
the Virtual Research Environments as they represent the community contribution and needs.
The data resources identified by the EA-CoP must be registered and maintained in the iMarine Data eInfrastructure to be exploited by the different Virtual Research Environments.
The tools and applications identified by the EA-CoP will be implemented (if needed) and registered in the iMarine
Data e-Infrastructure to be exploited by the different Virtual Research Environments. These applications represent
vertical solutions that explore the gCube workflow management facilities and the gCube high-level APIs provided
by the JRA work packages, to integrate the infrastructure and resource management functionality with the
community specific functionality.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Identification, registration, and maintenance of data resources;
 Definition and implementation of vertical solutions integrating community specific applications and tools with
the facilities offered by the gCube workflow management facilities and the gCube APIs.
TSA2.3: Virtual Research Environments Common Interfaces and Tools
Task leader: CNR; Participants: NKUA;
The main objective of this task is to develop common interfaces and tools envisaged as needed by the various
virtual research communities aggregated in the context of the CoP. These components are not functional to the
management of the data. Rather they are keys for their exploitation. First of all, the CoP aims to collaborate to
exploit the data richness aggregated by the Data Infrastructure. This task will not only integrate and customise the
technologies and tools provided by the so-called Web 2.0. Rather, it will tailor the Web 2.0 approaches towards the
sharing of the data and the development of trust. A feature-rich experts’ database will be built by aggregating
expert profiles with the activity operations they perform in a social framework where confidentiality, privacy, and
public information will be modelled by each expert according to his/her willing. Sharing of data will be fostered to
immediate availability of results, workflows, annotations, documents, etc. independently if they are stored in a
public or private storage area. Shared workspaces, blogs, chats, notification walls, and broadcast messages will be
supported all-in-one common environment. This set of features will be freely available or it will be governed by
personalised business process workflows that will be defined and instantiated through a dedicated environment that
will allow the definition of specific policies aimed to regulate the data movement.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Development of common user interface and tools tailored to serve several virtual research communities through
the integration of existing technologies;
 Development of social networking facilities;
 Development of business process workflows.
TSA2.4: Virtual Research Environments Development Support
Task leader: NKUA; Participants: CNR;
The main objective of this task is to provide continuous support to the EA-CoP in the definition and development
of the applications and tools required by the identified Virtual Research Environments. This dedicated support will
facilitate the development activities in particular when exploring the gCube workflow management commodities,
gCube high-level APIs, and gCube common interfaces.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Support for the exploitation of the APIs provided by JRA4;
 Support for the exploitation of the common interfaces and tools;
 Support for the integration of existing tools and resources.
Deliverables
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 DSA2.1-2 Virtual Research Environments Plan (M1, M16) describes the identified Virtual Research
Environments to be deployed in the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure as requested by the EA-CoP;
 DSA2.3-4 Applications and Tools Development Plan (M3, M18) plans the development of the identified
community tools and applications and the common tools and interfaces required for the iMarine Data eInfrastructure Virtual Research Environments.
 DSA2.5-6 Virtual Research Environments Activity Report (M12, M30) reports on the deployed Virtual Research
Environments in terms of community tools integrated, resources involved, and user exploitation.
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SA3
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Enabling-technology Integration and Distribution
Work package title
SVC
Activity Type
1
2
3
4
5
Participant number
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
Participant short name
5
5
17
Person-months per participant
8
Terradue
9
Trust-IT
10
FAO
11
FIN
12
UNESCO
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
13
CRIA
14
IRD
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to integrate, test and distribute the software (those maintained and
enhanced in JRA Activities plus the community tools being developed in the context of SA2 work package)
that enables the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure and Virtual Research Environments provided by the project by
selecting, deploying and enhancing existing open source tools.
This work package will adopt the ETICS model to automate as much as possible the build, test, integration
and distribution of software. The ETICS software is now an open source initiative jointly maintained by
single experts and E-IIS, while two instances of the ETICS infrastructures are available as part of the EMI
services and the private investments of E-IIS. ETICS approach allow the system owner to configure the
software released starting from the source code available in any VCS and identifying the dependencies, target
platforms, build settings, testing scripts, etc.
Description of work
Work package leader: E-IIS;
TSA3.1: Software Integration, Testing and Release
Task leader: E-IIS; Participants: CNR;
The main objective of this task is to select, deploy, maintain, and possibly enhance the tools and facilities
required to store, build, test, and release the software developed by the project software providers work
packages.
A number of common tools will be exploited and further developed to deliver these tasks: an SVN instance
hosting the source code will ensure the availability of the open source code and its code documentation to any
contributors; ETICS build and test system will ensure the management of daily builds/tests and release
builds/tests; and will provide a common interface to visualize build results, test results, source code metrics,
and other verifications.
From the testing perspective, this work package will be responsible to test each individual release before its
distribution by running the following test types: deployment tests, functional tests, and performance tests.
Functional tests as well as unit tests will be automatically run if programmers will develop specific
functionality to self test the code.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Define the procedures to manage the release of gCube and community software;
 Defining the model for self testing and the guidelines to provide automatable functional test scripts;
 Plan the required releases as defined by the project bodies;
 Produce major, minor, and maintenance releases according to the established plan;
 Test new releases from the deployment, functional, and performance point of view;
 Maintain a testing infrastructure where to run the identified tests;
 Execute continuous integration and testing of the latest source code;
 Maintain the project official software repository updated with all latest releases;
 Maintain the necessary tools to support the integration and testing activities.
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TSA3.2: Software Distribution and Documentation
Task leader: NKUA; Participants: CNR;
The main objective of this task is release the source code that has been successfully built, integrated, and
tested in TSA3.1. The software packages composing each release will be uploaded to the project Software
Repository. All releases will also be linked and documented in the gCube website. Besides making available
in the project Software Repository all packages of each release, this task will also prepare a number of other
special packages: the gCube Hosting Node package which includes the container and the core services
required in each gCube nodes, and several gCube APIs packages grouping different service APIs according to
the output of JRA4 work package.
Finally, this task will verify that the released packages are properly documented in terms of: source code
documentation (javadoc), documentation for users and administrators, and documentation for community
developers.
Summarizing, the following activities are planned:
 Upload all releases to the project Software Repository;
 Document and link all releases in the gCube website;
 Prepare the identified gCube special packages;
 Validate, enhance and build the source code documentation;
 Validate, enhance and build the documentation for users and administrators;
 Validate, enhance and build the guide for developers of gCube compliant services.
Deliverables
 DSA3.1-2 Software Release Procedures and Tools (M1, M16) describes the procedures and tools used to
build, integrate, test, and distribute the project software releases;
 DSA3.3-4 Software Release Activity Report (M12, M30) reports on the outcome of the release activity
performed in the periods. Includes a summary on the documentation status.
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1.5.3.4 Summary of staff effort
Participant
number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Total
Participant short
name
SA1
SA2
SA3
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
0
13
4
20
8
0
0
0
0
2
2
0
0
0
49
0
41
15
0
0
0
0
0
0
33
18
12
12
8
139
0
5
5
0
17
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
27
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Total
person
months
0
59
24
20
25
0
0
0
0
35
20
12
12
8
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1.5.3.5 List of milestones
Milestone
number
Milestone name
MSA1.1-2
Infrastructure nodes and
gCube core services
available
Infrastructure availability,
monitoring, and accounting
tools deployed
Community tool and
common tools development
and release
Virtual Research
Environments deployment
Set-up of the project
software repository and
other build and test tools
Definition of gCube
Hosting Node and gCube
APIs special packages
Make available the
documentation for user,
administrators, and
community developers
MSA1.3
MSA2.1-2
MSA2.3-4
MSA3.1
MSA3.2
MSA3.3
Work
package(s)
involved
SA1
Expected
date
Means of verification
M3, M18
VREs can be deployed in the Data
Infrastructure
SA1
M3
Infrastructure statistics on status,
load, and usage is available
SA2
M6, M21
Planned VRE functionality can be
deployed
SA2
M6, M21
SA3
M2
Planned VRE functionality is
made available
Software release are made
available to SA1
SA3
M3
gCube special packages are made
available to SA1
SA3
M6
Documentation is made available
in the gCube website
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1.5.4 Pert diagram
The diagram below depicts the main relationships between the various tasks of the Service Activities. In particular,
it presents how policies governing iMarine Data e-Infrastructure flow from NA3 to SA1 that is called to deploy an
infrastructure which is compliant with them. In order to reach this objective, SA1 exploits the software packages
that results from SA3 which in turn is called to package and test the software artefacts produced by JRA tasks. This
infrastructure will host a number of Virtual Research Environments developed in the context of SA2 by CoP
stakeholders to realise scenarios and functionality captured by the three real life business cases the proposal
decided to support (cf. Section 1.3.4). To implement these Virtual Research Environments SA2 will rely on
software artefacts produced in SA3 and complement them by developing scenario specific application and services
tailored to serve a specific need by properly exploiting the generic facilities developed in the context of JRA for
data management and consumption.
Figure 4. Service Activities Pert Diagram
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1.5.5 Risk Analysis and Contingency Plans
A risk breakdown structure for the SA activities is presented in the following table.
Table 3. Service Activities Risk Analysis and Contingency Plan
Risk
Evaluation and Description10
Unavailability of
dedicated computing and
storage resources
Internal, Low Probability, Medium The required amount of resources can
Impact.
be acquired from external cloud
providers like Engineering (E-IIS) or
The computing and storage
Amazon, thanks to the gCube extension
resources provided by the project
to cloud.
partners represented in SA1 are not
made available.
Unavailability of ondemand computing and
storage resources
Internal/External,
Medium The required amount of resources will
Probability, Medium Impact.
be discussed with the project partners to
understand their availability to provide
The computing and storage
more dedicated nodes.
resources provided on-demand as
cloud resources in SA1 are not
made available. Alternatively, the
gCube extension to access clouds
resources is not operational.
Impossible to access
resources from other
infrastructures
External, Medium
Medium Impact.
Useless procedures
Internal, Low Probability, Medium The reasons for the misalignment
Impact.
between procedures and daily practices
are analysed and improvements to the
The identified procedures to
current procedures proposed and tested.
manage the Data e-Infrastructure,
The advisement from external experts
the VREs, and the software release
may be established.
are useless and introduce delays.
Unclear or unstable
requirements
Internal, Medium Probability, High More regular and face-to-face meetings
Impact.
between the EA-CoP members and the
technical teams are established to
The requirements and concrete use
promote a clear communication
cases identified by the EA-CoP are
between the two teams and a detailed
not clear or unstable and do not
discussion of the requirements.
allow the definition of appropriate
Virtual Research Environments.
Low quality of the
delivered community
tools and gCube common
tools
Internal, Medium
Medium Impact.
Contingency Plans
Probability, The Service Activity teams of both
infrastructures
establish
direct
communication to analyse the problem.
The resources provided by other
If required, the defined interoperability
(data) infrastructures (from the
solutions are updated and the
D4Science Federation and others)
development teams involved.
are not reachable and cannot be
consumed from the iMarine Data eInfrastructure.
Probability, The effort on the development support
task (TSA2.4) is intensified to allow a
better communication and support to
The
applications
and
tools
the developers of these applications and
developed by the user communities
10
Evaluation is expressed through keywords characterising the provenance (internal vs external), the probability
(low, medium, high), and the impact level (low impact, medium impact, high impact) respectively.
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and/or the gCube common tools are tools.
not deployable or are of low
quality.
Unavailability of data
resources
Internal, Medium Probability, High Direct
contact
with the
user
Impact.
communities and increased support is
put in place to understand the reasons
The data resources planned for the
for the unavailability of the data
different use cases are not delivered
resources. The policies for data
and made available by the user
provision may be revised.
communities.
Limited or unavailable
VRE functionality
Internal,
Impact.
Low
Probably,
Unavailability of build
and testing tools
Internal,
Impact.
Low
Probably,
High Define very clearly the planned VRE
functionality. Push developers to
deliver early prototypes and users to
The identified VRE functionality is
provide early feedback.
not provided or do not satisfied the
initial requirements.
High Other instances of the same tools are
exploited (e.g. an ETICS instance is
hosted at CERN and run by EMI
The tools defined to integrate and
project, however Engineering (E-IIS)
test the project source code are not
will also install an instance in its
made available.
premises). The usage of other tools is
considered.
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1.6 Joint Research Activities and associated work plan
1.6.1 Overall strategy
JRAs are not exclusively about the provision of the services required to manage the lifecycle of data from the
generation to the harmonization, annotation, processing, sharing, and reuse. Rather, they will cover the provision of
the necessary technology to manage at affordable costs the data e-Infrastructure; to orchestrate services in
repeatable executions flows that have to be stored, published, and reused as workflows; to participate to the
standardisation of the Data e-Infrastructure resource profiles contributing to the sustainability of this initiative; to
provide high-level APIs to offer operations on the data by hiding the complexity inherent to all distributed Data eInfrastructures.
JRA activities will not start from scratch. They will start form large open-software initiatives widely adopted in
existing e-Infrastructures and they will contribute to these initiatives with enhanced versions and new software
packages capable to deal with the enforcement of declarative-specified policies. Project-members already support
open-source initiatives such as the gCube and OpenSDMX frameworks. gCube offers platforms and services to
manage and manipulate data and metadata in an autonomic-managed Data e-Infrastructure. gCube supports
interactive and web-based processes that are compliant with the standards defined by the Open Geospatial
Consortium and OASIS committees. It allows to access computational and storage resources managed through the
gLite grid middleware while by exploiting the signed MoU between D4Science and EMI - European Middleware
Initiative – the new grid middleware generation will be easily integrated.
To achieve the above objective a set of activities are planned and organised into four interacting work packages:
 JRA1 – iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Enabling-technology Development will enhance the gCube Enabling
Services that enable the operation of the data e-Infrastructure by: (i) supporting the deployment of the eInfrastructure services; (ii) interfacing external infrastructures; (iii) enforcing resource usage policies defined by
the EA-CoP; (iv) distributing process executions to several computational platforms.
 JRA2 – Data Management Facilities Development will integrate, enhance, and develop a set of services for
managing statistical data (including but not limited to time series), marine biology, environmental data such as
satellite data and sensor data; taxonomies, ontologies, and code-lists; structured and semi-structured textual
data; and binary data. The management facilities will include those needed to properly deliver data access and
storage, data transfer, data assessment, data certification, and data harmonization software components.
 JRA3 – Data Consumption Facilities Development will develop a set of facilities for supporting the data
processing tasks the EA-CoP faces. These facilities include services for: (i) data discovery and retrieval; (ii)
generation and manipulation of data; (iii) mining and extraction of knowledge from raw data; (iv) generation of
data provenance information; (v) data transformation; and (vi) visualization and simulation of scientific data.
 JRA4 – iMarine Data e-Infrastructures Integration and Interoperability Facilities Development will develop a
set of facilities for supporting the exploitation of available and emerging facilities in the iMarine Data eInfrastructure by applications mainly but not limited to those developed in SA2. These facilities will be based
on the identification of standards at the boundaries of services and the entire infrastructure for interactions with
its elements or its entity and on the provision of programmatic APIs that will enable integration and
interoperability, for and beyond the specifications adopted.
The software realised by JRA1 activities will start from the solid base of the gCube framework. It will enhance the
gCube enabling technology by contributing to the open source community that maintains it. This will allow to
receive feedback and revisions also from members external to the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure by initiating a
virtuous cycle with other Data e-Infrastructures that rely on the same foundations. JRA2 and JRA3 will start from
the data facilities offered by gCube and OpenSDMX frameworks and they will complement and enhance them to
create a complete software suite for data storage and management. The results of those activities will then be made
simpler to use but not functionally reduced by JRA4. This last activity will provide a simple interface with adapters
for the corresponding services that will allow developers to invoke services in a common way across the Data eInfrastructure and the difference protocols and standards.
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1.6.2 GANTT Diagram
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1.6.3 Detailed work description
1.6.3.1 Work package list
Work
package
No
Work package title
Type of
activity
Lead
participant
No
Lead participant
short name
Personmonths
Start
month
End
month
JRA1
iMarine
Data
eInfrastructure Enablingtechnology Development
RTD
2
CNR
59
1
24
JRA2
Data
Management
Facilities Development
RTD
2
CNR
91
1
27
JRA3
Data
Consumption
Facilities Development
RTD
3
NKUA
107
1
27
JRA4
Data
e-Infrastructures
Integration
and
Interoperability Facilities
Development
RTD
3
NKUA
39
1
28
TOTAL
296
JRA1 – Data e-Infrastructure Enabling-technology Development
The goals of this work package is to deliver the high quality technology enabling the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure.
It will receive input from NA3, while its outcomes will be mainly exploited by the Service Activity and by the
development activities of the other JRA WPs. Moreover, the work package will develop new facilities by creating
the ground to support the effective integration with external technologies and platforms (such as Cloud platforms,
EGEE/EGI and Genesi-DR Data infrastructures, OpenSDMX applications, and so on). To meet these objectives,
the work package will extend the gCube enabling technology produced by the D4Science II project to tackle the
new challenges posed by the iMarine’s expectations.
The activity performed by this work package is organized as follows: (i) develop new facilities for the management
of the data e-Infrastructure, enhance the development gCube framework and runtime environment, facilitate the
integration of services and applications already available to the EA-CoP and promote the linking with Cloud
platforms (TJRA1.1); (ii) enhance the current solutions for authentication, authorization, accounting, and auditing
to take into account the declaratively-specified policies defined by the EA-CoP and to guarantee highly controlled
resources with the aim to foster scalability and interoperability of the delivered technology (TJRA1.2); (iii) enhance
gCube facilities for the definition, hosting, and execution of scientific and management workflows (TJRA1.3); (iv)
improving the gCube Resource Model towards more open-ended extensibility solutions needed to model the new
internal and external entities, such as EA-CoP applications, Cloud resources, external Data sources, etc. (TJRA1.4).
All the described development tasks will be accomplished by applying an Agile-like software development
approach. The internal software development work plan will be reported in three milestones (MJRA1.1.1,
MJRA1.2.1, MJRA1.3.1), each of them belonging the corresponding task. These milestones will manifest in
multiple deliveries along the project lifetime starting from M3 and M4. The gCube software released by the work
package will be documented in DJRA1.1 – iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Enabling-technology Software that it will
be updated on a three-month basis. Finally, the Result Model defined within TJRA1.4 will be described in DJRA1.2
– iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Resource Model.
JRA2 – Data Management Facilities Development
The work package focuses on the data management area, in particular on the process of managing the datasets
available to the EA-CoP, including services for managing statistical data, marine biology data, environmental data
such as satellite data and sensor data; taxonomies and code-lists, etc. Similarly to the other JRA WPs, this work
package will receive input from NA3.
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The work package will grant access to heterogeneous data repository systems and datasets with common and
standard protocol(s) and harmonise the access to different document models they may expose. Other development
activities will be dedicate to document access, data access, and file storage. The final delivered solutions will take
place in the context of gCube’s Content Management Architecture (CMA), the data management solution actually
available in the gCube system.
The main objectives of the work to be undertaken in this work package are to: (i) harmonise the access to as wide
as possible variety of models and protocols by adapting the gCube’s inner type for document access, the gCube
Document Model (gDM) to the document access types (model and protocols) exposed by the EA-CoP services
selected for integration (TJRA2.1); (ii) develop facilities for efficient data transfer over standard transfer/network
protocols to ease the exchange of large amount of data within the Data e-infrastructure (TJRA2.2); (iii) provide
facilities to assist EA-CoP members in the assessment, harmonization, and certification of data (TJRA2.3).
Each task will manifest in a number of milestone defining the specification of facilities designed and implemented
in the context of the task itself. MJRA2.1.1 will report on the facilities designed and implemented as part of task
TJRA2.1 for data access and storage; MJRA2.2.1 will report on the facilities designed and implemented as part of
task TJRA2.2 for data transfer; and finally, MJRA2.3.1 will report on the facilities designed and implemented as
part of task TJRA2.3 for data assessment, harmonization and certification. The first version of each milestone will
be available at M4 and all of them will be quarterly updated. The software and documentation of the components
released by the work package (namely, Data Management suite) will be described in DJRA2.1 – Data Management
Software.
JRA3 – Data Consumption Facilities Development
The objective of work package JRA3 is to provide a full suite of instruments (concepts, specifications and software
components) for the consumption of data in the various stages of their evolution (data/information/knowledge)
within the e-Infrastructure, often leading to the production of new data/information/knowledge.
The development of JRA3 is based on JRA1 and JRA2 products. The former provides the enabling means of the
Data e-Infrastructure and the instrument to carry the computationally intensive tasks of the WP, while Data
Transfer, Access and Storage facilities, provided by JRA2, are essential means for managing the exchange and
persistence of data sets. Data assessment, harmonization and certification (TJRA2.3) is also common factor in
scientific data processing flow.
The tasks of the work package are structured as follows.
Under the work planned in TJRA3.1, the existing facilities for information retrieval of the gCube platform will
evolve in three directions: standardization, functionality and performance. Task TJRA3.2 will develop facilities for
advanced and large-scale data creation, update and deletion. Task TJRA3.3 will go far beyond strengthening the
existing platform, by offering a rich suite of Data Mining tools (algorithms) that will act on data sets handled by the
project’s communities, in several domains, knowledge management and statistics being the ones directly
identifiable. Task TJRA3.4 will handle two challenges of scientific data handling: their visualization and their
exploitation under the simulation perspective. Both generic and data-set specific methods for visualization will be
provide, and similarly generic simulation methods and domain specific ones will be supported, driven by
requirements and products of other activities (namely TJRA3.3). Finally, TJRA3.5 will bring into gCube Semantic
Data Analysis features, in the form of software, that will facilitate the crossing of scientific and administrative
domain boundaries in the Data e-Infrastructure both for programmatic and human actors.
JRA3 will periodically deliver its main product, i.e. the software, along with documentation, (DJRA3.2), while it
will also provide a formal specification of the Query Language (DJRA3.1a/b). Specifications for all the
components will be also timely provided (achieved as milestones).
JRA4 – Data e-Infrastructure Exploitation Facilities Development
Work package JRA4 aims to provide a broad set of specifications and programmatic interfaces for essential groups
of the infrastructure services that will facilitate interoperability of iMarine Data e-Infrastructures with external ones
and will allow the integration of the entire, or subsets of the, infrastructure it into large data ecosystems.
An essential means for this is the decoupling of the external entities from the complexity of the Data eInfrastructure, as currently offered in gCube system by Application Support Layer, that becomes the basis of the
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iMarine developments. Within JRA4 this layer of libraries and APIs, that evolved as need will be promoted into a
self contained layer, will be architecturally restructured and functionally extended in order to cover new and
extended service areas.
More specifically, TJRA4.1 will tackle the definition of the architecture of the Integration and Interoperability
Layer (shortly IIL) in a manner that will allow systematic partitioning of elements, leading to an independent
evolution of its vertical (functional area specific) and horizontal (layered dependencies) component groups. The
rest of the two tasks, TJRA4.2 and TJRA4.3, will act on top of TJRA4.1, exploiting the specifications and
components delivered by JRA2 and JRA3 respectively. They will essential provide the “API of the Infrastructure”
for the functional areas of Data Management and Data Consumption, exposing a large set of services, such as
Search, Storage, Data Access, to the outer world.
The results of the work package will be provided in the form of specifications (deliverable DJRA4.1) and as
software components (included in milestones MJRA4.2.1 and MJRA4.3.1). Additionally the progress of the
activity will be reported in deliverable DJRA4.2.
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1.6.3.2 Deliverables list
Del. no.
Deliverable name
WP no.
Nature
Dissemination
level
Delivery
date
DJRA1.1-8
iMarine Data Infrastructure Enabling
Software
JRA1
O
PU
M3, M6,
M9, M12,
M15,
M18,
M21,
M24
DJRA1.9
iMarine Data Infrastructure Resource
Model
JRA1
O
PU
M20
DJRA2.1-9
iMarine Data Management Software
JRA2
O
PU
M4, M6,
M9, M12,
M15,
M18,
M21,
M24,
M26
DJRA3.1-2
gCube Query Language Specification
JRA3
R
PU
M6, M24
DJRA3.3-9
iMarine Data Consumption Software
JRA3
O
PU
M6, M9,
M12,
M15,
M18,
M21,
M24
DJRA4.1
Integration
and
Interoperability
Framework Definition
JRA4
PU
M3
DJRA4.2-9
Application Programming Interface
Software
JRA4
PU
M6, M9,
M12,
M15,
M18,
M21,
M24,
M28
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1.6.3.3 Work package descriptions
JRA1
M1
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Enabling-technology Development
Work package title
RTD
Activity Type
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Participant number
ERCIM
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
CNR
Participant short name
13
16
14
16
Person-months per participant
8
Terradue
9
Trust-IT
10
FAO
11
FIN
12
UNESCO
13
CRIA
14
IRD
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to enhance the gCube Enabling Services that provide for the
operation of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure. These services will insulate as much as possible the
management of the e-infrastructure from the data and the data management services that are hosted in or
accessible through the infrastructure itself.
Work package activities will be dedicated to the deployment of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure; to interface
with external infrastructures; to enforce resource usage policies defined by the CoP; to distribute process
executions to several computational platforms. Moving towards these targets, the activities of the work
package will also reorganize gCube’s Resource Model.
Overall, the work package will assure the correct implementation of the policy defined by the iMarine Board
for the governance of the Data e-Infrastructure, and it will support the Service Activity for the deployment of
its services with the objective to simplify the periodical upgrades following the software releases and
maximize the sharing resources and applications.
Description of work
Work package leader: CNR;
TJRA1.1: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Management Facilities
Task leader: CNR; Participants: US;
The main objective of this task is to develop new facilities for the management of the iMarine Data eInfrastructure. These facilities will be dedicated to promote the integration and exploitation of technology
external to the e-Infrastructure (e.g. Cloud technology), as well as to support the development activities of the
other JRA work packages.
In more detail, the following activities are planned:
 extend the Information System services to support policy-based views of available resources;
 extend the Resource Management services to facilitate the integration of services and applications already
available to the EA-CoP. Support for autonomic deployment, monitoring, and management, which is
currently available for native gCube services and service plug-in components, will be extended to external
services and applications;
 evaluate and introduce a WS-Management implementation (e.g. Wiseman [11]) for services and resource
coordination;
 extend the gCore the application framework for gCube services, towards programming models and
patterns that allow partial and incremental adoption of its abstractions;
 implement the APIs of the task TJRA1.4 that are relevant to the work package
TJRA1.2: iMarine Data e-Infrastructure Policy-oriented Security Facilities
Task leader: E-IIS; Participants: CNR;
The main objective of this task is to enhance the current solutions for authentication, authorization,
accounting, and auditing to take into account the declaratively-specified policies defined by the CoP. The
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starting point for this activity will be the Authentication and Authorisation (AA) components developed in
gCube and componentised in SOA3, an open source solution for AA federation on multi-domains computing
environment developed by E-IIS. In addition it will be integrated the Federated Accounting and Auditing
features respectively to ensure available data for billing purposes (enhancing sustainability perspectives) and
to push users trust in the infrastructure.
SOA3 will include facilities to encrypt/decrypt data.
In particular, the following activities are planned:
 Revise the architecture of the current AA solution of gCube to enhance its reusability;
 Made interoperable with possible evolution of Id Management and Policy management solutions offered
by EMI, EGI-Inspire or EIF;
 Extend with an advanced federated accounting solution, enabling plug-ins of billing components;
 Extend with auditing facilities to allow enforcement of security policies.
TJRA1.3: Workflow Management Facilities
Task leader: NKUA; Participants: CNR, US;
The main objective of this task is to enhance gCube facilities for the definition, hosting, and execution of
scientific and management workflows, in such a way that the workflows become flexible, reusable,
multipurpose resources that provide services of higher complexity to the infrastructure and its users. The
vision behind the objective is to complement the pool of basic data management and data consumption
services with new members of composite capacity, thus abstracting over platform internals and strengthening
the capacities of gCube as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technology.
In more detail, the following activities are planned for the task:
 formalisation of a workflow definition language and implementation of appropriate parsing and translation
mechanisms, capable to capture the nature of resources that reside inside and around a gCube
infrastructure into complex automation and business process scenarios;
 extend workflow technology to satisfy the needs of the workflow definition language and to provide the
appropriate abstractions to the execution engine;
 enhance gCube’s Process Execution Engine with new features in the area of interoperability, optimisation,
failure resilience, workflow logic embedding and resource abstraction, which will strengthen its PaaS
cloud-enabling capacities for the data e-Infrastructure (resource discovery, state access, etc);
 enhance gCube’s Process Execution Engine to further exploit Cloud integration scenarios (e.g. EC2, EMI
outcome) and cloud infrastructures;
 develop a gCube service as a dynamic wrapper of persistent workflow resources, so that the latter may be
parametrically invoked on a par with other gCube services in further workflow definitions.
TJRA1.4: Resource Model
Task leader: US; Participants: CRN, NKUA;
The gCube’s Resource Model defines what is shared in the data e-Infrastructure, and therefore what can be
discovered and used by the software components that operate within it. While resource discovery is
functionality in scope of TJRA1.1, this tasks focuses on the model itself, i.e. the resources, their roles and
inter-relationships.
In more detail, the following activities are planned:
 add open-ended extensibility mechanisms in the Resource Model in cooperation with TJRA1.2 and
TJRA1.3. Key areas for extension revolve around the notion of executable resource and data resource;
 analyse the models adopted by other data e-Infrastructures such as EGEE/EGI, and Genesi-DR, and
evaluate the relevance of the GLUE model [1] to the evolution of the Resource Model;
 analyse other external models, including commercially available enterprise solutions.
Deliverables
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 DJRA1.1-8 iMarine Data Infrastructure Enabling Software, that contains the software and documentation
of the components that comprise the e-Infrastructure Management suite (M3, quarterly updated), Type:
Other (online software repository)
 DJRA1.2 iMarine Data Infrastructure Resource Model, that contains the resource model adopted by the
iMarine Data Infrastructure (M20), Type: Other (online document)
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JRA2
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Data Management Facilities Development
Work package title
RTD
Activity Type
1
3
4
5
2
Participant number
ERCIM
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
CNR
Participant short name
9
19
27
Person-months per participant
8
Terradue
9
9
Trust-IT
10
FAO
11
FIN
12
UNESCO
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
18
13
CRIA
9
14
IRD
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to integrate and enhance a set of services for managing the
datasets available to the EA-CoP, including services for managing statistical data (including but not limited to
time series), marine biology data, environmental data such as satellite data and sensor data; taxonomies and
code-lists, etc.
In more detail, the following activities are planned:







access heterogeneous data repository systems with common and standard protocols;
generation and manipulation of data;
generation of provenance information and adding this information to the data;
quality assessment;
harmonisation of metadata to ensure interoperability within and across e-Infrastructures;
certification;
publication to make data available and promote the sharing through the standards recognised by the EACoP and the scientific communities;
 efficient, secure, and reliable data transfer.
Description of work
Work package leader: CNR;
TJRA2.1: Data Access and Storage Facilities
Task leader: US; Participants: CNR;
The main objective of this task is to offer facilities for standard and uniform network access to datasets of
varying semantics hosted in multiple and heterogeneous repositories, including content management systems,
databases, and file storage systems. Several datasets are currently made available to the EA-CoP under a
variety of models and through a variety of protocols. This technological heterogeneity raises significant
integration barriers to the timely exploitation of data that is key to the implementation of the EA. The
activities in this task will pursue interoperability solutions that: (i) do not require immediate changes to local
practices for data management and dissemination, but (ii) can gradually induce technological convergence
within the EA-CoP towards common standards. For the most part, these solutions will be sought in the
context of gCube’s Content Management Architecture (CMA) and in accordance with its hourglass topology
of inner access types for integration and outer access types for dissemination. Different activities will be
dedicated to document access, data access, and file storage.
In more detail, the following activities are planned:
 Adapt gCube’s inner type for document access, the gCube Document Model (gDM), to the document
access types (model and protocols) exposed by the EA-CoP services selected for integration (e.g. Darwin
Core, ABCD, Obis Schema, CSGDM, GCMD). The activity will result in plug-ins for key CMA
services, such as the Content Manager service and the View Manager service;
 Adapt the gDM to the document access types of the EA-CoP services selected for integration. This
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“backwards” translation will result in new CMA services which will provide access to the totality of the
content integrated by the previous activity under the access type preferred for upstream processing;
Define new inner types for document access in term of canonical models of gDoc tree content and in
correspondence with the data access types of EA-CoP services selected for integration (e.g. SDMX,
various ontology and taxonomy representations standards). This activity will result in schema definitions
and the integration or development of clients libraries.
Define bilateral adaptations between the inner types for data access defined in the previous activity and the
data access types of EA-CoP services selected for integration. As for activities related to document
management, this activity will result in plugins for existing CMA services and in new CMA services.
Develop a CMA service for seamless storage of files across a variety of remote storage systems (e.g.
HDFS, SRM, SRB). The service will have a standard, POSIX-based interface supportive of storage
management policies (quotas, reservations, access rights).
Extend existing and new key CMA services, plugins, client libraries, document models, and data models
with support for recording provenance-related process documentation
TJRA2.2: Data Transfer Facilities
Task leader: CERN; Participants: NKUA, Terradue;
The main objective of this task is to integrate and enhance a set of facilities for reliable data transfer
mechanism between the nodes of the Data e-Infrastructure. The EA-CoP manages a large set of multi-type
datasets distributed across different repositories. To promote an efficient and optimized consumption of these
data resources, the infrastructure must provide facilities for data transfer across nodes. This task will provide a
secure, reliable, and efficient solution for other deployed services to move different data types between
remote infrastructure nodes under different transfer protocols (e.g. srm-copy, gridFTP, HTTPS, BitTorrent,
OPeNDAP, WCS, WMS, WFS, etc) and the combination/optimization of state-of-the-art technologies (i.e.
high-bandwidth networks, peer-to-peer). This task will also work on a data transfer mechanism to pass data
by reference between infrastructure services by relying on a list of records that are part of a specific record
set. The data transfers facilities will support multiple transfer requests, minimize network load, not cause
storage overload, support prioritisation , manage transfer shares at service and user level, and allow data
transfer parameterization.
In more detail, the following activities are planned:
 Develop a gCube service to integrate existing services and technologies to deliver an efficient, secure, and
reliable data transfer commodity;
 Support the transfer of multiple data formats over different transfer protocols;
 Support the transfer of data by reference between infrastructure services by exploiting record sets;
 Support advance data transfer functionality to manage transfer priorities, transfer requests, transfer shares,
and system overload.
TJRA2.3: Data Assessment, Harmonization and Certification Facilities
Task leader: CNR; Participants: FORTH;
The main objective of this task is to provide facilities to assist EA-CoP members in the assessment,
harmonization, and certification of data. Several services will be integrated and customized to cover the data
types of relevance to the EA-CoP. The harmonization of time-series data, for example, requires an enhanced
version of the corresponding gCube service that exploits reference data, code lists, and taxonomies to identify
syntactic errors, missing information, and erroneous observations.
The following approach will be adopted:
 Harmonization and quality assessment. This phase deals with heterogeneous data authentication,
measurement, and merging. Time series incoming from several participants or agencies, for example, have
to be associated to reference structures; tabular data and any other semi-structured data have to be assessed
by using taxonomies, vocabularies, and ontologies accessible in the Data e-Infrastructure. The quality
assessment phase includes even a coherence control as well as a certification facility on user’s data. This is
related to the so called “curation” phase of the analysis for which a serious of software components will be
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integrated, implemented and released to form a framework of components reusable in tailored workflows.
 Semi-automatic supervision of data. A lexical similarity algorithm will be introduced for syntactic
correction of entries in scientific data, for linking those data with reference structures, to support automatic
merging procedures. Minimum edit distance algorithm properly trained by users to weight the data against
reference structures will support this activity.
 Certification and data verification. A verification phase will be provided to the user, in order to certify the
overall coherence of the supervised data. A manual or automatic certification of data structure coherence
will be supplied, with the possibility to manually supervise treated scientific data. Automatic data check
algorithms will be supplied to check if the data type and transcription is coherent with the reference
structure. Errors will be calculated and put in evidence to let users correct them.
Provenance information will be always generated and attached to the harmonised data objects. Relevant
standards for data provenance description will be considered and enhanced to cope with the data richness and
diversity the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure will deal with.
Deliverables
DJRA2.1-9 iMarine Data Management Software, that contains the software and documentation of the
components that comprise the Data Management suite (M4, M6, M9, M12, M15, M18, M21, M24, M26),
Type: Other (online software repository)
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JRA3
Work package number
Start date or starting event:
Data Consumption Facilities Development
Work package title
RTD
Activity Type
1
2
4
5
3
Participant number
ERCIM
CNR
CERN
E-IIS
NKUA
Participant short name
18
27
Person-months per participant
8
Terradue
18
9
Trust-IT
10
FAO
22
11
FIN
12
UNESCO
M1
6
7
US
FORTH
13
CRIA
22
14
IRD
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to develop a set of facilities for supporting the data processing
tasks the EA-CoP faces with. These facilities include services for:
 data discovery;
 generation and manipulation of data;
 mining and extraction of knowledge from raw data;
 generation of provenance information and the link of this information to the data;
 data transformation.
Description of work
Work package leader: NKUA;
TJRA3.1: Data Retrieval Facilities
Task leader: NKUA; Participants: FORTH, Terradue;
The main objective of this task is to provide advanced data discovery, building on and extending the
Information Retrieval constructs of gCube. In particular the following activities will be carried out:
 formalisation of a Data Discovery language (i.e. Query Language) that will embrace all the capacities of
the infrastructure, including filtering, projection, semantic matching, feature matching, geospatial/temporal
matching and coverage of more data types that will emerge during the project’s lifetime;
 implementation of support of Information Retrieval over new datatypes to emerge;
 definition of interfaces for semantic information retrieval and integration of gCube Search Service with the
mechanisms that will be offered by the enhanced, fully fledged ontology management toolkit provided by
task TJRA3.4);
 strengthening of the geospatial/temporal IR capabilities of gCube with the inclusion in IR path of existing
OGC compliant services;
 provision of the federated Information Retrieval capacities for non-cooperative textual sources, and
investigation of support for non-textual ones;
 enhancement of the performance and robustness capacities of the gCube information retrieval
mechanisms;
 evolution of all existing gCube IR constructs (Indexing, Search, Personalisation) under new functional and
non-functional demands;
TJRA3.2: Data Manipulation Facilities
Task leader: CNR; Participants: NKUA, FAO;
The main objective of this task is to provide the facilities for advanced and large-scale data creation, update
and deletion building on and extending gCube. In particular the following activities will be carried out:
 specification of a Data Manipulation Framework that will leverage the benefits of the infrastructure,
including updating, deleting and creation of data in existing large and distributed data sets, such as tabular
data;
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 Extension of the powerful open framework that allows to build chains of transformations. This framework
will be extended to deal with tabular data, time series, and large scientific data sets;
 Support for the definition of Data Manipulation access control;
 Definition of integration of restricted access (private) data sets with public access data sets;
 Definition of aggregation facilities over spatial, temporal and other dimensions, also to safeguard privacy
and confidentiality issues;
 Provision of efficient extraction facilities of data from large data sets;
 Enhancement of the performance and integration capacities of the gCube information mechanisms with
CoP developed adapters, or other access mechanisms (E.g. for SDMX generation/manipulation, the
storage layer may not be SDMX aware, and could interact using an adapter).
TJRA3.3: Data Mining Facilities
Task leader: CNR; Participants: Terradue, FAO;
The main objective of this task is to integrate services and libraries for data mining in order to enforce the
policies identified by the EA-CoP and to deal with data type heterogeneity. The premise is that the scientific
data to analyze have been treated and that their coherence has been certified.
Data mining functionalities principally aim to find similarities among data or to extract “hidden” properties
like periodic trends. The outcoming models can be used even to extract frequent patterns from data or they
can run in generative mode, in order to perform predictions on the behaviour in the future for some properties.
Data mining techniques will be packed in a library which other services will integrate to deliver advanced
services, or the user can interrogate from a graphical interface.
The following subsections will describe which the data mining techniques will be employed:
 Data Clustering on the basis of description. Incoming scientific data could be viewed as documents,
identified by the description of the reported attributes, linked to the contents represented by the data.
Clustering algorithms, such as k-means algorithm, can be used to calculate similarities among tabular data
or their entries.
 Bibliometric index calculation in textual time series descriptions. Similarly to data clustering, scientific
data can be seen as textual documents having an overall as well as single record descriptions. Bibliometric
index on such data can be calculated for selecting and retrieving their essential concepts: features based on
layout, document structure, and topic concepts are used to discriminate between related and unrelated
pages; an overall page-set similarity measure is used for clustering disjoint groups of pages; automatic
indexing techniques calculate correlations spanning multiple pages, and use these correlations as feature
space elements.
 Periodicity, seasonality and temporal cycles extraction from time series data. Time series can hide
hidden events, related, for example, to species behaviour, migrations, or capture seasons during a single
year. Such periodic phenomena can be automatically put in evidence by machine learning techniques for
automatic time cycles and periodicity extraction. Many techniques will be offered including the most
common Singular Spectrum Analysis.
 Anomaly pattern detection. Anomaly patterns represent dynamics, hidden into a certain observation
sequence, which indicate an uncommon behaviour or the presence of non standard events presence in
scientific data trends. The main aim of these techniques is to detect any subset of data which displays a
significant increase in anomalous activity as compared to the “normal” behaviour of the reference data.
The used model will be trained on reference data in order to set up a normal behaviour.
 Computing Association Rules between Tabular Data. Association rules extraction techniques try to put
in evidence correlation between data, attributes or entire sequences of observations. Most common
techniques will be offered as modular libraries such as the association rules building from Frequent
Patterns.
TJRA3.4: Data Visualisation and Simulation Facilities
Task leader: NKUA; Participants: CNR;
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The main objective of this task is to integrate and enhance services for data set visualisation, and simulation in
order to enforce the policies identified by the EA-CoP and to deal with the data type heterogeneity. In the
context of the project both generic and task-specific simulation and visualisation solutions are foreseen,
depending on the needs and requirements raised.
With respect to visualisation, the task shall cover:
 provision of visualisation of the content area with tools that will capture the semantic and structural
relationships among documents deposited in Content Management or retrieved via Information Retrieval ;
 enhancement of generic document visualisation to cover new data types, integrated in the web front-end of
the system;
 support of scientific-domain specific visualisation, on special or generic data types (such as time series and
geospatial and temporal data) as needed;
With respect to simulation, it is meant to use algorithms delivered as libraries in section TJRA3.2 as well as
other techniques in order to perform prevision on trends or to catch evidence of data accumulating in some
direction. Some time series attributes could tend, for example, to go towards an accumulation value which
could represent stable or an unstable situation. The system will even be able to guess the nature of such a
point, basing on a data history. The following techniques will be offered:
 Data series analysis and forecast of trends. Data trends plotting allows human experts to perform better
reasoning on the future behaviour of some dynamics. Singular Spectrum Analysis and other techniques
such as Monte Carlo methods will be involved. The latter in particular tends to be used when it is
unfeasible or impossible to compute an exact result with a deterministic algorithm.
 Statistical methods for data distribution calculation. Statistical functions will be provided for classic
statistical analysis. Plotting methods for data distribution visualization will be provided along with the
possibility to calculate the expected values (mean, variance etc.) for a certain numeric attribute according
to various classic statistical distribution.
 Aggregated data visualization. Statistical analysis can be performed on a single time series or on several
series. An aggregated data plot can be produced, in order to graphically analyze data frequencies and
accumulation as well as distribution of information along families and attributes. For time series data, a
number of different representation formats can be used (Small Multiples, Time-Series Plots, Static State
Replacement, Theme Rivers, etc) while visualization can generate additional knowledge not directly
evident from the data sets ( Periodic Pattern Identification, Spectrum analysis, etc). Moreover, a big part of
the information space visualization can be reduced to ontology visualization techniques (Raised Surface
designs, Information Landscapes, Graph visualization, etc).
TJRA3.5: Semantic Data Analysis Facilities
Task leader: FORTH; Participants: FAO;
Semantic data analysis for the EA-CoP aims to provide a semantic based infrastructure for marine living
resources services integration. This task aims to deliver a set of libraries and services to bridge the gap
between communities and link distributed data across community boundaries. In addition, it aims to provide
the mechanisms to support users in composing analytic ‘services’ by selecting knowledge from multiple
sources and connecting these locally to generate new interpretations and to align them across different
communities.
For semantic data analysis to be effective, the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure will connect distributed data to
consume knowledge across systems and community boundaries using web services. The introduction of the
semantic Web and the publication of expressive metadata in a shared knowledge framework enable the
deployment of services that can intelligently use Web resources. Moreover, the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure
will integrate many different service registries into a virtually unified "repository" that can serve knowledge
based querying facilities.
Deliverables
 DJRA3.1-2 gCube Query Language Specification, containing the formal specification (in its first version in
DJRA3.1 and in its final version in DJRA3.2) of the gCube QL (M6, M24) – Type: Report
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 DJRA3.3-9 iMarine Data Consumption Software, that contains the software and documentation of the
components that comprise the Data Consumption suite (M6, M9, M12, M15, M18, M21, M24), Type:
Other (online software repository)
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Work package number
Work package title
Activity Type
Participant number
Participant short name
Person-months per participant
CP-CSA proposal
iMarine
JRA4
Data e-Infrastructures
Development
RTD
M1
Start date or starting event:
Integration and Interoperability Facilities
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
3
9
Trust-IT
7
10
FAO
3
5
11
FIN
5
12
UNESCO
6
13
CRIA
6
14
IRD
8
Terradue
4
Objectives
The main objective of this work package is to develop a set of facilities for supporting the exploitation of the
rest of available and emerging facilities in the Data e-Infrastructure by other neighbouring and external ones.
These facilities will manifest sets of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), policies and of
Interoperability cases. Planned activities target the establishment of:
 definition of the integration and interoperability frameworks of gCube;
 identification and implementation of standards at the boundaries of services and the entire infrastructure
for interactions with its elements or its entity;
 provision of programmatic APIs that enable integration and interoperability, for and beyond the
specifications adopted;
Description of work
Work package leader: NKUA;
TJRA4.1: Application Programming Interfaces Framework Definition
Task leader: NKUA; Participants: CNR, CERN, E-IIS, US;
The main objective of this task is to define the general rules governing the production of the APIs for all the
functional categories listed in the remaining WP tasks.
In particular, the following activities are planned:
 definition of the principles and policies of Integration and Interoperability, identifying both the roadmap
and the primary specifications (protocols) to be covered by the various facilities and tasks of the WP;
 definition of a formal the architectural view of Integration and Interoperability Layer, as an evolution of
the current Application Service Layer;
 definition and implementation of the core enabling elements of the Integration and Interoperability Layer,
as an evolution of the current Application Service Layer;
TJRA4.2 Data Management APIs
Task leader: US; Participants: CNR, NKUA, CERN, E-IIS, FORTH, Terradue;
The main objective of this task is to define and provide the formal APIs for resources that fall under the
functional category of “Data Consumption” according to the methodology defined by TJRA4.1.
More specifically the task will provide multi-protocol APIs (e.g. Java, REST, SOAP, depending on the need
and relevance) and related implementation components for the easy consumption for a number of facilities
that fall in the Data Access layer, such as:
 Data access and storage
 Data transfer
 Data assessment
 Data harmonization
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 Data certification
TJRA4.3 Data Consumption APIs
Task leader: CNR; Participants: NKUA, FORTH, Terradue, FAO;
The main objective of this task is to define and provide the formal APIs for resources that fall under the
functional category of “Data Consumption” according to the methodology defined by TJRA4.1.
More specifically the task will provide multi-protocol APIs (e.g. Java, REST, SOAP, depending on the need
and relevance) and related implementation components for the easy consumption for a number of facilities
that fall in the Data Access layer, such as:
 Search service and all the related operators
 Indexing services
 Data transformation services
 Geospatial/temporal retrieval services that deal with both data retrieval and rendering
 Semantic data management services
 Data visualisation services
 Data mining services
 Simulation services
Deliverables
 DJRA4.1 Integration and Interoperability Framework Definition, containing the methodology for the
achievement of the objectives of the task and primary selected technologies and specifications for adoption
(M3) – Type: Other (On-Line Document)
 DJRA4.2-9 Integration and Interoperability Framework Design and Implementation Report, containing
the architecture of Integration and Interoperability and the design of the components and services that
comprise it (M6, M9, M12, M15, M18, M21, M24, M28) Type: Other (On-Line Document), regularly
updated
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1.6.3.4 Summary of staff effort
Participant
number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Total
Participant short
name
JRA1
JRA2
JRA3
JRA4
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
0
16
13
0
16
14
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
59
0
27
9
19
0
18
9
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
91
0
18
27
0
0
0
22
18
0
22
0
0
0
0
107
0
3
7
5
5
6
6
4
0
3
0
0
0
0
39
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Total
person
months
0
64
56
24
21
38
37
31
0
25
0
0
0
0
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1.6.3.5 List of milestones
Milestone
number
Milestone name
MJRA1.1-5 Data e-Infrastructure
Management Facilities
Specification
MJRA1.610
Work
package(s)
involved
JRA1
Expected
date
Means of verification
M3, M9,
M15, M21,
M24
The specification of the Data eInfrastructure
Management
facilities
are
published
in
dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for AA and security related
aspects are published in dedicated
wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for workflow management are
published in dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for data access and storage are
published in dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for data transfer are published in
dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for
data
assessment,
harmonization and certification are
published in dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for data retrieval are published in
dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for
data
management
are
published in dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for data mining are published in
dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for
data
assessment,
harmonization and certification are
published in dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for data simulation are published
in dedicated wiki pages.
The specification of the facilities
for semantic based data analysis
are published in dedicated wiki
pages.
The specification of the APIs for
data management are published in
dedicated wiki pages.
Data e-Infrastructure
Policy-oriented Security
Facilities Specification
JRA1
M3, M9,
M15, M21,
M24
MJRA1.11- Workflow Management
15
Facilities Specification
JRA1
MJRA2.1-6 Data Access and Storage
Facilities Specification
JRA2
MJRA2.711
Data Transfer Facilities
Specification
JRA2
MJRA2.12- Data Assessment,
16
Harmonization, and
Certification Facilities
Specification
MJRA3.1-6 Data Retrieval Facilities
Specification
JRA2
M4, M10,
M16, M22,
M25
M4, M6,
M12, M18,
M24, 26
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
27
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
27
MJRA3.711
Data Manipulation
Facilities Specification
JRA3
MJRA3.12- Data Mining Facilities
16
Specification
JRA3
MJRA3.17- Data Visualisation
21
Facilities Specification
JRA3
JRA3
M3, M6,
M12, M18,
M24, 26
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
27
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
26
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
26
MJRA3.2226
Data Simulation Facilities
Specification
JRA3
MJRA3.2731
Semantic Data Analysis
Facilities Specification
JRA3
MJRA4.1-5 Data Management APIs
Specification
JRA4
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
28
MJRA4.610
JRA4
M6, M12, The specification of the APIs for
M18, M24, data consumption are published in
28
dedicated wiki pages.
Data Consumption APIs
Specification
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
26
M6, M12,
M18, M24,
26
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1.6.4 Pert diagram
The diagram below depicts the main relationships between the various tasks of the Joint Research Activities. In
particular, it presents how the tasks of three out of four JRA work packages, i.e. JRA1, JRA2 and JRA3, proceed in
parallel to satisfy the requirements and approaches identified by the EA CoP in the context of the NA3 activities.
The forth work package, i.e. JRA4, will abstract over the pool of services and facilities developed by the three work
packages for data infrastructure operation, data management and data consumption with the goal to produce
application programming interfaces aiming at simplifying the development application and services benefitting
from these facilities. The set of software artefacts produced by JRA tasks is then passed to SA3 that takes care of
integrating and testing them (TSA2.1), and documenting and packaging for distribution (TSA3.2). The software
artefacts will be deployed in production (TSA1.1) as well as exploited to develop and operate Virtual Research
Environments (SA2). From this activity, the JRA tasks will receive feedback on the effectiveness of the existing
software packages and requests for further enhancements in a continuous interaction. In addition to that, further
requirements and feedback will stem in the context of NA3 resulting from the availability of different versions of
the iMarine data infrastructure.
Figure 5. Joint Research Activities Pert Diagram
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1.6.5 Risk Analysis and Contingency Plans
A risk breakdown structure for the JRA activities is presented in the following table.
Table 4. Joint Research Activities Risk Analysis and Contingency Plan
Risk
Evaluation and Description11
Contingency Plans
Foundation
technology Internal; High; Medium impact
becomes obsolete
The gCube system is build on
technologies released a few years
ago. It may be needed to change
them to maintain a state-of-the-art
status of gCube.
The gCube services do not deal directly
with these underlying facilities: a
development framework (gCore) was
implemented to isolate the services
from the underlying layers. This tiny
framework will properly evolve to
minimize the impact of the risk over the
services.
Software is not released Internal; Medium; High impact
on time
This risk is very common in any
project with a consistent plan of
development activities. Instances of
the risk highly affect all the other
work packages’ activity.
The Agile development approach
adopted in JRA will provide many
opportunities to assess the direction of
the project through incremental and
iterative work cadences and short
integration cycle.
Appropriate boards within the project
will continuously monitor clues of this
risk and take corrective actions.
Community of Practices Internal; Low; Medium impact
Representatives of JRA will be
cannot be implemented
included in the NA3 work package by
NA3 translates the CoP in
assuring the feasibility of the goals
development goals that cannot be
according to JRA requirements and
achieved by JRA for any reason.
effort.
EMI fails in its goals or External; Low, Low impact
to
deliver
software
The
European
Middleware
suitable for the project’s
Initiative may or may not fail to
purposes
maintain the gLite and ARGUS
software currently exploited by the
gCube system. Due to the past
experience of the participants, the
probability of the risk is very low.
There are very few and well-identified
points of contact between the gCube
system and the gLite software. They
can be changed with a low impact to
interface other systems offering
computing and storage capabilities.
In any case, Hadoop clusters will be
available to compensate.
ARGUS, which is an authorization
framework, can be eventually disabled
and carefully replaced with a similar
technology in the context of TJRA1.2.
11
Evaluation is expressed through keywords characterising the provenance (internal vs external), the probability
(low, medium, high), and the impact level (low impact, medium impact, high impact) respectively.
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Section 2: Implementation
2.1 Management structure and procedures
2.1.1 Project Structure
The iMarine project structure distinguishes between the Governance and the Management of the project.
Governance is administering to the project and exercising authority over the management decisions that are made
therein.12 Management operates within a hierarchy of delegated responsibility, with all management functions
providing support to project activities and for the accomplishment of the goals of the consortium.
The iMarine project structure has been defined with distinctions between governance issues and management
issues kept in mind, and will therefore have the following boards: Governing Board, Steering Board and Project
Executive Board. The Governing Board will make decisions that have a direct legal or financial impact on project
beneficiaries. Below the authority of the Governing Board are the managerial boards, each with a different set of
responsibilities aiming at the accomplishment of common objectives. The Steering Board will engage in iMarine’s
strategy development. It is held accountable for the overall success of the project. The Project Executive Board
executes on behalf of the Steering Board, and makes sure that the work packages produce the required deliverables
to the identified standard of quality, on time and within budget. An Advisory Council composed of high level
leaders and champions of Ecosystem Approach initiatives will orient the work of the iMarine Board but can also
serve to consult either one for the managerial as appropriate.
The functions and members of the boards will be detailed in the sections to follow. Please find below a diagram
depicting the project structure designed for the development of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure.
Figure 6. iMarine Project Structure for the development of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure
The “Consortium Agreement” that will be signed by all project beneficiaries prior to the launch of the project is
primarily concerned with project governance mechanisms.
12
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2.1.2 Project Governance
2.1.2.1 Governing Board
The Governing Board is responsible for decision-making on matters having a direct legal or financial impact on
project beneficiaries. There will be one appointed representative per beneficiary on the Governing Board, and this
person must have the authority to make any decision required of them. Members of the board will be encouraged to
remain committed to their responsibilities by following the evolution of iMarine for the duration of the project.
The Governing Board will ensure that the EU Grant Agreement is properly executed and that the terms of the
agreed consortium agreement are properly implemented. The following issues must be addressed by the Governing
Board:
 Evolution of the consortium (i.e., entry of a new beneficiary, termination of a beneficiary’s participation) and
the associated consortium agreement;
 Re-allocation of the European Union financial contribution between beneficiaries;
 Assessment of the performance of the Steering Board (the strategic management body) and approving
replacements to the Steering Board if necessary;
 Judging the necessity of prematurely terminating the participation of a beneficiary, the consortium agreement,
or the project itself;
 Evaluating any other proposals made by the Steering Board.
These types of governance decisions will require two-thirds of the votes, with one representative per partner voting
on behalf of his or her organisation. The Governing Board will meet in person at least once per year, with
telephone conferences convened as relevant issues arise. Electronic voting outside the annual meetings of the
Governing Board will be authorised.
The Governing Board is chaired by the Administrative and Financial Director.
2.1.2.2 Project Coordination
Project coordination serves as the bridge between the governance and management activities. Coordination is
shared between the Administrative and Financial Director (i.e., Coordinator) and the Project Director. The
former directs financial management and administration, while chairing the project’s governing board to hold the
consortium accountable, financially and ethically, to the European Union for the use of funds to achieve the project
objectives and provide a return on investment. The latter coordinates the overall project management activities of
the project, leading inter- and intra-project interactions and chairing the project’s strategic management board (i.e.,
Steering Board). The complementarities of the roles allow each person to focus on achievement of the project work
plan from different perspectives. The Administrative and Financial Director, Ms. Jessica Michel, and the Project
Director, Dr. Donatella Castelli, have employed this mechanism for several years, working together as the
coordination team of the D4Science and D4Science-II projects.
Overall project coordination is therefore divided between two work packages:
 NA1 Administrative and Financial Management, dedicated to overall project administration and quality
assurance, including EU reporting and consortium management; and
 NA2 Project Management, dedicated to coordinating the overall scientific and technical management of the
project across all activities by developing strategy, promoting an efficient collaboration environment,
monitoring execution of tasks and performing risks analyses.
This clear separation between project administration (NA1) and management (NA2) provides a structure in which
the coordinators can provide: (i) efficient administrative and financial management; and (ii) thorough multidisciplinary scientific and technical coordination. Furthermore, project coordination activities will be supported by
a Project Office, including project assistance in both Sophia Antipolis (FR) and Pisa (IT).
A main responsibility of the Project Office will be to manage the reimbursement requests of iMarine Board
members who are not included as a beneficiary to the EU Grant Agreement. Additionally, the Project Office
provides support and/or management of sub-contracting agreements with partners identified in the present work
plan. Project assistants will be working to ensure the timely delivery of financial statements and assist with the
organisation of events such as project meetings, workshops, review meetings, etc.
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The Administrative and Financial Director (AFD) is the recognized project Coordinator and serves as the
official contact point for the European Commission. The AFD directs the administrative and financial management
across work packages and reporting across partners. Legal issues such as the handling of Intellectual Property
Rights and the maintenance of the consortium agreement fall into the realm of the AFD and her team. The AFD
will manage from the Project Office in Sophia Antipolis. The AFD leads NA1 and is represented by GEIE ERCIM.
The Project Director (PD) is the designated project manager, and will lead the scientific and technical
coordination of the project. The PD supervises the project across all activities and is responsible for creating the
conditions necessary for successful and effective collaboration of the large and diverse iMarine team. The PD’s
high-level view permits her to also serve as the ambassador of the project, establishing meaningful cooperation
with other projects and initiatives and representing the iMarine to various scientific user communities. The PD
leads NA2 and is represented by CNR-ISTI in Pisa.
2.1.3 Project Management
Within the project structure are two managerial boards; one focuses on project strategy and the other focuses on
project execution. Working in tandem, the boards will guide the project toward the accomplishment of common
objectives. The Steering Board will formulate and lead the implementation of the overarching iMarine strategy,
including the creation of synergies and long-term sustainability within the iMarine launched Initiative. The Project
Executive Board will lead the diverse networking and technologically-oriented activities encompassing the
development and implementation of an iMarine data e-Infrastructure. The responsibilities of the two boards are
described in the following sections.
The project’s organisation chart can be referred to in Annex N. It identifies the roles in the project and the
reporting lines between them.
2.1.3.1 Steering Board
The iMarine Steering Board will be held accountable for the success of the project. It is responsible for making
sure that the expectations set out by the project objectives are met. The members of the Steering Board are
empowered to make strategic decisions in the interests of the project and encompass the project’s main
stakeholders. The members are senior enough to make decisions and expert enough in their field to add essential
knowledge, skill and experience.
The Steering Board will bring together the perspectives of the funders (Administrative and Financial Director), the
developers of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure (Project Director, Technical Coordinator and Deputy) and the users
coming from the Community of Practice (iMarine Board Coordinator and Deputy). The Steering Board will be
required to make many important decisions throughout the life of the project, and it is vital that decisions are
sufficiently well balanced across these perspectives.
These diverse interests will be led by the Project Director who will organise and chair meetings of the Steering
Board. The Steering Board will be able to proceed to vote when necessary, with the requirement of a two-thirds
majority. The Steering Board will hold monthly telephone conferences and meet in person at least three times per
year.
2.1.3.2 Project Executive Board
The Project Executive Board (PEB) supervises the daily project management processes, including the initiation,
planning, execution, control, and closure of project phases. The PEB reports to the Steering Board. The PEB
consists of all Work Package Leaders and will be open to information system specialists (User Community
Mediators) from the iMarine Board.
Work Package Leaders have these general responsibilities:
 To be informed on the status of the tasks within his/her work package;
 To advise the PEB on decisions that must be made in relation to his/her activity area (e.g., Networking, Service,
Joint Research);
 To contribute to the tasks of the PEB.
Consequently, the PEB will be empowered to:
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 Support the Technical Coordinator in coordinating relationships across the Technical Committee and the
iMarine Board (cf. Section 1.3.1);
 Coordinate implementation across all activities (e.g., Networking, Service, Joint Research);
 Implement feedback from the Technical Committee, iMarine Board;
 Align with and contribute to standardization bodies;
 Maintain a record of risks to the project, together with mitigation plans and actions;
 Provide detailed technical effort re-planning to face project deviations;
 Keep a record to demonstrate that changes to scope, timescale or resources allocation have been approved by
the persons having authority to do so;
 Assess progress of work and achievements of the work packages;
 Regularly and sufficiently inform the Steering Board of progress through reports and forecasts.
The PEB is chaired by the Technical Coordinator. The engagement of the Technical Coordinator in multiple
heterogeneous activities makes him the best person to provide detailed resource allocation and scheduling, while
monitoring the time schedule and the timing of related activities. Therefore, the Technical Coordinator becomes a
close advisor to the Project Director who employs a high-level approach to the supervision of the project across
activities. The role of Technical Coordinator is assigned to Pasquale Pagano of CNR-ISTI.
A Deputy Technical Coordinator will be elected by the Work Package Leaders at the first meeting of the PEB.
Voting of the PEB will require a two-thirds majority. The PEB will meet in person at least four times per year, with
telephone conferences once per month as a minimum. Electronic voting of the PEB will be authorised.
Technical Committee
The management and operation of a Data e-Infrastructure offering services to support the EA-CoP is a primary
objective of iMarine, along with the extension, adaptation and deployment of a rich set of software components
that implement the above services. The Technical Committee exists to address the complex technical work
required to deploy and operate the iMarine data e-Infrastructure and virtual Research Environments, and the
development, deployment and integration of the enabling-technologies. For the achievement of these objectives,
intense coordination will be required between the developers of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure and the
information system specialists (User Community Mediators). The Technical Committee is designed to ensure that
there is sufficient interaction between the resource providers of the data e-Infrastructure and the thematic
practitioners. Thus, the User Community Mediators will play a critical role in the Technical Committee and they
will be invited to participate fully in these meetings. The Technical Committee provides feedback to the PEB for
implementation and alignment actions.
The Deputy Technical Coordinator will chair meetings of the Technical Committee, which will always meet in
parallel with the PEB (i.e., quarterly).
2.1.4 Procedures and Tools
The following procedures and tools will be used in order to ensure efficient management and communication
throughout the whole project organisation.
Quality Assurance Reports
Monthly e-mails on project specific processes (e.g. deliverable production, milestone achievement) publication
approval) will be distributed to the iMarine consortium in the form of “Quality Assurance Reports”. These reports
will be produced by the chair of the Quality Assurance Task Force.
Collaborative Tools
In order to support the cooperation among the members of a widely distributed consortium such as iMarine, a
comprehensive and complementary set of tools will be deployed at the beginning of the project. These tools will
range from mailing lists to shared workspaces, wikis, software repositories and issue trackers. Moreover, multiple
instances of the same technology will coexist to properly satisfy the needs arising in different contexts, e.g.
multiple instances of wiki will be created to host diverse information and thus serve different clientele. Thus, the
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same technology will be deployed in multiple instances conceptually leading to multiple tools tailored to serve
specific iMarine application scenarios.
A complete and concise web page (featured on the project website) will provide direct access to all of the
collaborative tools implemented. This set of tools will include, but are not limited to:
 Collaborative Working Space Service: A service based on the BSCW technology13 to provide its users with a
cooperative support service through which project members can share documents and other material, manage
appointments, contacts, tasks, notes, create blogs, use polls to sample teammates’ opinions, use versioning, stay
aware of teammates’ activities, send reminders, etc.
 Mailing List Service;
 Research Infrastructures Administration Toolkit: A tool for managing the set of users (through their accounts,
memberships and profiles) partaking in the iMarine project, to assign them roles and rights of access to the
various tools put in place, etc.
 Quality Assurance Documentation Service: A Wiki based content management system dedicated to describe the
procedures defined by the Quality Assurance Task Force as well as to document their implementation.
 Issue Tracker System: A Trac14 based issue-tracking system configured to manage requests, raise defects and
assign tasks governing the technology development and evolution.
 Code Repository Service: A Subversion15 based version control system used to maintain current and historical
versions of the developed technology. It will be completely integrated with the Issue Tracker.
Risk Management
The goal of the risk management activity will be to provide the consortium with guidelines and instruments for
managing the actual and potential risks that can occur during the project lifetime. The full risk management
procedure and methodology will be explained in the Quality Plan (DNA1.1). Following the definition of the risk
management procedure, the PEB will identify, evaluate and classify the actual and potential risks of the iMarine
consortium and related activities while paying attention to contingency planning (DNA2.4).
2.1.4.1 Conflict resolution
The preferred decision making process is aimed at building consensus between the iMarine stakeholders. However,
it is possible that a divergence or a conflict between several parties may arise. Several examples include:
 Partner(s) to partner(s) conflict within the scope of a single activity;
 Partner(s) with project management boards (Steering Board or Project Executive Board);
 Non-voting board conflict (Technical Committee);
 Voting board conflict (Governing Board, Steering Board, Project Executive Board, iMarine Board);
 Document conflict.
The iMarine project structure provides a clear way to manage conflicts, and the formal procedure will be detailed
in the Quality Plan. The Consortium Agreement describes the process for settlement of disputes. The escalation
process is defined as follows:
 Search for a solution by the Project Office;
 If no resolution is found, then involve the Project Executive Board, which is empowered to decide on issues
impacting the project work plan; or
 If no resolution is found, then involve the Governing Board, which is empowered to decide on issues having a
legal or financial impact on a beneficiary;
 In all cases, clear communication will be maintained with the EC Project Officer.
In order to ensure efficient project management, it is very important that the Project Office expresses a unique point
of view: the Administrative and Financial Director and the Project Director will therefore maintain a close
communication channel and seek consensus between them. The risk of conflict between the AFD and the PD is
13
http://public.bcsw.de
http://trac.edgewall.org
15
http://subversion.tigris.org
14
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minimal because (i) the role of each one is clearly defined and (ii) the nature of their organisations makes it
unlikely to have a conflict of interest, i.e. CNR is a founding member of the ERCIM European Economic Interest
Grouping.
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2.2 Individual participants
2.2.1 GEIE ERCIM (ERCIM), France (Coordinator)
The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM, www.ercim.eu) is a European
Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG), comprised of a network of research institutes from twenty European
countries, embodying more than 12,000 researchers and engineers. ERCIM is based in Sophia Antipolis (France)
with an antenna in Brussels.
ERCIM’s mission is to: foster collaborative work within the European research community in Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) and Applied Mathematics; advise the European Commission and national
governments; and increase co-operation with European industry. ERCIM is also the European host of the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C), whose mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing
protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.
Role in iMarine
ERCIM will lead NA1 and provide the financial and administrative coordination of the project.
Expected outcome from iMarine
Through iMarine, ERCIM is fully in line with its mission of “Cooperating for Excellence in Research”. ERCIM
has successfully collaborated with CNR-ISTI, core member of the EEIG, over three EC Framework Programmes in
order to provide the administrative and financial support required by the Project Director and her team of
researchers at ISTI in Pisa, assisting them to achieve their own research objectives with focus and efficiency.
Key personnel
Jessica Michel will serve as the project Financial and Administrative Director, i.e., Coordinator. Joining
ERCIM in 2004, her project management experience includes most notably the coordination of the e-Infrastructure
I3s D4Science and D4Science-II; the Beyond-The-Horizon, InterLink and FET11 Coordination Actions funded by
the Future and Emerging Technologies Unit; and several projects managed in cooperation with the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C). Jessica also serves as an external consultant to the World Wide Web Foundation for
project management expertise. Jessica earned an undergraduate degree in French Literature at Bowdoin College
(USA) followed by a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Solvay Business School of the Université
Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium in 2001. Both degrees were earned with High Honours.
Philippe Rohou will provide back-up support to the PROPOSAL Project Coordinator. Manager of the ERCIM
Project Team since 2008, Philippe’s European project management experience includes the administrative and
financial coordination of the DELOS NoE (60 partners), CoreGRID NoE (42 partners), RACE-network RFID
thematic network (60 partners), Digital World Forum CSA (with W3C), and Net-WMS STREP, as well as
dissemination work package leadership for the VPH NoE. Mr. Rohou obtained his MSc in Mathematics and
Statistics at Paris University and later spent 14 years with Digital Equipment Corporation managing
projects, programmes, consulting groups and the company's European customer briefing centre. The next 5 years
led him to manage a small events company, culminating with the creation of his own enterprise in 2004 offering
corporate events and golf circuits on the French Riviera.
2.2.2 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
The Institute of Information Science and Technologies (CNR-ISTI) is located in Pisa, Italy, and its main mission is
to producing scientific excellence and playing an active role in technology transfer. Part of the largest research
institution in Italy (the National Research Council, or CNR), CNR-ISTI is organised in 16 technology centers or
labs, each of them pursuing a well-defined set of scientific objectives. State-of-the-art technology development and
training are other activities performed by the centers.
The team participating in this project belongs to the ‘Multimedia Networked Information System Laboratory’,
which consists of 60 researchers and technicians conducting research and development of (i) technologies for the
management, distribution and fruition of multimedia information, i.e., information represented not only in textual
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form but also in other forms, like images, audio/video, etc.. and (ii) new software architectures and system services
supporting large distributed multimedia information systems and data infrastructures. This team has a long
experience in participating to many EU-funded projects relevant to the topics addressed in the iMarine project. In
particular, The team also coordinated from the scientific point of view the stream of projects DILIGENTD4Science-D4Science-II that has been played a central role in the definition and implementation of Virtual
Research Environments on Service Oriented e-Infrastructures. Other projects the team has taken part in 7th FP are:
EFG, HOPE, DRIVER-II, EuropeanaV1, SAPIR, ASSETS, HOPE, VENUS-C, DL.org and GRDI2020.
Role in iMarine
In the context of the project, the CNR-ISTI team will provide scientific coordination and will act as leader in the
following WPs: NA2, SA2, JRA1, and JRA2.
Expected outcome from iMarine
On a large scale, CNR-ISTI’s expectations from iMarine are to apply the wide experience on data infrastructure
gained in the past projects to new domains and to set the bar high for the service-oriented software systems’ and for
the data services areas by tackling the new challenges posed by the project. On specific areas, major goals are to
extend the current gCube platform core technology with new facilities and tools, make the technology even more
interoperable with other platforms, foster the adoption of new standards in gCube and gain new expertise on Data
curation, Data harmonization and Data mining for socio-economic related data.
Key personnel
Dr. Donatella Castelli is a senior researcher at CNR-ISTI. She started working in the Digital Library Area in 1996.
Since then she has been involved in many EU funded projects related to Digital Libraries and Data eInfrastructures. Currently, she acts as the Scientific Director of the D4Science-II project and she is member of the
Programme Scientific Board of the OpenAIRE and GRDI projects. Her research interests include data
infrastructure content modelling and interoperability.
Dr. Leonardo Candela is a researcher at CNR-ISTI. He has a relevant expertise in the area of Digital Library and
Data Infrastructures. He currently covers the role of Virtual Research Environment Manager in the D4Science-II
project. He is also leading the effort for the production of the “Digital Library Interoperability Technology and
Methodology Cookbook”. He has been member of the DELOS Reference Model Technical Committee and of the
OAI-ORE Liaison Group. His research interests include Digital Library Management Systems and Architectures,
Digital Libraries Models, Distributed Information Retrieval, and Grid Computing.
Dr. Pasquale Pagano is a senior researcher at CNR-ISTI. He has a strong background on digital library distributed
architectures. He has participated in the design of the most relevant DL systems developed by CNR. He is
currently the Technical Director of the D4Science-II project and member of the Project Management Board of the
VENUS-C projects. His research interests include distributed data infrastructure enabling systems and
heterogeneous content management.
2.2.3 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece
The National and Kapodestrian University of Athens (http://www.uoa.gr) is one of the major higher degree public
educational institutions in Greece, and the oldest university in the Balkans and the wider East Mediterranean Basin.
The Department of Informatics and Telecommunications (http://www.di.uoa.gr/) belongs to the Faculty of Applied
Sciences. Department staff consists of ~45 academic staff members and over 100 PhD candidates and research
associates. The faculty, research staff and students participate in a large number of projects of national and
international scale. The Management of Data & Information Knowledge Group (MaDgIK) has a rich and long
experience in several topics of Computer Science such as Software Engineering, Databases and Knowledge Bases;
Experiment Management Systems; Workflow Management Systems; Digital Libraries; User Interfaces;
Personalization and Usage Statistics; Data Warehouses; Data Mining; and Distributed Systems and has participated
in several relevant research and development projects. Those funded during the last 6 years include the DIAS
(eContent), DILIGENT IP, DELOS NoE, BRICKS IP, DRIVER, HEALTH-E-CHILD (IST FP6), KATOPTRON
(Greek initiative), DRIVER-II, TELPlus, D4SCIENCE, D4SCIENCE-II, PAPYRUS, OpenAIRE, BELIEF,
BELIEFII, DL.org, GRDI2020 (FP7).
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Role in iMarine
NKUA will participate in the following WPs: NA2, NA3, NA4, SA1, SA2, SA3, JRA1, JRA2, JRA3, JRA4
Expected outcome from iMarine
Through iMarine, NKUA will strengthen its research position in e-science infrastructures and in particular the areas
of Systems Engineering, (Distributed) Data and Information Management and Retrieval, Data Mining, Cloud
Computing, Workflow Management Systems and Optimisation. Additionally it will strengthen its educational and
training ability in applied systems and will pursue awareness of its capacity in the respective areas, through
scientific dissemination and training.
Key personnel
Prof Yannis Ioannidis (yannis@di.uoa.gr) is a Professor at the Department of Informatics and
Telecommunications of NKUA. He holds Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of California at
Berkeley (1996), where he was appointed professor in 1999. His research interests include database and
information systems, digital libraries, optimisation and human-computer interaction. He has published over 60
articles in leading journals and conferences and holds 2 patents. Dr. Ioannidis was elected as the ACM SIGMOD
chair, is an ACM and IEEE Fellow, and was the recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) award in
1991. He is an Associate Editor of five journals (IS, VLDB Journal, J. of Digital Libraries, J. of Int. Information
Systems, electronic ACM Digital Symposium Collection) and has been a member of the program committees of
over 60 conferences, four times as (co-)chair (VLDB, ICDE, EDBT, HDMS, SSDBM, and VDB). He has served
on the review or scientific boards of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories
in Berkeley, and the (now defunct) CESDIS Center for Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences.
Between 2002 and 2004 he served as the IT advisor to the Minister of Health of Greece. He has been a co principal
investigator in over 25 research projects.
Prof Alex Delis (ad@di.uoa.gr) is a Professor at the Dept. of Informatics & Telecommunications of NKUA. He
holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Univ. of Maryland at College Park. He has taught at New York
University-Polytechnic Institute, Queensland Univ. of Technology, Univ. of Patras, Catholic Univ. of Cordoba, and
Univ. of Maryland. His research interests are in distributed systems and he has published in more than 80 journal
and conference articles. His work has been supported among others by the US National Science Foundation, the
Australian Research Council, the European Commission and the Greek Ministry of Education. He has served as PC
member and organizer in more than 80 international conferences and has performed several seminars. Among the
awards he received are the Best Paper Award in the 14th IEEE Int. Conf. on Distributed Computing Systems, the
NSF CAREER Award and the Maurice V. Wilkes Medal for best paper in The Computer Journal. He has also been
a Fulbright Fellow.
George Kakaletris (gkakas@di.uoa.gr) is Senior Software Engineer, holding a degree in Physics and an MSc on
Informatics, both obtained by NKUA. His professional experience spans several years of employment by Greek IT
companies both in S/W Engineering and R&D Department directorship/management positions. He has been a task /
work package / project leader in several research and development projects. He has served as an ICT consultant for
the Greek Parliament and several other public authorities. Currently is NKUA permanent staff, under the role of
ICT consultant by the NKUA vice-rector of Finances and Development.
2.2.4 European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland
CERN is the largest particle physics laboratory in the world and is an international organisation with its
headquarters in Switzerland. It is one of Europe’s first joint ventures (1954) for fundamental research and
technology developments. CERN operates the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG), a global collaboration
of more than 140 computing centres in 34 countries, the 4 Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments, and several
national and international grid projects. The WLCG mission is to build and maintain a data storage and analysis
infrastructure for the entire high energy physics (HEP) community that will use the LHC.
Role in iMarine
In iMarine, CERN will contribute with its extensive expertise in managing large scale distribute infrastructures to
coordinate the SA1 work package and in particular: operate the iMarine data e-Infrastructure (TSA1.1) and deploy
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infrastructure monitoring and accounting tools based on messaging architectures (TSA1.3). From the software
development perceptive CERN will contribute to the enhancement and development of secure, reliable, and
efficient facilities for data transfer between remote nodes of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure (TJRA2.2 and
TJRA4.2).
Expected Outcome from iMarine
Being involved in the development and deployment of messaging-based tools for infrastructure monitoring and
accounting and the enhancement and development of data transfer facilities, CERN and iMarine will profit from
the improvements delivered by the new data transfer and monitoring and accounting services and tools. These
improved services and tools will deliver improved functionality and address new requirements and use cases. From
the infrastructure operation perspective the work on e-Infrastructures operation will promote a closer collaboration
between different e-Infrastructures (iMarine, EGI, others) and make possible the interoperability and resource
sharing between these e-Infrastructures under a common “ecosystem”.
Key personnel
Dr. Markus Schulz is currently leading the Grid Technology team at CERN. From 2001 on he contributed for
CERN in various roles to the build up of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, gaining experience in all aspects of
grid computing from middleware development to operations. During this time he participated in several EU funded
projects.
Before getting involved in Grid Computing Dr. Schulz contributed to the hardware and software of several DAQ
and real time systems for High Energy Physics and Heavy Ion experiments. This work covered a wide range of
distributed computing technology, high speed / low latency networks and custom build hardware. These activities
allowed him to spend several years at different laboratories and universities (DESY, CERN, BNL, Kirchhoff
Institute for Physics).
Dr. Schulz have been trained as a Physicist. In 1993 he received a Ph.D. from the University Hamburg for work in
the field of experimental High Energy Physics.
Pedro Andrade graduated at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto where he obtained his MSc
degree on Informatics and Computing Engineering in 2003. From 2003 to 2004 he worked at the same faculty for a
research project related to Grid and Public computing systems especially tailored for the High Energy Physics
domain. From 2004 he has been working at CERN European Organisation for Nuclear Research in the IT
department with Grid computing and scientific data e-Infrastructure systems. He participated in several EU-funded
projects (DILIGENT, D4Science, D4Science-II, EMI) related to distributed infrastructures and is now leading the
Infrastructure Operation activity of the D4Science-II project. His research interests include, among others,
distributed data e-Infrastructures, Grid computing systems, infrastructures deployment and policies.
2.2.5 Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA (E-IIS), Italy
Engineering Group is Italy’s largest systems integration group and a leader in the provision of complete IT services
and consultancy. Engineering Group has about 6500 employees and 35 branch offices, throughout Italy, in
Belgium, and (outside the EU) in Brazil. The Engineering Group operates through seven business units: Finance,
Central Government, Local Government and Healthcare, Oil Transportation and Services, Utility, Industry and
Telecom, supported by an SAP transverse skills centre and by its Central Office for Research & Innovation, with
researchers active in Italian and EU projects. Engineering was one of the first Italian companies to adopt the
Quality standard ISO 9001 in the early 1990s. Since 1996 the company has adopted NATO standard AQAP
2110/160 certification. And recently the production units have been certified CMMI® level 3. The Pont Saint
Martin Service Centre (PSM) provides to more than 100 Italian and international customers, 40.000 workplaces,
1000 remote connections, 10.000 electronic mail boxes and about 7000 SAP users. The R&D Department, is
organised to work in strict cooperation with business divisions in order to facilitate knowledge and technology
transfer. The R&D lab is involved in the NESSI and NEM ETPs. Currently the Distributed Computing R&D Unit
is involved in a number of grids and clouds-related initiative: VENUS-C, VisionCloud, Passive, TEFIS,
ERINA4Africa, ERINA+, ARISTOTELE, D4Science Ecosystem.
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Role in iMarine
E-IIS in the project will provide the competences, people and tools to smoothly produce quality software,
integrating and testing the source code provided by developing partners (WP SA3). E-IIS will also act as resource
provider ensuring access to computing and storage resources through it’s datacenter. Finally E-IIS will contribute
to enhance the gCube middleware evolving the Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting, leveraging on
existing open source solutions and e-Infrastructures efforts.
Expected outcome from iMarine
Through iMarine, E-IIS will position itself as primary candidate to provide commercial support and resource
provisioning to the CoPs. As secondary outcome E-IIS will support the evolution of two open source solutions, key
for the Company and the e-Infrastructures Communities, namely the SOA3, on Authentication, Authorisation and
Accounting on federated domains, and ETICS, a build and test automation tool.
Key personnel
Lucia Bonelli gratuated in Computer Science at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1998 and she joined
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica R&D laboratory in the same year, where she was software engineer in
Information Security projects concerning the integration of cryptographic functionalities in web applications. She
also performed short consulting activities in public administration projects. At the end of 2000 she joined
Schumberger Worldwide, where she worked both as project manager and project engineer on projects related to
SIM Card application. At 2003 she moved to Security Consultants group of SchlumbergerSema (now
Engineering.it, belonging to Engineering group) and at 2006 she was appointed as Technical Responsible of
“Digital Signature” framework of the Public Administration “Regione Siciliana – PiattaformaTelematica Integrata”
Project. In October 2009 she joined again the R&D lab of Engineering group, where she’s team leader in research
projects dealing with security on distributed Infrastructures.
2.2.6 University of Strathclyde (US), United Kingdom
With its 5 faculties and 44 departments, the University of Strathclyde is the second largest in Glasgow, Scotland,
holding a long-standing worldwide reputation for excellence in academic research and innovation. The Department
of Computer and Information Sciences in the faculty of Science undertakes world-class research in Information
Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Software Engineering, and prides itself in its external research collaborations in
Scotland, the rest of the UK, and abroad. Over the past six years, US has been involved in a number of projects
directly or indirectly related to the aim of iMarine, including, Diligent (FP6), D4Science (FP7), and D4Science-II
(FP7).
Role in iMarine
In the context of iMarine, US will expand its work in the following areas: (a) back-end services for distributed
information retrieval, content management, and task execution (b) application framework against which all the
services of the infrastructure are implemented.
Expected outcome from iMarine
iMarine will give US the opportunity to pursue further its core goals of investigating programming models and
architectural principles for widely distributed and loosely-coupled system.
Key personnel
Fabio Simeoni is a graduate from the Department of Mathematics of the University 'La Sapienza' in Rome and has
obtained his Msc. Degree in Advanced Information Systems from Glasgow University, in Scotland. Since 1999, he
has been working as a Senior Researcher at the Department of Computer and Information Sciences of the
University of Strathclyde, investigating programming models and architectural principles for widely distributed and
loosely-coupled systems, particularly in relation to information retrieval and content management services in the
context of large-scale digital infrastructures. Since 2004, he has been involved in the Diligent, D4Science, and
D4Science-II projects, where he has led the development of an application framework for service development, as
well as back-end services for content-management, distributed information retrieval, and task execution.
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Richard Connor has been working in computer systems research since 1985, when he became part of Persistent
Programming Research Group at St Andrews. He moved to Glasgow University in 1997 as an EPSRC Advanced
Research Fellow, and formed a research group investigating the use of persistent language paradigms within the
context of Internet and global computation systems. In 1999 he moved to a chair of Computer Science at the
University of Strathclyde, and the primary focus of his group's work there is in effective and efficient query
systems for semistructured, globally distributed information. Professor Connor is a member of the EPSRC peer
review college, and has served on panels for computer science, software technologies, health informatics, advanced
and senior fellowships, and JREI. He has chaired panels in software technologies and CS advanced fellowships.
Since 1999 he has worked as a consultant to the Research and Standards group at Reuters. He is a member of the
advisory board of the Kelvin Institute, and is a Senior Consultant to Enigmatec Corporation Ltd, a software
technology company funded by Amadeus Capital Partners, Pentech Ventures, and Intel.
2.2.7 Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), Greece
The Institute of Computer Science has had a relatively long history and recognized tradition, since its establishment
in 1983, in conducting basic and applied research, developing applications and products, providing services, and
playing a leading role in Greece and internationally, in the fields of Information and Communication Technologies.
It is the top-rated research institute in Greece in the area of ICT, and represents Greece within the ERCIM network
of European ICT institutes.
The FORTH-ICS Information Systems (ISL) Laboratory combines expertise in knowledge representation and
reasoning, database systems, net-centric information systems, and conceptual modelling. Its grand research
challenge is to succeed in the transition from traditional information systems, such as information retrieval systems,
database and workflow management systems, to semantically rich, large-scale, adaptive information systems. The
activities of ISL are structured around (a) Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, (b) Web Data and Knowledge
Integration and Adaptation, and (c) Service-Oriented Computing.
FORTH-ICS has a long experience in participating in EU and national projects. ISL has been involved in a number
of projects directly or indirectly related to the aim of this proposal (e.g. CASPAR) and currently is participating in
the IST FP6 projects ACGT and KP-Lab, and the IST FP7 projects 3DCOFORM, PlugIT and the PlanetData NoE,
as well as the APARSEN NoE (starting 2011). ISL comprises 8 researchers and more than 20 members of technical
staff.
Role in iMarine
ISL will focus on issues regarding (a) the management of taxonomic/ontological data/metadata, and (b) the
modeling, representation and exchange of provenance information of the various digital objects on the basis on the
processes that affect them.
Expected outcome from iMarine
iMarine will give FORTH the opportunity to pursue further its core goals of investigating various novel techniques
for semantic data management.
Key personnel
Yannis Tzitzikas is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Crete and Associate Researcher
in Information Systems Lab at FORTH-ICS. His research interests fall in the intersection of the Information
Systems, Information Indexing and Retrieval, and Conceptual Modeling. His research has focused a lot on
taxonomic data and recently to ontology-based modelling of provenance information. The results of his research
have been published in more than 60 papers in refereed international conferences and journals, and he has received
two best paper awards (at CIA’2003 and ISWC’07).
2.2.8 Terradue s.r.l. (Terradue), Italy
Terradue s.r.l. is an Italian SME created early February 2006 supported by the Lazio’s Business Innovation Centre
(BIC) and the ESA program of pre-incubation and incubation, has expertise in the development and integration of
geospatial services in a Grid environment for operational settings. Core elements of the company work in the
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development of Grid/Cloud infrastructures in ESA to support Earth Observation operational applications and
services.
From global environmental analysis using massive amounts of EO data, to regional land change detection with
complex 3rd party algorithms, Terradue offers a specialist service for the management and distribution of very
large spatial data sets complemented with Grid data inventory, query and processing systems, carried out
collaboratively with open source projects.
Role in iMarine
Terradue will participate in NA3, JRA2, JRA3 and JRA4.
Expected outcome from iMarine
Through iMarine, Terradue will pursue its research and development activities in e-science infrastructures and in
particular in the discovery, catalogue and fast geographical data access domains.
Key personnel
Dr Pedro Gonçalves - Terradue founder, he is an Environmental Engineer with a PhD on ‘Scale Invariance of
Forest Fires Spatial Patterns -Environmental Modelling in a Global Distributed Data Access Architecture’. Pedro
did a post-doc in ESA-ESRIN where he lead the development and transfer to operations of Grid Processing onDemand (G-POD) a Grid based Web Services infrastructure for EO applications development using Globus
Software and LCG (CERN) software. Pedro is the Chief Technical Officer and one of the two founders of Terradue
Srl. Pedro deals with the OGC related activities and he is currently the editor of the OpenGIS® Catalogue Service
Implementation Specification, Version 3.0 - Part 4: OpenSearch Query Interface (10-032). Pedro Gonçalves is also
member of the GEOSS Architecture and Data Committee. GEO is the Group on Earth Observations and is
coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The Architecture and Data
Committee supports GEO in all architecture and data management aspects of its design, coordination, and
implementation for comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observations.
Fabrice Brito - Terradue founder and Project Manager, he is a Forestry Engineer. Fabrice deals with the project
management aspects of Terradue projects and provides technical support in given areas. Fabrice spent almost four
years in ESRIN where he has been responsible for the Grid processing on-Demand evolution and support. He
participated in the development of the G-POD components such as its Web Portal and EO services, design and
integration of remote sensing data processing services used for the production of several environmental data layers
and all scientific projects supported by the ESA-ESRIN Grid on-Demand Infrastructure, and integration into the
Grid on-demand of scientific applications. Within Terradue, Fabrice spends part of his time as the Chief Executive
Officer dealing with the administrative and management activities and the remaining complementing Pedro in the
technical aspects of the Terradue projects.
2.2.9 Trust-IT Services Ltd. (Trust-IT), United Kingdom
Trust-IT Services Ltd (www.trust-itservices.com) has built an experienced and interdisciplinary team of
professionals to deliver specialized services particularly in rapidly evolving, internationally distributed
communities in areas such as on cloud computing, data infrastructures, digital libraries, grid computing for
collaborative research and international co-operation.
Trust-IT’s mission is to serve and partnership with leading organizations in Europe and globally, and reinforce the
Open Standards message in Europe through its role in the European Chapter of the Open Grid Forum (OGF.eeig).
Specialized services include high-scale, international events, building networked enterprise and scientific
communities, marketing and visual communication strategies, copywriting and media outreach, market research &
impact reporting, international co-operation and eTraining leveraging innovative web-based tools.
Role in iMarine
Trust-IT will lead NA4 - Communication, Dissemination and Training and provide support of related project
performance indicators and impact reporting.
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Expected outcome from iMarine
Through iMarine, Trust-IT is in line with its mission of delivering high-quality, large scale international events,
networked communities and eTraining. Trust-IT has successfully partnered with CNR-ISTI, and several members
of the Consortium, including ERCIM over two EC Framework Programmes assisting them in building networked
communities, ensuring high-level insights and communicating research results and project achievements with focus
and efficiency.
Key personnel
Hilary Hanahoe is a Trust-IT Director with a focus on the company’s international co-operation services &
strategies coupled with high-level deployment of marketing and dissemination strategies. She currently serves as
Coordinator of GRDI2020 (A Vision for Global Research Data Infrastructures of the Future), which brings together
a focused group of internationally renowned experts. She brings to the PROPOSAL over 15 years of hands-on
experience in administratively and scientifically co-ordinating complex international projects in ICT, managing
high-level, multi-platform events, and considerable knowledge of EU research and innovation policies on a global
level gained through her involvement in European funded initiatives since 1998.
Stephanie Parker is Project Manager and Communications Specialist at Trust-IT. She currently serves as
Dissemination and eTraining Manager in DL.org (231551) and Dissemination Manager in VENUS-C (261565).
She has extensive experience in working with the public and private sectors, interacting with high-profile
innovators and the media on a regular basis, and creating effective communication and outreach strategies. She
brings to the PROPOSAL, considerable knowledge and experience gained from European and regionally funded
initiatives particularly on distributed computing, open standards, digital libraries and impact reporting.
2.2.10 The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Italy
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the largest autonomous agency within the
United Nations system, is active in land and water development, plant and animal production, forestry, fisheries,
economic and social policy, investment, nutrition, food standards and commodities and trade. Its specific priority is
encouraging sustainable agriculture and rural development, a long-term strategy for the conservation and
management of natural resources.
The Fisheries and Aquaculture Information and Statistics Service (FIPS) is responsible for global statistics and
information on fisheries and aquaculture. FIPS also coordinates the development of international standards for
fishery and aquaculture statistics (CWP), and supports partnership arrangements for the collation and sharing of
information (FIRMS, ASFA). FIPS maintains FAO’s Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS) through which
Departments information is disseminated.
The Knowledge Information System branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(CIOK) supplies and supports information systems solutions to better deliver the scientific and technical
programme of work of the Organization. CIOK has considerable experience and capacity to provide and support
information systems solutions in the domain of Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Economic and Social
Development, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry, Natural Resources Management and Environment.
Role in iMarine
FAO will lead WP NA3 and have inputs in SA and JRA regarding the development of applications and
interoperable software. The FAO team handles a number of tasks that falls within its expertise.
Expected outcome from iMarine
FAO’s mission to facilitate the exchange of data, information and knowledge in its domain requires development of
standards, information exchange partnerships, and supporting tools. FAO expects the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure
to support the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Community, and that the community will help identify solutions to
the data infrastructure’s sustainability.
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Key personnel
Marc Taconet (Marc.Taconet@fao.org) holds a Master's degree in Fisheries sciences. He has been working with
FAO since 1987 in various African countries starting with fishery statistics. Since 1999 he leads as Senior Fisheries
Information Officer the development of the Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS) with about 15 persons. In
the two successive D4Science projects, he is holding the role of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Resources
Management (FARM) Communities Manager. In this project M. Taconet will be the chair of the iMarine’s Board.
Anton Ellenbroek (Anton.ellenbroek@fao.org) holds an MSc in Biology. After working with IUCN-NL and in
Oracle projects, he joined FAO in 2000, developing information systems. He currently works as Communities
Technical Coordinator for the D4Science-II project.
Karl Morteo (Karl.morteo@fao.org) holds an M.Sc. in Intelligent Knowledge Based Systems from the Cranfield
University, UK and a B.Sc. in Computational Science from the University of Leeds. He has worked with Deutsche
Bank (Morgan Grenfell & Co.), European Space Agency (ESA) and British Telecommunications plc. He joined
FAO in 1991 and is now a systems Development Specialist in CIOK leading the Knowledge Information System
Services and today manages a team of over 30 IT professionals, with a portfolio of 60 plus information systems. He
currently establishes a corporate technical data repository (TechCDR infrastructure) which encompasses an
enterprise service bus and digital assets, geospatial and statistical data warehouses.
2.2.11 Fishbase Information & Research Group Inc. (FIN), Philippines
The FishBase Information and Research Group, Inc. (FIN), is non-governmental organization established in the
Philippines in 2003. FIN receives continuing support from the FishBase Consortium, a group of nine international
institutes .
FIN’s original mandate is to support the growth of FishBase, a public domain information system dedicated to
enhance understanding, conservation and management of fishes worldwide; to support interaction of the FishBase
team with international experts on taxonomy, ichthyology, biodiversity and fisheries; to support participation in
cutting-edge research in these fields; and to support the interaction with FishBase users and partners worldwide to
make sure their needs and contributions are accommodated. FishBase is currently the largest global services
information system with about 1.3 million visitors per month and over 1,300 citations in scientific literature.
FIN, in close collaboration with the FishBase and SeaLifeBase teams of the WorldFish Center, has worked in more
than 10 projects involving fisheries and biodiversity databases and research with funding from international and
national donors. WorldFish provides the Scientific Direction through Nicolas Bailly.
The FIN AquaMaps application produces range maps for marine and freshwater species, and includes tools for
cross species analyses that already benefit from a large data infrastructure.
Role in iMarine
FIN will contribute to the CoP Board’s activities with particular focus on i) the generic species prediction
modelling application specifications, and ii) the development of policies and implementation guidelines regarding
interoperability standards.
Expected outcome from iMarine
FIN’s mandate is to enhance understanding, conservation and management of fishes worldwide, and to support
interaction among biologist. FIN expects the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure to bring interactive predictive species
and biodiversity modelling to a wide group of expert-users, to help them increase their understanding of the biology
and safeguard Ocean biodiversity.
Key personnel
Nicolas Bailly will act as Scientific Supervisor in his capacity as the Scientific Director of FIN. Dr. Bailly is a
senior scientist at WorldFish. He has participated on the two previous D4Science projects. He has more than 25
years experience in Biodiversity informatics and participated to many European projects when working at MNHN.
Since 2005, he is the project manager of FishBase and Scientific Adviser of SeaLifeBase in the Philippines. He is
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chair of the taxonomic group of Catalogue of Life. Within the project, he will also participate to the joint
committee on standards.
Mary Ann Bimbao will be Administrator for this initiative. She is a founding member of FIN and is the Executive
Director of FIN. She has more than 20 years of experience in various projects involving people’s organizations,
non-governmental organizations, research organizations and academic institution in the developing world. She
specializes in the fields of fisheries economics and gender issues. She has created databases on socio-economics
particularly, having significantly contributed to the development of RESTORE (Research Tool for Natural
Resources Management, Monitoring and Evaluation), a tool that comprises a set of participatory research
procedures and computer-based analysis for sustainability.
2.2.12 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – UNESCO
(UNESCO), France
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) works to create the conditions
for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values. The
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) is part of UNESCO, dealing specifically with all marine
matters. The International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) is a programme of IOC
specialising in data and Information management. The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) was
created as the data integration component of the Census of Marine Life, a ten-year project to study what lived, what
lives, and what will live in he oceans. In its Executive Committee of June 2010 held in Paris, IOC has decided to
adopt OBIS as one of its activities under its IODE programme.
OBIS is an evolving strategic alliance of people and organizations sharing a vision to make marine biogeographic
data, from all over the world, freely available over the World Wide Web. OBIS offers seekers of data about marine
biodiversity a site where they can find information about species from A to Z for all parts of the world oceans. At
the time of writing, OBIS contained about 30 million distribution records sources from nearly 1000 individual data
sets. The uptake of OBIS is increasing, with a growing number of publications based on OBIS data, and a rapidly
increasing involvement of OBIS in international and intergovernmental organisations.
Role in iMarine
The OBIS data will be a cornerstone in the data e-Infrastructure as envisaged by iMarine. It will provide access to
all project components on primary data on species distributions. Combining OBIS data with physical
oceanographic data on temperature, salinity, pH and other physical oceanographic data will enable sophisticated
analysis. Through this, OBIS will make a contribution to all business cases supported by the project, and provide
the biodiversity context for them.
Expected outcome from iMarine
The combination of OBIS primary data on species distributions with other types of oceanographic data will allow
for a unique environment in which to analyse and model the data. The tools for environmental niche modelling and
other range mapping models will greatly enhance OBIS’ capacity to analyse the data, and to make predictions
about shifts in species distribution in response to global change.
Key personnel
Dr Edward Vanden Berghe is OBIS Executive Director. His experience is mainly in data- and information
management for marine sciences; with a background in biology, his main interests are in biogeography and in the
digitisation of taxonomic information. In his position as OBIS Executive Director, and before that as manager of
the Flemish Marine Data and Information Centre, he has developed IT applications to support marine sciences, and
been actively involved in developing and implementing international standards.
Peter Pissierssens will serve as the Administrator for this initiative. Mr Pissierssens is the Head of the IOC Project
Office for IODE (Oostende, Belgium), UNESCO Senior Programme Specialist and IODE Programme Coordinator
at the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. Mr Pissierssens has over 20 years of
experience working in international organizations as programme manager with special emphasis on oceanographic
data and information exchange.
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2.2.13 Centro de Referencia em Informacao Ambiental (CRIA), Brasil
The Reference Center on Environmental Information (Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental - CRIA,
www.cria.org.br) is a Brazilian not-for-profit organization established in December 2000 with the mission to
contribute to the sustainable use of Brazilian biodiversity. CRIA was accredited in 2002 by the Brazilian Ministry
of Justice as an Organization of Civil Society of Public Interest (OSCIP). With a technical staff of 10 specialists,
CRIA´s work is carried out in close collaboration with numerous organizations. The activities are focused on the
development of tools, applications and information systems to support the integration, dissemination and use of
biodiversity data. CRIA participated in many international projects including BioGeomancer, Ocean Biogeographic
Information System (OBIS), GBIF data portal, Incofish, BiodiversityWorld, and IABIN Invasives Information
Network (I3N). As a global player in development of tools for biodiversity science, CRIA´s main achievements
includes participation in development of DiGIR and TAPIR (protocols to serve and transfer biodiversity data
among providers and users), OpenModeller (a platform for niche estimation), and geoLoc (an automated
georeferencing platform). CRIA has set up the speciesLink (http://splink.cria.org.br/) a network that is currently
integrating almost 4 million records from nearly 200 biological collections.
Role in iMarine
CRIA´s contribution to the iMarine Project will be based on its experience on the development of information
systems for the management and dissemination of biodiversity data. The basis for CRIA´s participation is the
expertise with software development to insure data quality, fitness of use and innovative feedback to data providers
about the quality and use of their data. The CRIA´s suite of tools for data cleaning provide efficient “scans” of data
sets, detecting a broad suite of errors, inconsistencies, and potential problems. Through the development of
interoperability mechanisms and applications, CRIA will provide speciesLink data and services to iMarine.
Expected outcome from iMarine
The participation in the iMarine Project is fully in line with CRIA´s mission to contribute to the sustainable use
biodiversity through the dissemination information. This project is an excellent opportunity for the development of
mechanisms at CRIA to improve the provision of data and services for Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries.
Key personnel
Vanderlei Perez Canhos the main iMarine Project contact is President Director of CRIA. Vanderlei earned a
Master in Food Sciences at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), followed by a PhD degree in Food
Microbiology at Oregon State University (OSU). After acting as a professor of Food Microbiology at Unicamp, he
focused his work on the development of strategies for the implementation of the Brazilian biodiversity data
infrastructure. Vanderlei was President of the Executive Board of the World Federation for Culture Collections
(1996-2000), and consultant to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (Task Force on
Biological Resource Centers, 2001-2006). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Species 2000/Catalogue
of Life and the GRDI2020 Advisory Board.
Alexandre MARINO will help in implementing technical solutions to the dynamic integration of I-MARINE and
speciesLink data, and will develop applications to support data quality improvement. Graduated in Computer
Science, Alexandre has specialization in Geographical Information Systems. Working for CRIA since 2000 he
developed geographic web tools including the geographic coordinate converter and the Brazilian localities database
to assist data providers in geo-referencing their data. Alexandre will work on the implementation of data cleaning
tools to facilitate the detection and "flagging " of potential errors to support data quality. Currently Alexandre is
working on the migration of the speciesLink DiGIR providers to TAPIR/TapirLink providers.
Dora Ann LANGE CANHOS , CRIA´s Associate Director in charge of international collaborative
arrangements is the speciesLink project PI. Dora is a member of the CODATA and the GEO BON Steering
Committees, and CRIA´s representative at the Clearing-House Mechanism Informal Advisory Committee of the
CBD. She acted as member of the GBIF Foreword Looking Review Committee (2009-2010), CODATA Task
Group on Preservation and Archiving of Scientific and Technical Data in Developing Countries
(http://www.codata.org/2003-2008).
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2.2.14 Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD), France
The IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, http://www.ird.fr) is a government research organisation
jointly administered by the French ministry responsible for Research and the Foreign Affairs ministry. The annual
budget of the institute is about 230 M€ enabling it to employ 2208 people, including 829 scientists and 1040
engineers, technicians and administrative staff, 38 % working overseas. The IRD is organized into 60 research and
service units that conduct research programs oriented toward the study of the relations between man and his
environment. Most of the programs take place in Africa, in the Indian Ocean, in Latin America, in Asia and in the
Pacific. The IRD publications database (http://www.bondy.ird.fr/pleins_textes) contains 60 000 references to IRD
research publications.
IRD will be involved in iMarine project through the Mixed Research Unit units 212 EME Exploited Marine
Ecosystems focusing on Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) based in Sète, France (http://www.crh-sete.org)
and particularly through its “Pole Observatoire” dedicated to collection, management and diffusion of data and
information on Mediterranean and tropical marine ecosystems. Within this Pole, the Tuna Observatory (OT,
http://www.ot.ird.fr) is a dedicated organization in charge within the UE Data Collection Framework of monitoring
the European tuna fishing fleets working in Atlantic and Indian tropical oceans and Ecoscope
(http://www.ecoscope.org), an integrative project in charge of gathering, integrating and diffusing information
pertinent for EAF produced by the research unit.
Role in iMarine
IRD will contribute to iMarine Project with its experience on data management and information system skills. IRD
will also contribute with its own databases on tropical fisheries and ecosystems mainly in western and eastern
Africa.
Expected outcome from iMarine
Through iMarine, UMR EME of IRD is fully in line with its mission of “Contribution to Ecosystem Approach to
Fisheries”. This project is an excellent opportunity to bring on an international forum and within a recognized
Community of Practice its concerns, data and experience on management and diffusion of data and information for
Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries. This project will help UMR EME achieving its own research objectives with
focus and efficiency.
Key personnel
Julien BARDE will be the main contact at IRD's to deal with data interoperability issues by using ontologies and
implementing standards for (meta)data and related access protocols. His work focus on developing information
system driven by standards related to the domain of Semantic Web (W3C), spatial information (OGC and netCDF
related standards), biodiversity (TDWG) and fisheries (COST). Working for IRD since 2008, Julien is in charge of
Ecoscope project and of a data management Working Package for the MACROES (Macroscope for oceanic
systems) project funded by French National Research Agency (ANR). He had previous work experiences related to
information and knowledge sharing within the framework of a coastal zone management project on the French
Mediterranean at the Maison de la télédétection of Montpellier (France) and as a postdoctoral research fellow for
an ocean observatory project at MBARI, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (USA). Julien earned a
Master in Fisheries Sciences and a Master in Spatial Information Treatment at AgroCampus Rennes (France)
followed by a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences at Montpellier Sciences University (France).
Pascal CAUQUIL will help in implementing technical solutions to share information and knowledge within the
project. As an experimented developer in charge of Ecoscope application, Pascal acquired strong skills in setting up
Semantic Web applications. Working for IRD since 2006, Pascal is leading the development of various Websites
for marine resources management projects (Indiseas) and manages databases related to Data Collection Framework
for tropical tuna fisheries in Indian and Atlantic Oceans. His knowledge of different languages and related
technologies (Java, RDBMS, SQL, XML, RDF, OWL, SPARQL, etc.) will help in making relevant choices.
Previously, he has contributed on ISTAM, a project funded by the European Union to set up an information system
prototype about fisheries in West Africa. Before working at IRD, Pascal was information system engineer in
several telecommunications companies (mainly Genesys Conferencing). Pascal did his graduate studies at 3iL
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(Institut d'Ingénierie Informatique de Limoges) and obtained an engineer diploma in computer and information
systems.
Pierre CHAVANCE is a senior scientific officer working on fisheries biology for IRD since 1990. He has taken
an active part in various scientific programmes aimed at consolidating the national institutions responsible for
monitoring marine resources and fisheries in developing countries such as Mauritania (1986-1990), Guinea (19901996), Senegal (1999-2004). These programmes have contributed to the monitoring of fishery resources and to the
promotion of scientifically informed management decisions. He coordinated the StatBase module [4] of the FIAS
(UE) programme for the IRD aiming at the development of a statistical tool for fisheries statistics in West Africa,
this tool being presently implemented in East Africa through the World Bank SWIOFP project
(http://www.swiofp.net). Pierre CHAVANCE is the actual coordinator of the Data Collection Framework - French
national programme for the tropical tuna fishery. He is member of the Scientific Committees of SWIOFC
(Southwest Indian Ocean Fishery Commission) and IOTC (Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, http://www.iotc.org).
2.3 Consortium as a whole
2.3.1 Rationale of the consortium
The iMarine consortium composition is a result of a multidimensional synthesis of the priorities established by the
objectives of the project. As such, it not only brings together global centres of excellences, but also supplies all the
ingredients for a timely delivery of high quality results. The objectives of the consortium are to (i) benefit from a
open access to scientific information and data to provide timely information to support the Ecosystem Approach for
the Management of Marine Living Resources; (ii) to benefit from the lower costs of infrastructures, applications
and other services; (iii) to improve their data management, by shortening production cycles, enhanced computing
capacity, increase the precision of their outputs by taking advantage of the coming tsunami of high resolution data,
and (iv) reorganizing their development effort from isolated groups to shared and open development communities,
to (v) establish a thriving community to support the shared development of resources on a sustainable data
infrastructure.
The consortium was carefully composed based on the following :
Scientific Expertise: The project’s workplan cuts across several disciplines that include
 Natural and environmental sciences, such as Fisheries management, Biodiversity assessment, taxonomy, marine
biology and ecology, environmental impact assessment, population dynamics and, GIS and remote sensing;
 Information and Communication sciences, such as Knowledge Management and Preservation, Digital Libraries,
Storage and security, Outreach, and Community Organization and Empowerment;
 Informatics and Computing Sciences, such as Distributed Computing, High Performance Computing,
Information Systems Design, Simulation, Statistical Analysis, Business Process Management, and
Geoinformatics.
iMarine not only .addresses the focus domains but also promises a versatility of services, that will allow discovery
and exploitation of hidden opportunities for re-use of components and cross fertilisation of results.
The consortium consists of a balanced number of scientists in a number of areas. Significant expertise is gathered
in the two scientific clusters, one for the “fisheries management and conservation of marine living resources”
related sciences and the other for “Information technology”. CNR, NKUA, E-IIS, US, Terradue, CERN and
FORTH fall in the IT cluster of experts while FAO, FIN, UNESCO, CRIA, IRD provide fisheries and biodiversity
expertise. In addition, FAO, CRIA and IRD have also IT expertise in serving EA-CoP community specific services.
Technological Expertise: The technologies required in order to deliver the iMarine infrastructure to its users span a
vast functional area, while they demand an advanced level of implementation skills, in terms of quality, complexity
and power. In order to cover effectively and timely the foreseen technological and operational needs of the project,
under its tight resource allocation plan, the pre-existence of technological expertise is mandatory.
iMarine consortium includes partners that have a proven track of expertise on all the technologies that have to be
implemented, reused or integrated. CNR, NKUA, E-IIS, US, Terradue, CERN, FORTH and FAO already offer
infrastructure solutions that are fully interoperable and exploit underlying e-Infrastructures for data-intensive
science.
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Operational Expertise: Delivering the planned iMarine data infrastructure is not confined to a single
implementation but also mandates the establishment of a set of rules, procedures and instruments for infrastructure
maintenance and support that bridge across domains can be used for the further development of research
infrastructures. .
iMarine consortium includes partners that contribute advanced skills covering the full lifecycle of software
development, release and infrastructure operations. The proven performance of CERN and E-IIS in this domain is
the guarantee of success in this area.
Resource Adequacy: Resources committed to the project have to be adequate to cover the needs of the project, a
requirement that is not restricted to human resources, but also to infrastructure resources, and the operational
mechanisms that support and maintain them.
Groups participating in the iMarine consortium come from organisations that have an impressive track in
completing EU funded projects and can comply with all the resource demands of this proposal. In addition, it has
been proven that consortium partners (e.g. CNR and NKUA) can extend their resource allocation beyond the
contractually planned one. Other partners are developing or operating generic tools and services that can be aligned
with components and services of the proposal, increasing the scale of federation, and exploiting the underlying
infrastructures to reduce their claim on resources. Even before project start, several community partners have
already committed effort to develop services that can exploit and/or contribute to the Open E-Science data
infrastructure.
Outreach and Impact Capacity: An important objective of the proposal is the support for a real, yet flexible and
ever-changing Community of Practice. This automatically gives a significant role to the Outreach activities that
reaches into the Community to help them articulate their policy and governance needs.. Having on-board the
consortium appropriate structures for both raising awareness and exploiting the results, is considered to be a
primary factor of success. The commitment of very representative community members to be part of the iMarine
Board, even at this early stage, is very encouraging.
Outreach and Impact Capacity is strengthened by the contributions of the community partners (FAO, FIN,
UNESCO, CRIA, IRD) whose activities are organized and focussed by dedicated outreach experts (Trust-IT). The
added advantage of a dedicated outreach group to the project is that they help articulate the vision towards open
and participatory science by providing access channels between the project and the target user base, beyond the
scope of the iMarine Board active partnerships.
Management Capacity and Collaboration Strength: The project’s management structures, populated by experts of
the partner organisations, combine long experience in all facets of Open e-Science project management. Together,
they not only can maintain the workplan of such a large scale endeavour, but also bring a true vision of
participatory data-intensive science. The management team has already established excellent collaboration
relationships among the involved entities.
The project builds on a tested scheme of partners’ roles and rules of management. ERCIM is the Administrative
and Financial Coordinator and CNR-ISTI is the Scientific and Technical Coordinator, and has successfully
completed a series of projects. The consortium partners have already established excellent collaboration links. The
partners have already proven to be able to remove barriers concerning the open data flow in science and technology
and minimise the communication and management overheads.
The iMarine consortium has emerged through a process of evolution of collaborations and links established at
European and even global level. A subset of the consortium members has a long history of successful European
funded projects (including but not restricted to DILIGENT, D4Science I & II) with significant impact in the area of
activity. This group of partners expertise in open and participatory data-intensive science, and can progress on a)
sharing expertise and ownership of technologies that form the basis of project’s JRA activities b) the strict, yet
powerful, set of SA, production-level principles of operation and c) a profound level of acquaintance with the
application domain and user communities mobilized in the iMarine Project. This group guarantees the operation of
successful practices and technologies, and offers the consortium new directions in their participatory and dataintensive science plans. The following list sums up the principles of the consortium,:
 Continue the provisioning of existing core technological and scientific procedures that exploit synergies, offer
data-intensive services, develop generic re-usable components, and promote interoperability at all levels.
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 Expand the existing data services that provide participatory, data-intensive scientific services bridging across
scientific and geographical boundaries. These include the innovative tools for data discovery, mining and
visualization across dimensions and domains that enable the cross fertilization.
 Transform the development model into a more end-user oriented initiative, reaching further out in communities
involvement aiming to exploit synergies with underlying e-Infrastructures and reduce costs..
 Strengthen selected activities such as the outreach related ones for raising awareness and supporting the uptake
of the project results by large user groups
As a conclusion, together with the establishment of new governance and advisory structures, the iMarine
consortium effectively forms an entirely new, innovative initiative.
2.3.2 Consortium Synthesis
The iMarine consortium consists of fourteen (14) partners. The members span 7 countries and 3 continents, yet the
initiative has a much bigger geographical footprint, as among its members 4 international organisations can be
found. This geographical dispersion is required by the activities proposed.
Furthermore 3 Industrial partners (including 2 SMEs) can be found in the consortium synthesis.
Adopting a rather liberal categorization of their involvement, these partners fall in the following categories
(partners are referenced by abbreviations):
 Management (1): ERCIM
 Community (5): FIN, UNESCO, CRIA, IRD
 RTD (3): US, FORTH, Terradue
 RTD & Service (2): CERN, E-IIS
 TM Partners (3): CNR-ISTI, NKUA, FAO
 Dissemination (1): Trust-IT
The aforementioned categorisations roughly depict the need and involvement of each class of participant. In more
details this is analyzed below.
CNR-ISTI is the scientific and technical coordinating organisation of the iMarine project. Both the Project
Director and the Technical Coordinator are highly experienced members of the organisation that have a successful
history of leading similar open and participatory data-intensive science projects. Beside these two key positions,
CNR-ISTI holds a major role in the implementation of project’s workplan and the gCube technology, being leader
of four work packages and 10 tasks. Expertise applied in the iMarine includes scientific data handling and curation,
interoperation of data infrastructures, federation, open access, and data management and visualisation, web GUI,
grid enabled GIS and much more.
In NA, as coordinating partner, CNR-ISTI, has the lead role of NA2. Its long relationship with representative
members of the Community of Practice (FAO, FIN) puts it in the perfect position to take the lead. Together with
FAO, that has a pivotal position in the international communities related to marine data management, statistics and
analysis, provides the project with an unique chance to interface with a truly global community-implementation
mediator in NA3. Finally, in NA4 as a data-intensive institute, CNR’s participation naturally aims into scientific
dissemination. In SA, CNR not only brings a substantial fraction of the infrastructure at the disposal of the activity
(depicted in SA1), but also, along with the interoperability expertise of NKUA, integrates a significant number of
common interfaces and tools into the Virtual laboratories, offering the basis of their operation. SA2 leadership is in
good hands with CNR-ISTI as a result of the experience gathered in D4Science I and II VRE Operation tasks. CNR
complements the teams of E-IIS and NKUA in the tasks of SA3.
Finally, in JRA, CNR has leadership of JRA1 in order to continue the development of the infrastructure. The
expertise in scientific data discovery, mining, and analysis is strengthened in D4Science I & II, and is materialized
in the leadership of the respective tasks (TJRA2.3, TJRA3.2) and work package JRA2, which is propagated also
into participation in API definition and implementation tasks of JRA4.
NKUA, has a major role in the development of gCube technology, and brings expertise in the areas of distributed
and interoperable systems, workflow management, information retrieval, optimization, human machine interaction,
data mining etc. Along with CNR, NKUA manages the majority of the components in the gCube system and will
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continue this activity in the iMarine project. NKUA will invest to significantly extend the capabilities of the gCube
data infrastructure in the areas of: scientific data processing workflows (TJRA 1.3), open access to information
(TJRA 3.1, along with JRA3 leadership), generic tools for data transfer (enhancing the gRS in TJRA2.2).
Furthermore, NKUA will work on the resource model and Integration and Interoperability enabling APIs of gCube.
This latter role is one that NKUA has carried out with success as WP Leader in D4Science-II and will continue
leadership in JRA4. In NA, besides complementing CNR-ISTI in NA2, NKUA participates in the Community of
Practice activities in its domain of expertise (i.e. open information access and systems interoperability) and acts as
the leader of the training activities. In SA, NKUA provides a significant pool of infrastructure resources (TSA1.2)
and, along with CNR, covers the generic common interface layer of Virtual Laboratories. Finally NKUA leads the
Software Distribution and Documentation (TJRA3.2) task, having established tools, procedures and metrics for
carrying out this task, for a series of projects.
The workplan analysis shows that CNR-ISTI and NKUA cover many components in the gCube system, at a
surprisingly low cost. This is feasible as both partners have proven the capacity to support the undertaken activities
via co-funding or other external support, allowing to reduce the effort of this tasks low. This frees resources in the
project to support the Community of Practice.
CERN has two different roles in iMarine, offering to the consortium two facets of its domain of expertise. On one
hand CERN will lead the activity of deployment and operation of the infrastructure (SA1); it will deploy
monitoring and accounting tools applying its expertise in managing large scale distributed infrastructures for
Science, as seen in several grid ones (DataGrid, EGEE etc). On the other hand CERN will contribute to new
developments in gCube that strengthen its data transfer facilities, by bringing into TJRA2.2 and TJRA4.2 expertise
and technology developed over a long history of grid middleware and protocol design and implementation. CERN
will also participate in training activities (TNA4.3) aiming to cover the thematic area of infrastructure operation.
E-IIS is a major Italian ITC industry and is the primary, long standing, commercially oriented contributor to gCube
and has helped steer the project towards the definition of a solid development environment. E-IIS is ISO9001
certified and has level 3 on CMMi for all its production departments. In iMarine E-IIS strengthens consortium
expertise in three main areas. In the security domain, E-IIS has a history of applying security solutions in a gCube
infrastructure, and leads the corresponding task of TJRA1.2. In the infrastructure operation area (SA1), enterprise
level cloud infrastructure resources are added and operated in iMarine, adding not just a set of resources but rather
a new perspective in infrastructure sustainability and operation. Finally E-IIS is the leading partner that handles the
demanding task of building and releasing the gCube system, an activity that has been carried by the company with
great proven professionalism, given the expertise of its members on the ETICS system that gCube releases are
driven from. Finally E-IIS participates in NA tasks both in the standardisation (TNA3.3), as security is an enabling
factor in this area, and the training (TNA4.3) on both cloud and security mechanisms exploitation. ENG has
established cooperation with EGEE (as in the Middleware Security Working Groups) and actively participates in
OGF and other initiatives on Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA).
US also has a long track of contribution to gCube technology, and in the context of iMarine, will offer its expertise
in and contribute mainly to JRA activities. More specifically US is involved in the maintenance of lower layers of
the gCube infrastructure and the provision of specific workflow execution facilities, closely collaborating with
CNR and NKUA. Expertise in conceptualisation and modelling will be of relevance to the resource model
definition, and the new enhanced storage facilities to be implemented in JRA2, where US, along with CNR will be
bringing the experience of the OCMA architecture as a heritage of previous gCube versions. US will be also
involved in the corresponding API definition (JRA4) and will support training activities on topics of relevance,
mainly aiming to developer training, in TNA4.3.
FORTH is a new entry in the gCube technology environment and comes into the project to offer focused expertise
and implementation solutions, strengthening the technology in the domain of semantic information management
and exploitation, where the expertise of the FORTH ICL laboratory is concentrated. In iMarine the institute will
bring expertise in the following two areas: a) management of taxonomic/ontological data/metadata, and b)
modelling, representation and exchange of provenance information of digital objects based on the processes that
affect them. Consequently, in JRA workplan both tasks (TJRA2.3 & TJRA3.4) that heavily related to the topic are
to a large degree handled by FORTH, as well as the respective originating activity in NA3 (TNA3.4). . Finally
FORTH supports the exploitation of semantic information and technologies in the Data Discovery process
(JRA3.1) and participates the in tasks defining the related APIs (JRA4).
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Terradue brings in iMarine taskforce expertise in several domains. Terradue is a participant of GENESI-DEC,
allowing gCube technology to interact with and consume various sources of environmental monitoring and earth
observation data. Expertise with these sources is exploitable in the AquaMaps case, both in data mining algorithms
and in access/interoperability (TJRA3.2, TJRA2.2). Terradue also has long experience with geospatial data
processing and will assist to enhance the integration of gCube search with OGC services (TJRA3.1). The impact
and footprint of these facilities in the API will be managed by the company’s participation in JRA4. Finally
Terradue will be involved in driving specification of its implementation in JRA through its participation in NA3.
Trust-IT brings to the Consortium promotional dissemination and eTraining expertise through its leadership of
NA4, working in synergy with partners to achieve the goals set. Through these capacities Trust-IT will also
provide its project exploitation through established collaborations and an extensive contact database by focusing
on: direct liaison with the European organisations/partners for increased visibility and knowledge-exchange;
Communication of iMarine activities among the online user communities and the Community of Practice board.
FAO has two roles in the project: on one hand it acts as a major point of reference for the Community of Practice,
on the other hand it implements technical results, actually delivering part of the technology to the users. This dual
role places FAO in the NA2 group of partners. Yet the major role of the organisation is the leadership of NA3.
NA3 provides the input for the development of applications and interoperable software that will be brought into SA
and JRA. This role is well fitted to the team’s expertise that covers, among others, development of partnerships and
related Governance mechanisms, and information analysis. Additionally FAO has direct links to specifications’
working groups, which makes it a member of the related TNA4.3 task. Within SA, FAO deploys community
resources (software, data sources etc) and leads TSA2.2.
Finally in JRA, FAO participates JRA3 on data mining and semantic data analysis, bringing its vast expertise in
scientific data handling and analysis, as demonstrated by a long series of related activities it has performed.., while
in JRA4 is involved to the degree needed for bringing NA3 artefacts to the context of the WP (APIs). FAO will be
among the major community contributors in terms of data sets, reference data, semantic structures (ontologies) and
services placed at the disposal of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure.
FIN has developed a several years of experience with the gCube technology. Through this interaction it has
obtained a set of instruments that use on state-of-the-art technologies for data access, processing and collaboration.
Within iMarine, FIN will provide this experience to others within NA3 activity and will integrate a number of
community resources and tools into the Virtual Laboratory (TSA2.2). The experience of the partner in the leading
gCube Aquamaps services implementation is expected to be a catalyst for the uptake of other communities. FIN
will also provide to the consortium data sets, reference data and services enriching the resources placed at the
disposal of the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure.
CRIA (Reference Center on Environmental Information) is a Brazilian non-government organization whose aim is
to contribute towards a more sustainable use of Brazil's biodiversity through the dissemination of high quality
information and education. They have developed information systems for the management and dissemination of
biodiversity data. More specifically, CRIA has expertise on software development for insuring data quality,
suitability for use and data set of modelling algorithms. This suite of tools is offered by CRIA, through the
development of interoperability mechanisms on the side of gCube, acquiring species, link data and services for the
iMarine Virtual Research Environments. NA3 and SA2 involvement is planned for CRIA, so that resources are
integrated into the iMarine Data e-Infrastructure.
IRD brings into iMarine expertise on data management and exchange protocols, and semantic technologies for
exploitation of capture information, all stemming from the community exploitation perspective. A regional
perspective is given to the domain, allowing NA3 (where IRD is also participating in several subtasks) to identify
new requirements, definitions, specifications and policies. Additionally IRD, brings into the iMarine Data eInfrastructure resources in the context of SA2.
UNESCO, through IODE/OBIS brings a long expertise in biodiversity data management and application design to
he consortium. It’s international expertise on taxonomy, modelling and marine data management, harmonisation,
interoperability is widely recognized. OBIS was one of the earliest Associate Members of the Global Biodiversity
Information Facility (www.gbif.org) which publishes data on all species. OBIS is a very active participant in GBIF
activities, and one of the largest publishers of data to GBIF, reflecting its role as a specialist network for marine
species. UNESCO’s OBIS strengthens significantly the community of practice of the project and its involvement in
the workplan is focused in NA3 and SA2 areas.
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Last, but not least, ERCIM will manage the finance and administration of the project, providing the Financial and
Administrative Director. The organisation has coordinated several project consortia in FP6 and FP7, managing
several 10s of M€ in European Community contribution to date, establishing the expertise and trust required to
address the inherent complexity of an I3 project. This expertise is proven to most consortium members, as ERCIM
has a long withstanding collaboration with the majority of them. Additionally ERCIM has brought the financial and
administrative management of the DILIGENT and D4Science I & II projects, into complete success, with high
efficiency acting always timely and accurately. Within iMarine, ERCIM offers consortium partners all the required
logistical support in ascertaining needs, ensures the fulfilment of financial requirements as defined by the European
Commission, and addresses specific organisational and unlikely collaboration challenges that might affect the
execution of the work plan as a whole. Given the increasing complexity of the consortium, the role of ERCIM will
be focused on the overall project administration, including the management of the European Union financial
contribution. ERCIM will also be responsible for managing the budget allocated to the iMarine Board, including
the reimbursement of travel costs associated with participation in iMarine Board and Advisory Council meetings,
as many of these members and all four of the advisors are external to the consortium.
Subcontracting
Vlaams Instituut Voord de Zee (VLIZ or Flanders Marine Institute) will be one of three sub-contracted partners
in the iMarine project. The Flanders Marine Institute has developed the underlying technology for a Pan-European
Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI; http://www.eu-nomen.eu/pesi/). The PESI initiative is the next step in
integrating and securing taxonomically authoritative species name registers that underpin the management of
biodiversity in Europe. The infrastructure integrates the three main all-taxon registers in Europe, namely the
European Register of Marine Species, Fauna Europaea, and Euro+Med PlantBase in coordination with EU based
nomenclators and the network of EU based Global Species Databases.
The Flanders Marine Institute will provide the iMarine initiative with support in two areas:
 Technical support for integrating the PESI outcome as a resource of the iMarine data infrastructure;
 Champion support in the form of Yde DE JONG, PESI Project Coordinator, as a member of the iMarine Board.
This agreement with iMarine has been made possible as Flanders Marine Institute’s objectives include an ambition
to become and important biodiversity centre for Europe where data and information from a wide range of marine
sciences are archived and made easily accessible.
The support to be provided by VLIZ is the equivalent of approximately 5 person months over the project’s full
duration.
SPECIES 2000 (Sp2000) is a registered not-for-profit organisation in the United Kingdom and will be a subcontracted partner in the iMarine project. Species 2000 is a federation of database organisations working closely
with users, taxonomists and sponsoring agencies. The goal of the Species 2000 project is to create a validated
checklist of all the world's species (plants, animals, fungi and microbes) by bringing together an array of global
species databases covering each of the major groups of organisms.
Sp2000 maintains the Catalogue of Life (http://www.catalogueoflife.org/) which is the result of many projects and
initiatives, including the D4Life and i4Life infrastructure projects.
Sp2000 will provide the iMarine initiative with support in two areas:
 Technical support to integrate the Catalogue of Life as a resource accessible through the iMarine data
infrastructure;
 Champion support in the form of Frank BRISBY, a Director of Species2000, as a member of the iMarine
Board, advising on species diversity & taxonomic information systems.
The support to be provided by VLIZ is the equivalent of approximately 5 person months over the project’s full
duration.
NEAFC (http://www.neafc.org/) is a convention based Regional Fisheries Management Organization. The
updating of the Convention in 2006 and the London declaration to immediately apply the “new” Convention
commits NEAFC to conservation and protection of biodiversity.
NEAFC will be a sub-contracted partner of iMarine for participation in the iMarine Board as member an Advisor.
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NEAFC will provide the iMarine initiative with support in two areas:
 Technical support with the VMS part of the initiative and in this respect will support iMarine in achieving
interoperability goals;
 Advisory support from Kjartan Hoydal, Secretary of NEAFC, providing guidance with the Fisheries Policy
and Management perspectives, and in particular for the two business cases “Support to FAO’s deep seas
fisheries programme: balancing use of marine resources and protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the
high seas” and “Support to the European Common Fishery Policy”.
NEAFC’s interest in iMarine is to find solutions for a more systematic scientific use of VMS data in order to get
reliable information of fishing activity in time and space. ICES has asked NEAFC to include more information in
the messages so the data are of greater scientific relevance. NEAFC knows that VMS data have their problems, but
at present there has not been a dedicated attempt to use them and investigate the problems in them, and the iMarine
project provides an opportunity to collaboratively look for solutions on various aspects of data sharing with high
confidentiality requirements.
The support to be provided by NEAFC is the equivalent of approximately 8 person months over the project’s full
duration.
Other countries
Participation from other countries comes from Brazil (CRIA) and the Philippines (FIN) is foreseen in iMarine.
These international participations come to strengthen the Community footprint of the project especially beyond the
European borders, which is of primary concern to the project, as Aquatic Resource management is in its nature
global. It is only through international uptake, that the results of the project can reach their objectives for allowing
seamless flow of comprehensible information among regional information systems and disciplines.
In the Community of Practice, several generic tools and services exist that remove important obstacles for the open
access to scientific information and data. To reduce the cost of development, and profit from the synergies with the
often large and cross-discipline e-Infrastructures, several partners were identified that bring many years of expertise
in data-intensive discovery, mining and visualization to the project. The consortium aims to support a global
Community of Practice and can count many international experts in the iMarine Board that provide a unique group
of experts that already collaborate across disciplines. To further their vision of a Ecosystem Approach to Marine
Living Resources Management, these experts already identified several international open access initiatives. In
particular, they highlighted the biodiversity data management facilities offered by UNESCO/OBIS, that integrates
scientific data from a wide variety of formats and institutions, and exposes these through the Darwin Protocol, FIN
in the Philippines that holds a unique system for species probability calculation that already benefits from grid
enabled GIS, and CRIA in Brazil, where a large pool of developers works to brings species modelling applications
into JAVE, and further refine these to increase precision, also in view of the coming data tsunami
Additional partners
It is not intended to expand the size of the proposed consortium. However, membership of the iMarine Board may
be expanded to include stakeholders willing to fund their technical or advisory support to the iMarine initiative.
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2.4 Resources to be committed
2.4.1 Overall Budget
Participant
Short Name
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
Method of
calculating
indirect costs
Actual
Indirect Costs
Simplified
Method
Specific Flat
Rate
Specific Flat
Rate
Actual
Indirect Costs
Specific Flat
Rate
Actual
Indirect Costs
Specific Flat
Rate
Specific Flat
Rate
Specific Flat
Rate
Specific Flat
Rate
Standard Flat
Rate
Standard Flat
Rate
Specific Flat
Rate
Estimated eligible costs and
requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Other direct costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Personnel
Subcontracting
Eligible
Other direct costs
costs
Indirect costs
Total budget
Requested EC contribution
Eligible
costs
Total Budget
Total Requested EC contribution
RTD
Coordination
Type of Activity
Support
Management
0
33 558
0
0
0
0
0
256 000
2 586
38 568
74 712
38 674
132 000
44 416
3 109
47 525
47 525
19 512
199 680
475 192
356 394
302 400
10 061
102 960
245 021
152 005
140 400
13 208
189 365
504 973
378 730
222 672
6 132
87 919
234 451
156 789
27 834
8 750
138 853
370 275
277 706
124 950
1 094
17 357
46 285
30 953
23 800
5 250
88 200
218 400
109 200
249 375
1 000
16 800
41 600
26 536
26 250
11 310
156 411
417 096
312 822
148 000
1 190
16 464
43 904
29 361
48 000
9 439
145 040
302 479
226 859
190 650
3 061
47 040
98 101
54 636
43 050
8 158
119 285
318 093
238 570
0
0
0
0
0
168 175
1 842
26 935
71 827
48 035
203 500
33 000
18 500
133 200
388 200
270 540
430 528
6 527
104 821
279 523
209 642
0
16 708
268 342
715 578
478 542
10 710
0
0
0
0
0
2 500
7 926
21 136
14 135
185 932
0
0
0
0
0
8 214
38 829
232 975
207 737
65 000
0
0
0
0
0
6 500
14 300
85 800
76 505
71 820
0
0
0
0
2 886 031
2 109 923
6 364
46 910
125 094
83 656
2 424 684
1 668 105
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
47 525
47 525
128 639
1 500
9 914
147 844
287 897
287 897
32 000
4 000
2 439
24 960
63 399
63 399
0
4 000
0
0
4 000
4 000
9 278
0
365
5 786
15 429
15 429
0
2 000
0
0
2 000
2 000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
6 727
0
261
4 036
11 024
11 024
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
383 749
383 749
Other
Total
0
0
0
0
0
236 000
17 988
184 080
438 068
438 068
129 600
5 660
81 156
216 416
216 416
185 560
7 292
115 711
308 563
308 563
148 750
6 250
105 000
260 000
260 000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
154 721
145 000
6 004
96 435
402 160,00
402 160
42 840
10 000
31 704
84 544
84 544
97 008
4 286
20 259
121 553
121 553
60 000
6 000
13 200
79 200
79 200
41 040
3 636
26 806
71 482
71 482
1 981 986
1 981 986
162 197
1 500
56 916
189 521
410 134
374 096
656 000
4 000
50 000
511 680
1 221 680
1 009 866
572 400
4 000
25 000
358 440
959 840
755 935
445 344
0
17 501
277 707
740 552
632 651
297 500
2 000
12 500
210 000
522 000
397 736
275 625
0
12 500
172 875
461 000
342 183
196 000
0
12 500
192 080
400 580
281 495
233 700
0
10 000
146 220
389 920
286 605
203 500
33 000
18 500
133 200
388 200
270 540
760 151
145 000
29 500
473 634
1 408 285
1 101 368
53 550
0
12 500
39 630
105 680
98 679
282 940
0
12 500
59 088
354 528
329 290
125 000
0
12 500
27 500
165 000
155 705
112 860
0
10 000
73 716
196 576
155 138
7 723 975
6 191 287
To achieve its ambitious goals and objectives, the iMarine consortium has developed a careful financial planning
covering all foreseen activities of the project. The table above summarises the costs related to the project per
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partner and per activity, respectively. Please note that the real and actual average person-month rates per partner
were used for the calculations concerning “personnel”. The indirect costs were calculated according to the partners’
individually selected methods for determining indirect costs.
The budget has been careful distributed among the different categories and is consistent with the work to be
performed.
The total project costs amount to 7 723 975 € while the requested EC Contribution is 6 191 287 € distributed as
follows :
Activity
Req. Funding
% of total req.
Funding
Management = WP NA1
Coordination = WP NA2, NA3, NA4
Other = WP SA1, SA2, SA3 (Services)
383 749 €
1 668 105 €
2 029 511 €
27%
33%
RTD activity = WP JRA1, JRA2, JR3, JR4
2 109 923 €
34%
6%
2.4.2 Costs Category
The total effort dedicated to iMarine by the 14 partner consortium amount to 801 person months, and the
breakdown per work package is listed in Tables 1.4-6.3.1 – Work Package List(s). The Breakdown per Consortium
partner is detailed in Tables 1.4-6.3.4 – Summary of Staff Effort.
This total is broken down as follows:
Cost Category
Total (€)
Personnel
4 376 767 €
Travels
242 000 €
External Costs
50 416 €
Of which : iMarine Board
44 416 €
Of which : Dissemination material
6 000 €
Subcontracting Costs
178 000 €
Of which: Audit Costs
11 500 €
Of which: Conference organisation
15 000 €
Of which : Web Channel
18 000 €
Of which : Dedicated subcontracts
145 000 €
Overhead / Indirect Costs
2 865 291 €
TOTAL project Costs
7 723 975 €
Total EU Contribution
6 191 287 €
2.4.3 Personnel Costs
The resources have been fairly distributed among the different work packages and the 14 partners.
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The distribution of resources is detailed in the following table and chart showing the ratio of the resources per
activity and the importance of the RTD and coordination activity with respectively 37% and 32% of PM of the
project.
Activity
total PM
Management = WP NA1
Coordination = WP NA2, NA3, NA4
Other = WP SA1, SA2, SA3 (Services)
RTD activity = WP JRA1, JRA2, JR3, JR4
PM Whole duration / All activities
33
257
215
296
801
Percentage of resources allocated per activity
RTD activity = WP JRA1,
JRA2, JR3, JR4
37%
Management = WP NA1
4%
Coordination = WP NA2, NA3,
NA4
32%
Other = WP SA1, SA2, SA3
(Services)
27%
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2.4.4 Travel Costs
Travel costs have been conservatively allocated amongst the 14 partners, totalling 242 000€ and representing 4% of
the total requested funding of the project.
The travel expenditures were calculated and distributed based on the PM allocated to each activity and are wellbalanced between the relevant activities.
Beneficiary
Travel Costs
Travels percentage per activity
12 500 €
50 000 €
25 000 €
17 500 €
12 500 €
12 500 €
12 500 €
10 000 €
12 500 €
29 500 €
12 500 €
12 500 €
12 500 €
10 000 €
242 000 €
ERCIM
CNR
NKUA
CERN
E-IIS
US
FORTH
Terradue
Trust-IT
FAO
FIN
UNESCO
CRIA
IRD
Total Travel Costs
MGT
5%
RTD
34%
Coord
33%
Other
28%
2.4.5 iMarine Board Estimated travel costs
As describe in Section 1.3, the iMarine Board will meet twice a year and the iMarine Advisory Council will meet
once per year over the 30 months.
During the last 6 month period, no meeting has been planned since the final dissemination conference will be held
at M28.
CoP’s Facet
EU common fishery policy
Nb
Nb
Frequency Frequency
External
iMarine
iMarine
iMarine
iMarine
External
Board
Advisor
Board
Advisors meeting
meeting
member
1
2
1
4
1
4
1
4
High Seas Deep Seas
fisheries, protection of VMEs
1
1
Large Marine Ecosystem
regional project
1
4
Comments
928 €
2 784 €
2 784 €
2 784 €
2 428 €
5 784 €
5 784 €
5 784 €
1 500 €
928 €
2 784 €
2 428 € Europe : 2 travels / 2day meeting each
5 784 € Europe : 4 travels / 3day meeting each
1 500 €
928 €
2 428 € Europe : 2 travels / 2day meeting each
2 784 €
5 784 € Europe : 4 travels / 3day meeting each
928 €
2 784 €
2 428 € Europe : 2 travels / 2day meeting each
5 784 € Europe : 4 travels / 3day meeting each
3 000 €
2
4
Total
travel
1 500 €
3 000 €
2
1
1
iMarine
External
perdiem/day
Advisor Travel
costs
3 000 €
3 000 €
3 000 €
2
4
1
Biodiversity / habitat
assessment
iMarine
external
member
Travel
Costs
1 500 €
3 000 €
44 416 €
TOTAL CoP Budget Allocated to ERCIM / Other costs - Support Activities
Travel costs for Europe have been calculated on a basis of 750 € per travel.
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The perdiem used for the estimate is the Belgium rate amounting to 232 €, as per the EU perdiem rates dated
05/07/2010.
The total budget for the iMarine Board has been allocated to ERCIM under the support activities.
2.4.6 Communication & Dissemination Material
The table below outlines the conservative costs estimated for the iMarine printed dissemination material. In
addition to the e-copies of communication releases and project brochures, the consortium will produce hard copies
of some documentation to ensure project visibility at awareness raising events as well as the production of material
for the project conference in Month 28.
A total of 6 different project flyers / leaflets to be produced at different milestones in the project and for specific
project events will be produced in small quantities as the main dissemination & outreach drive will involve the ecopies.
Roll-ups or project banners will be produced at the beginning of the project to be used by the consortium partners
and coordinator at events and will have the iMarine branding and payoff.
Pens with the project logo and URL will be produced as cost effective giveaways for events and for the project
conference.
The two different eBooks (Policy, Resources and Standards and iMarine Board Insight) will be produced and 500
hard copies of each will be printed to distribute to conference participants and stakeholders. 100 copies of each will
be snail mailed together with a final project results leaflet to a selected list of policy-makers and stakeholders based
on the concept that receipt of a hard copy with an accompanying letter has high impact.
Description
Details
Delivery
Month
Unit Rate No. Units
Total
Project leaflet
A4/A5 flyer on launch of project, web site,etc.
M1
1€
250 €
250 €
Four iMARINE roll-ups
featuring the iMARINE branding (dimensions 85 x 200 cm, full
colour, digitally printed with "anti-curl" treatment, so the
display maintains a flat shape
M2
100 €
4€
400 €
1000 ball point pens with logo
Update project news / leaflet
Project Giveaways
A4/A5 flyer on launch of project, web site and promo scheme
M3
M6
1€
1€
1 000 €
150 €
750 €
150 €
Update project news / leaflet
A4/A5 flyer on launch of project, web site and promo scheme
M12
1€
150 €
150 €
Update project news / leaflet
A4/A5 flyer on launch of project, web site and promo scheme
M18
1€
150 €
150 €
Update project news / leaflet
A4/A5 flyer on launch of project, web site and promo scheme
eBook on Policy, Resources & Standards, written in English, full
colour printed in offset. A4 dimensioned. Paper quality –
minimum 80 grams.
Interviews and primeurs from iMARINE Board, written in
English, full colour printed in offset. A4 dimensioned. Paper
quality – minimum 80 grams.
A4 flyer on project results (4 sides - booklet )
snail mail distribution of eBooks & final leaflet to 100 selected
policy stakeholders
M24
1€
150 €
150 €
M27
3€
500 €
1 650 €
M27
3€
500 €
1 650 €
M29
1€
500 €
500 €
M30
2€
100 €
200 €
Policy, Resources & Standards eBook
iMARINE Board Insight eBook
Final Project Results Leaflet
Mailing Costs
TOTAL DISSEMINATION MATERIAL COSTS
6 000 €
2.4.7 Subcontracting Costs
2.4.7.1 Conference
The table below outlines the cost of the project conference to be organised in project month 28. The current
estimate is based on a quotation from a Brussels based hotel for 100 participants for a one-day event and the
meeting package quote includes coffee breaks, working lunch and AV equipment. Included in the estimate is the
cost of a professional media company to create a project video on the event results (including interviews with
participants, snapshots of the event and networking and inclusion of project images and data). Generation of press
pack and conference documentation has been included in the estimate.
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EVENT AT M28 BASED ON BRUSSELS HOTEL COST ESTIMATE NOV 2010 and 100 PAX
Description
Unit Rate
No. Units
Total Cost
Meeting Package
95,00 €
100 9 500,00 €
WiFi
10,00 €
100 1 000,00 €
PROFESSIONAL MEDIA FILM (to record
interviews and produce project media release
for results dissemination)
3 500,00 €
1 3 500,00 €
EVENT DOCUMENTATION (hand-outs, badges, press-packs, etc.)
10,00 €
100 1 000,00 €
TOTAL EVENT COST ESTIMATE
15 000,00 €
2.4.7.2 Web Channel costs
Web Channel and eTraining Framework:
The iMARINE web site (as described under NA4 - Communication, Dissemination and Training - TNA4.2: Web
Channel and eTraining Environment) will be the focal point for the project communication and dissemination
activities and the eTraining Framework (as described under NA4 - Communication, Dissemination and Training TNA4.2: Web Channel and eTraining Environment) will be essential for the iMARINE Board virtual meetings,
community-centric knowledge exchange and ensuring effective engagement across multiple stakeholders. The costs
outlined below include customised development, design, operation and maintenance of web and eTraining
solutions for the duration of the project.
Description
Web Site
eTraining Environment (eLearning & Virtual Room) - to facilitate iMARINE Board virtual meetings
Total
Cost
10 000 €
8 000 €
18 000 €
2.4.7.3 Subcontractors
As per the description Section 2.3, three subcontractors will contribute to the project under the responsibility of
FAO (beneficiary 10).
A total budget of 145 000€ is additionally allocated to FAO under the subcontracting category in order to cover the
efforts and related travels of the subcontractors as per described in the table below.
Subcontractors
NeafC Personnel
NeafC Travel
NeafC Total
Costs
60 000 €
5 000 €
65 000 €
Pm
8
Partner
FAO
VLIZ Personnel
VLIZ Travel
VLIZ Total
35 000 €
5 000 €
40 000 €
5
FAO
SP2000 Personnel
SP2000 Travel
SP2000 Total
35 000 €
5 000 €
40 000 €
5
FAO
145 000 €
18
Total Subcontractors
2.4.8 Additional support to be provided by beneficiaries and stakeholders
A particular strength of the iMarine project is the amount of additional support that is estimated to be provided by
the beneficiaries and associated contributors with the common motivation of achieving the project objectives. NonPage 128 of 154
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funded support takes the form of staff that will be assigned for the development of semantics, SDMX and VME
database; standardization of VMS data; and participation in the activities of the iMarine Board. Please refer to the
following table for specifics:
SOURCE
FAO
FAO regular programme - CIOK
FAO regular programme - CIOK
Project GCP/GLO/309/FRA
SDMX development
Semantic developments
High Seas Deep Seas ("VME database")
ICES
Participation to the iMarine Board
Synergetic/parallel work on standards
COST, VMS data
IRD
Participation to the iMarine Board
Contributions to NA3.2 and NA3.3
Contributions to NA3.2 and NA3.3
Synergetic/parallel work on standards
Semantic developments
COST
Semantic developments
NEAFC
Participation to the iMarine Board
Synergetic/parallel work on standards
VMS data
University of Wageningen
Participation to the iMarine Board
UNESCO (IOC/IODE)
Participation to the iMarine Board
TOTAL
TYPE
PM TOTAL
% PER ACTIVITY TYPE
% NA3
%SA
24,0
10%
40%
37,0
30%
30%
26,0
100%
87,0
PM PER Work Package
%JRA
NA3
SA
50%
2,4
9,6
40%
11,1
11,1
26,0
2,0
6,0
8,0
100%
100%
2,0
6,0
2,0
8,0
1,5
9,0
20,5
100%
100%
100%
2,0
8,0
1,5
0,5
6,0
6,5
100%
100%
0,5
6,0
0,5
0,5
100%
0,5
0,5
0,5
100%
0,5
50%
123,0
50%
40,5
JRA
12,0
14,8
4,5
4,5
51,2
31,3
Additionally, the provision of the computational and storage resources (hereafter called nodes) that compose the
iMarine Data e-Infrastructure will be performed as either permanent nodes fully dedicated to the project
exploitation or on-demand nodes provided for a pre-defined time, while not charging for their consumption. The
participant partners will provide at least the following nodes to the infrastructure:
 CNR will provide 100 concurrent typical compute instances, 5 TB storage space and 1 Gb network for data
transfer;
 NKUA will provide 50 concurrent typical compute instances, 5 TB storage space and 1 Gb network for data
transfer;
 ENG will provide up to 100 virtual small server instances, 7 TB storage space and 100 Mb network for data
transfer.
This set of resources will be used to deploy, operate and demonstrate the capabilities of the iMarine Data eInfrastructure and Virtual Research Environments. Additional nodes may be added according to the project
requests for new Virtual Research Environments.
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Section 3: Impact
3.1 Expected impacts listed in the work programme
The essence of the iMarine initiative lies in the heart of the renewed European strategy on research with a 2020
horizon, described in the Communication from the European Commission to the European Parliament, the Council,
and other bodies titled “ICT Infrastructures for e-Science” 16, which calls for “enabling Europe to become a hub of
excellence for e-Science, exploiting multi-disciplinarity and global collaboration to combine complementary skills
and resources in making use of computationally intensive simulations”. Establishment and operation of the iMarine
data e-Infrastructure will require technological advances that will contribute significantly to the scalability,
interoperability, and other desirable properties of data infrastructures beyond the present state of the art. Its
advanced data management and data processing services will deal with data of unprecedented amounts and
heterogeneity levels, generating high-quality information that its users will take advantage of to propel their own
science or policy decision making. The disciplines and associated communities that will be drawn to the iMarine
data e-Infrastructure are numerous and will be leaving their current, almost isolated, lives for the first time to
address a truly complex and interdisciplinary problem of humanity, with great scientific and societal impact. The
philosophy behind the iMarine data e-Infrastructure, partly expressed in the policies to emerge on its governance,
will accelerate data sharing, open access, and scientific collaboration within and between the fishery management
and marine living resource conservation communities. Economies of scale afforded by the use of a common data
infrastructure will significantly reduce the cost of applying the principles of the Ecosystem Approach to the above
endeavors. Europe will benefit tremendously for the leadership position it will assume in this un-doubtfully worldwide effort, and its knowledge workers and policy makers will always be the first beneficiaries of the technological
and domain expertise created within iMarine. Last but not least, the project will have a significant, even if indirect,
impact on our marine environment, safeguarding biodiversity and empowering policy makers to make wise
decisions for that. All these aspects of impact that iMarine will have are elaborated in the rest of this section.
3.1.1 Expected Impact Listed in the Work Programme
The expected impacts listed in the Work Programme are diverse and cover several issues. An analysis of how
iMarine will bring about these impacts is presented below.
3.1.1.1 Core Data Infrastructure Impacts
Increase of the scale of federation and interoperation of data infrastructures: By supporting data integration,
iMarine will improve accessibility and quality of reference data regarding oceans, fisheries, ecosystems, and
biodiversity, enhancing the already important role of existing databases of biological parameters (like Fishbase),
biodiversity (like OBIS) or the Global record of fishing vessels. The connection of the Ocean Expert catalogue of
expertise to the data and workflow elements of the EAF dashboard, for example, will boost its use and accelerate
registration of fishery expertise in that catalogue. Access to centralized and cross-verified fishery statistics (e.g.,
through ICIS) will facilitate the elaboration of dashboards and indicators as well as stock assessment. Nevertheless,
the degree to which access to detailed fishery statistics at national and lower levels (e.g., at the fishery level) cannot
be predicted, except perhaps in the cases where RFMOs will have established the relevant databases at regional
level. The existence of a facility to upload national statistics onto regional and global systems through the web and
to publish them using protocols such as SDMX, in a semi-automatic manner, should nonetheless be a major
improvement to the present situation and an effective incentive to data providers. If the iMarine data eInfrastructure and associated tools developed can be deployed at a regional level, detailed national statistics might
be made available at that level more easily (where they are most useful), thus overcoming a major difficulty faced
by RFMOs (in particular in the developing world) to maintain the software facilities aimed at organizing
aggregation workflow, and facilitating their federation globally. Increased inter-operability between the current
“autonomous” systems to streamline workflow. This, coupled with the on-line collaborative working capacities of
iMarine and its meta-analyses and prediction support features, will drive to gains in timeliness, greater efficiency of
ICT Infrastructures for e-Science: Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council –
COM(2009) 108 final.
16
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cooperative quality control, and overall to enhanced quality of statistical sources used as basis for assessments and
decision making. With iMarine, these impacts are expected to be a short term reality regarding fishery statistics
workflow between Eurostat, ICES and FAO in the European context, and through the CWP17 should drain to global
level in the medium term. Building of a CoP should also facilitate the uploading of the presently scattered scientific
data surveys into systems like OBIS increasing the incentives of data owners (like the IRD’s ObsTuna data base, or
the Fridtjoff Nansen Project) to contribute so that they may cross their datasets with others.
Better exploitation of synergies with the underlying infrastructures: The iMarine project will furnish a common
layer that will connect existing data infrastructures via established and standardized interfaces, thereby bringing
into its own space substantial new features and value-added tools used by practitioners in fishery management and
marine living resource conservation. While based on existing robust technological frameworks that have been
developed in prior projects, e.g., gCube, the data infrastructure federation thus created will furnish fundamental
mechanisms to deal with thus far unrelated data sources whose richness and volume are expected to significantly
accrue in the time to come. The project will consume diverse data sets from various sources, e.g., geographic
information systems, as well as reports produced by individuals or groups working in the field, while it will deploy
new statistical methods, mining algorithms, and standards. Dealing with all the data and service richness and the
underlying computational and storage complexities without any iMarine-like support would be impossible for the
EA-CoP. The iMarine data infrastructure will empower the latter to exploit new data and scenarios that were
unreachable so far, obtain new perspectives, and gain deeper insights into the intricacies and complexities of
fishery management and marine living resource conservation. In the context of High Seas Deep Seas fisheries for
example, it will provide an unprecedented capacity to bring in the same “board room” legally established protected
areas, effort data compiled from VMS, observed records on fragile ecosystems collected by fishing vessels,
biodiversity modeling of fragile ecosystem, and maps of seamounts. This fact is also exemplified by ICES, very
much faced with those issues, and which has provided a Letter of Support to this proposal.
Reduction of costs: The innovative technological solutions offered by iMarine will foster cohesion among the
members of the EA-CoP, which will result in a significant reduction of the costs of its multidisciplinary policy
creation, scientific, and social learning activities. Dependence on gCube and interoperation with several other
existing data infrastructures, primarily through the D4Science data infrastructure federation, will have great
benefits on system and service software development cost, as significant functionality is readily available or is only
a few steps away from being so after appropriate modifications to existing software. In general, establishment of a
rich set of collaborations with other EU and international organizations, initiatives, and projects as well as national
centres of excellence will allow iMarine to reuse policies and technologies and interoperate with existing
infrastructures. By leveraging these collaborations and by taking advantage of additional funds that some of these
organizations are willing to invest in the project activities, the number of resources available to the entire effort will
far surpass the funds requested strictly in this proposal, the infrastructure deployment time will be shortened, and
the overall cost of building and operating the infrastructure will be reduced.
Increase of the user base and bridging across disciplines, enabling of cross-fertilisation of scientific results and
favouring of innovation: Through the establishment and operation of its data e-Infrastructure, the iMarine
initiative will facilitate the emergence and solidification of the EA-CoP. Smaller disparate communities, each
dealing with a different aspect of fishery management or marine living resource management at various geographic
granules already exist. They are the elements whose coming together will be catalyzed by the iMarine data eInfrastructure to form an international multidisciplinary EA-CoP. Each community fosters very active interactions
among participants within its boundaries but is poorly connected with the others. This is a major handicap and
slows down all efforts on the way to applying EA. Based on essential needs and short term realities, organic growth
of the communities towards better interactions and cross-fertilization has already started, in a “bottom-up” fashion.
The process is rather slow, however, and to be expedited, there is a need for better incentives, intensified energy,
and higher organization that must be instigated in a “top-down” fashion. Considering the international and
authoritative status of many of the iMarine Board members, the iMarine data e-Infrastructure and its associated
bodies will facilitate and accelerate this process, will bring together as its users a significant number of people from
disparate disciplines, and will provide new capabilities for global-range policy making and innovative scientific
advances. The iMarine data e-Infrastructure will have a highly complex and sophisticated user base with very
17
Coordinating Working Party on Fishery statistics, a statutory body of FAO setting global standards on fishery
statistics
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challenging demands, in some sense going beyond the project intentions and means. This will lead to significant
technological innovation for the infrastructure itself as well as scientific and political innovation for the domains of
the EA-CoP.
Removal of important obstacles concerning the open access to scientific information and data: The iMarine
project will put significant effort on integration, management, and handling of so far isolated heterogeneous
information sources, including geo-referenced records, logbooks, maps of human activity areas, time series of key
factors, socio-economic data collections, naval registers, and others. Presently, the tools available to access and
operate on such data remain limited in functionality, work in isolation, are not interoperable, and most importantly,
are not often widely available. The iMarine data e-Infrastructure will alleviate this situation and support data
management scenarios that realize a holistic approach to the entire data life-cycle, touching upon critical
functionality such as data harmonization, curation, cross-correlation, synthesis, provenance, packaging,
preservation, and others. Significant amounts of new genre of high quality data will suddenly become available to
the members of the EA-CoP, which will be openly accessible through the appropriate policies developed by the
iMarine initiative.
Improvement of preparedness to face the data "tsunami" of the next decade: Similarly to all other sciences, the
fields of fishery management and marine living resource conservation face a data “tsunami” that is continuously
growing by the development of better instruments and improved simulations. The iMarine data infrastructure will
play a dual role in that regard. On the one hand, it will intensify this problem, as it will facilitate the process of
building very complex networks of simulation models and data analysis tools, thereby giving its users the
opportunity to generate arbitrary amounts of value-added derived data that will feed various decision-making
processes. On the other hand, it will offer a solution to this problem, as its data management and analysis services
will be taking advantage of its underlying distributed architecture to exhibit scalability to large-scale scientific
information, and to resolve the chaos evolving from parallel workflow. The predominantly data-intensive nature of
the activities of the EA-CoP will be served well by all the resources that will be assembled under the iMarine
umbrella, within the iMarine data e-Infrastructure proper (in excess of 250 machines, several tens of TBs of
storage, and up to 1GB network) but also through its interoperation with the other infrastructures in the federation.
Progress towards the vision of open and participatory data-intensive science: As is evident from the above
exposition, the iMarine initiative will bring together and facilitate coordination between data infrastructure
technologist groups, public-interest organizations, research institutions, policy bodies, and others. Any boundary
walls between these groups will be lowered, if not brought down, and any regional focus that such groups may
have will be diluted in the context of the global iMarine environment. Whether marine scientists or data engineers
or policy makers, the members of the EA-CoP will participate openly in the data management and analysis
scenarios supported by the iMarine data e-Infrastructure, experiencing and contributing in the broadest possible
sharing of data, knowledge, software, technologies, and other resources.
Generic tools and services developed under the e-infrastructure part of the programme could be used for the
further development of research infrastructures in Europe and in particular for the implementation of clusters
of ESFRI projects: The developed services will be particularly relevant for the cluster of ESFRI infrastructures in
the field of environmental sciences. These infrastructures encounter difficulties with data processing (including
workflow processing), including data pre-processing (raw data, data transfer, calibration, interoperability and data
fusion, information representation) and data post-processing (analysis, modeling, visualization). They all deal with
convoluted cases of data heterogeneity and, in general, face several problems for which they would clearly benefit
from the technical solutions offered by iMarine, in terms of both the overall management of the related processing
software as well as the particular scalable and interoperable functionality realized by its services. Similarly, the
opposite direction is very fruitful as well, where resources developed in the context of ESFRI projects can be
inherited by iMarine and propagated to other environments for the benefit of all. A specific case in point is the
ESFRI LifeWatch preparatory project, which has provided a Letter of Support to this proposal. Its coordinator,
Wouter Los, has expressed very vividly the impact that the developments in iMarine are expected to have on
LifeWatch and vice versa: “LifeWatch expresses its interest to share the generic tools, services that will be
developed by your and our project as they can contribute to the further development of an interoperable landscape
of facilities in Europe”.
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3.1.2 Added Value of Implementing the Action at European Level
The iMarine consortium is made up of strong partners carefully selected for their expertise. They are topic-specific
research organizations, academic institutions, and industrial enterprises drawn widely from across the EU27, as
well as high-profiled international organizations. To implement a project of the scale of iMarine involves expertise
in multiple technologies and disciplines that cannot be simply found at a national level. E-Science crosses national
boundaries and scientific communities collaborate widely spanning multiple states. Furthermore, collaboration at a
European level integrates the best minds and resources towards materialising the Lisbon declaration. European
integration promotes the transfer of know-how among the different countries, and at the same time facilitates the
development of appropriate skills at the national level.
Beyond the above skills-based reasons, the nature of the proposed project itself is such that can simply not be done
at any level other than the European, if not the global one. As stressed throughout the proposal text, all necessary
elements of the EA-CoP are dispersed throughout the world: the scientists operate globally, the policy makers
operate at a regional or national level, the datasets are typically initiated at local establishments around the world,
the existing infrastructure components to be used are distributed in institutions in several countries, the
interoperating infrastructures that will form the federation are administered by diverse organizations in different
locations. In addition, the goal is to facilitate the recommendation of data infrastructure policies that are as global
as possible. Any geographic limitation would jeopardize the achievement of the project’s objectives.
Implementation at the European level ensures concentration of ample high-level resources and broad acceptability
potential of its expected technological and political results.
Furthermore, the uniqueness of iMarine in having the direct involvement of international organisations such as
FAO/UNESCO in key roles in the project and collaborations with EC agencies such as DG-MARE for control and
surveillance data, Eurostat for fishery statistics, JRC-ISPRA for Vessel Monitoring System data (VMS data), CES
for biological advice, and JRC-ISPRA for socio-economic advice, reinforces the added value of implementing the
iMarine project at the European level. The close ties with CRIA of Brazil, FIN of Philippines, and NEAFC (which
Secretary currently chairs the RSN18 which provides a network for most of RFMOs organizations worldwide) also
serve as a clearly indication of the influence that iMarine is likely to have world-wide. All the above expand the
horizons of the project to a global scale while maintaining European leadership in the domain.
3.1.3 External Factors Determining Achieved Impacts
Impacts on Marine Science: Fishery management and marine living resource conservation will reap tremendous
benefits by having the EA-CoP house its data processing scenarios in the iMarine data e-Infrastructure. On the one
hand, the latter will serve as the consumer of extremely diverse data sets from numerous sources as well as of
reports produced by individuals/groups working in the field. On the other hand, it will be deployed with many
services with a great variety of novel functionality, e.g., new statistical methods, mining algorithms, and standards
support, which will introduce the scientists and policy makers of the EA-CoP into a brand new world of
unparalleled opportunities for discovery and innovation. These would have been unimaginable before, as dealing
with all aspects of the required computing paradigm has been overwhelming for the user community due to the
underlying computational and storage complexities. The iMarine services will empower the EA-CoP members to
exploit data and scenarios that have been beyond their reach so far, create new views, identify global-scale trends
on numerous parameters of interest, and gain better insights into the intricacies of several branches of marine
science.
Impacts on Information Technology and Data Infrastructures: The iMarine initiative will create a major
technological shift forward. It sets to “improve the quality of decision-forming data” on state-of-the-art computing
platforms that were not available before to marine scientists and naturalist. To harness all relevant data and process
them fast enough to create new knowledge when needed, it will offer new distributed data management and
processing techniques that capture, analyze, mine, aggregate, and synthesize data much faster than before.
Likewise, controlling the idiosyncratic aspects of data sources with seemingly arbitrary heterogeneity at the
syntactic and semantic levels, it will obtain improved generic mapping tools that will benefit many complex data
integration efforts.
18
Regional Fishery Bodies Secretariat Network
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Beyond the expected technological contributions in particular service functionalities, however, the project will have
significant impact in the area of data infrastructure development and operation. All service composition, workflow
process execution, data processing, and knowledge creation will be enabled and orchestrated on top of an
autonomic computing substrate featuring diverse capabilities. As key features of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure,
its ease of use, scalability, and interoperability will enable previously unattainable, tedious and/or time-consuming
computations to be expressed and executed without trouble, pushing the state of the art in distributed data
management and processing and distributed data analytics.
3.1.4 Impacts in the Context of Other National or International Research
iMarine broaden engagement across Europe and globally by leverage existing e-Infrastructures, facilitating the
integration and interoperation of resources and different stakeholders, ensuring collaboration between RIs and eInfrastructures with the support of user communities and experts operating at global level, driven by the emerging
requirements of the broader research community (e.g. ESFRI environmental cluster), and better utilizing the shared
and distributed e-Infrastructure resources. Synergies with related fishery and marine initiatives (e.g. ERA-NET,
Knowledge-based Bio-Economy Programme, Technology & Innovation Platforms as engines driving innovation)
also have the potential for iMarine to play a part in raising awareness around the EU2020 strategy and shape future
research and policy agendas. The results obtained running the EA-CoP scenarios on the iMarine data eInfrastructure and the consequent improved understanding of marine life will affect numerous communities of
scientists, managers, engineers, policy makers, and others, not only within the EU region but also around the world.
Initiative
Focus and Communities
I4Life (http://www.i4life.eu/i4Life_DoW.pdf)
Virtual Research Community connecting global
projects for life on earth..
LifeWatch (http://www.lifewatch.eu)
Biodiversity
PESI (http://www.eu-nomen.eu/pesi/)
Biodiversity in Europe
GENESI-DEC (http://www.genesi-dr.eu/)
Earth Observation
METAFOR http://metaforclimate.eu/
Climate Change
GEO-Seas (http://www.geo-seas.eu/)
Geology and Geophysics
ERA-NET: Marifish (http://www.marifish.net)
European national funders of marine fisheries
research
ERA-NET: ARIMNet (http://www.arimnet.net)
sustainable development of natural resources in
Med
KBBE initiatives (current, e.g MEFEPO, JAKFISH)
Fisheries & Ecosystems
Horizontal initiatives covering a spectrum of domains and communities
European Aquaculture Technology & Innovation Platform
long-term sustainability of aquaculture in Europe
(http://www.eatip.eu)
European Technology Platform “Food for Life”, ETP Food for
Life (http://etp.ciaa.eu)
Agri-food sector innovation
BECOTEPS (http://www.plantetp.org/)
KBBE recommendations for sustainability,
policy, multi-disciplinary research
The European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain,
COMMUNIA
High-level policy discussion and strategic action
http://communia-project.eu/
Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe, OpenAIRE
http://www.openaire.eu/
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3.2 Dissemination and/or exploitation of project results, and management of
intellectual property
3.2.1 Dissemination Measures
The table below summarizes the main for iMarine communities, including user communities, the broader
multidisciplinary communities, policy makers, press and media.
Stakeholder Beneficiary
Pay-off
Sample of related Dissemination
Outputs
User
Communities Catering to real-world needs; solving
broadly defined
operational
challenges,
improving
quality & scope of current work,
leveraging new data sources and more
effective ways of processing them.
Access to large data sets for
sophisticated experimentation while
driving scientific excellence.
eTraining courses facilitating
usage of the data infrastructure
(Virtual Laboratories operation &
maintenance; uptake of common
interfaces, integrated tools and
resources; API exploitation).
Users within the wider Sharing of experiences and knowledge Channel discussion forums &
landscape
across Europe and globally. Showcasing eTraining; success stories via
success stories.
dissemination outputs and Final
Event, among others.
Epistemic
communities Sharing of specific domain expertise in
(stock
assessment a multidisciplinary environment to
scientists,
socio- gather priorities, offer feedback and
economists, biodiversity help formulate policy recommendations.
specialists,
fishery
managers)
Dedicated activities supporting
the iMarine Board, showcasing
insights
via
dissemination
outputs.
Data
managers
& Sharing
knowledge
on
specific
information system (IS) community and technical needs
specialists
(standard exchange protocols, data
security etc).
Dedicated activities supporting
the iMarine Board, showcasing
insights
via
dissemination
outputs, contributing to technical
enhancements.
Policy
and
Funding
Bodies
(EC,
e-IRG,
ESFRI, EU27 ministries),
overseas ministries
Prioritizing policy implementation;
avoiding duplication of efforts &
shaping policy, sustainability and
research agendas based on tangible
outcomes (Digital Agenda; Innovation
Union).
Channel
resources
and
particularly dissemination outputs
targeting policy and funding
bodies.
Marine
&
Fisheries
research
institutes,
libraries, documentation
and information centres,
including those in FAO
network
Opportunity to gain insights into an
evolving landscape and enrich service
provision through focused content
delivery based on iMarine outcomes.
Channel resources across the
board, including potential to
benefit from selected eTraining
modules.
Citizens of the European Opportunity to appreciate the role of Project outputs targeting society
Union
science in tackling issues of broad, at large, including articles and
societal interest.
Mini eBook.
Press and Media (selected Coverage of diverse aspects relating to Targeted activities defined in
by goal)
data infrastructure from policy, regularly
updated
Plans,
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technology
and
perspectives.
wider
societal leveraging media relations and
seeking partnerships for the Final
Event.
Impact of targeted dissemination measures: Support of the iMarine Board and the EA-CoP is linked to four main
Measures: web-based interaction tools; eTraining facilities; strategic alliances; communication and dissemination
activities, including the Virtual (M15) and Final Event (M28).
MEASURE 1: The project will support the iMarine Board with the aim of offering a framework that
pools resources with the direct involvement of European scientists, managers and policy makers as
frontrunners. NA3-NA4 and Consortium liaison along with strategic alliances at EU level will ensure
cross fertilization (ERA-NET, technology and innovation platforms, KBBE initiatives, EUROFISH)
underpinned by joint dissemination activities (including outputs such as the eBooks and the Final Event),
to increase awareness around the key issues.
EXPECTED OUTCOME: Low-cost, low-barrier interactive knowledge exchange to build bridges by
weaving together policy and technology policy measures, priorities and ultimately the recommendations
necessary to underpin the sustainability-driven governance model. Increased awareness at EU level.
MEASURE 2: Facilitating international outreach by leveraging partner networks (FAO, FIN, CRIA) and
strategic alliances (e.g. GLOBEFISH) with emphasis on the benefits of international action agendas.
EXPECTED OUTCOME: Increased likelihood of counterparts around the globe adopting the policy
recommendations; drawing on the data e-infrastructure as a model to form similar locally based
ecosystems, if not the iMarine infrastructure.
MEASURE 3: iMarine user communities as initial users of the data e-infrastructure ecosystem by
facilitating uptake through the eTraining Programme.
EXPECTED OUTCOME: End-users benefit from unprecedented computational power and a richer,
more sophisticated set of resources and tools, serving as showcases on an international scale with a strong
potential to increase the user base and foster scientific excellence and innovation.
eTraining offers a concrete opportunity to educate people in multiple areas on a fully automated basis with
value-add interactive features, streamlining educational services, lowering costs involved and reducing the
time from learning to implementation. This impact is not only key to stepping up EA implementation but
also has a clear potential beyond the life-time of iMarine, as well as to shape educational programmes.
Impact of Event, Media Outreach and Strategic Alliances: Dissemination Measures include frequent production
of communication and promotional material as defined in the regularly updated Communication, Dissemination
and Training Plans (DNA4.1), adjusting action agendas in line with the metric monitoring and outcomes
documented in DNA4.5-6 Communication, Dissemination and Training Report. Outputs will cater for diverse
target audiences based on re-visited value propositions and core messaging as the project evolves. Specific
measures include awareness-raising, stakeholder engagement, attracting new users to the data infrastructure,
emphasizing European innovation leadership and international cooperation strengths.
Impact of event attendance: Peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and networking and peer-reviewed validation of
results, iMarine visibility and potential to increase user communities. Media channels will include but not limited
to those shown below.
Strategic alliances: They bring multiple benefits to iMarine outreach, ranging from increasing visibility to
knowledge exchange on policy and technological policy priorities, and capacity building.
Strategic Alliances
Opportunities & Value-add
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Strategic Alliances
Opportunities & Value-add
iMarine Board member affiliations (e.g. ICES, IOCOBIS,
NEAFC);
ESFRI
projects
(especially
Environmental cluster; PESI, i4Life, LifeWatch); Earth
Observation (GENESIS-DEC). Other potential alliances
include pertinent ERA-NET initiatives; Technology and
Innovation Platforms; initiatives funded under the EC's
KBBE initiatives; European and global initiatives
(GLOBEFISH, EUROFISH); dissemination and training
support initiatives (e.g. eScienceTalk and Scientix).
Knowledge exchange at policy and technology
levels; mutual visibility and coverage in Newsletters
and back-links on websites; emphasis on European
innovation leadership and priorities and the
European Innovation Flagship.
Dissemination
&
Training
eScienceTalk, Scientix, iSkills)
Initiatives
(e.g. Promoting project goals and outcomes through
Briefings, BlogCasts; promoting capacity and
competence building through eTraining.
International (GLOBEFISH – FAO; International Knowledge exchange and promoting international
Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET))
cooperation
on
key
policy
issues
&
recommendations.
The aims and possible outcomes resulting from media outreach and specialized journals are presented below.
Media Channels
Sample: Aims & Expected Outcomes
Popular ICT & Technology Media (e.g. CORDIS
News, CERN Bulletin, ERCIM News, Innovations
Report, iSGTW, HPC In the Cloud, Supercomputing
Online, ZDNet, ACM Communications etc).
Aim: Press releases, general and technologyfocused articles & success stories, including
potential for infrastructure cost reduction, Final
Event promotion & outcomes.
Possible outcomes:
recruitment.
visibility
and
delegate
Policy Channels (e.g. EurActiv, e-IRG Newsletter, Aim: Promote the expertise and role of the iMarine
EUObserver, EuropeanVoice.com & European Voice, Board and its outcomes.
Europa.eu)
Possible outcomes: Showcasing policy leadership.
National Press, TV and Radio (e.g. national press Aim: Promoting iMarine to society at large with
associations, national papers, TV & Radio and popular focus on issues such as sustainable fish sources,
science magazines for younger generation)
impact of man-made & natural disasters, climate
change challenges of broad, societal interest.
Possible outcomes: communicating the benefits of
science to tackle key societal challenges and
improvement of citizens’ lives.
Peer-reviewed & specialized conference & journals Aim: Dialogue with technical and scientific
(e.g. ACM Communications, Marine Policy; Information communities on issues addressed; reporting new
Systems, etc)
research.
Possible outcome: results recognition & validation
beyond project.
Gauging Impact: Impact will be gauged through metrics defined for core activities with Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs, marked *) for those measures deemed key for successful outcomes.
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Web-based Metrics
Channel Metrics: minimum 8 new items per month based on editorial & quality assurance. Channel Usage
metrics*: unique visitors, page views, returning and new visits, most popular pages, length of stay, bounce
rate and country provenance.
Community building: number of registered members* (typology: affiliation, role/position, city, country)
compared with targets set in each of the Plans (DNA3.1), including measures to increase visibility through
selected social networks (twitter, LinkedIn Focus Groups and Slideshare).
eTraining Metrics: number of eCourse modules, check-lists and assessments delivered and completed
compared with numbers set in Plans (DNA3.1). Qualitative measures will be set in synergy with the
Advisory Board.
Dissemination Metrics
Strategic Alliances: Number of alliances forged as defined in Plans (DNA3.1) along with the value-add
and expected impacts with regard to project goals as they evolve over time and with a balance against
tangible opportunities as they arise (“not-always-predictable/not forecast but of value-add”).
Production of communication material: number of eNewsletters, interviews, testimonies, primers as per
the Plans (DNA3.1) with a balance against tangible opportunities as they arise (“not-always-predictable/not
forecast but of value-add”). eBook production will be delivered mainly in year two and subject to an
editorial
Production of promotional activities: number of pop-up banners, fliers, posters as defined by the Plans
(DNA3.1)
Event visibility: number of presentations at external event (minimum 5/year), monitoring audience
typology,
Press releases: number of releases, including major announcements and event promotion (minimum
2/year)
Articles for ICT & technology press: number of articles produced and published (minimum 2/year)
Articles for peer-reviewed/specialized journals: number of articles submitted and published (minimum 2
over project life-time
3.2.2 Exploitation of Project Results
The Box below summarizes the main benefits and exploitation plans resulting from iMarine project participation.
Technological Partners: CNR, NKUA, E-IIS, US, CERN, Terradue
Delivery of software & components as sub-products exploitable outside & beyond iMarine
Leveraging experimentation with emerging technologies (e.g. Cloud computing), new programming toolkits
& frameworks
Leveraging external, multidisciplinary knowledge acquisition
Pursuing discovery, catalogue and fast geographical data access domains.
Educational Partners: NKUA, US, Trust-IT
Training of students in applied ICT technologies & collaborative environments
Shaping educational agendas, e.g. topics for Diploma & PhD theses
Communicating expertise in sibling domains for cross-domain
eTraining course & tool development & continued support to cross-disciplinary groups
Academic & Research Partners: CNR, IRD, NKUA, US,
Publications resulting from iMarine developments
Leveraging experimentation on emerging technologies, specifications, e-Infrastructure interoperability
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Enhancing future e-Infrastructure development
Pursuing further goals of investigating various novel techniques for semantic data management.
Industry Partners: E-IIS, Trust-IT
Leveraging and extending technologies developed
Delivery of high-quality state-of-the-art products & services
Identifying new markets & business models, boosting new business exploitation
EU Consortia & International Organizations: CERN, ERCIM, UNESCO
Extending expertise in managing large scale distributed infrastructures
Exploiting new data transfer and monitoring and accounting services
Future cooperation for Excellence in Research
User Communities: FAO, CRIA, FIN
Enhanced support the EAF Community & new solutions for sustainability
Leveraging improvements to the provision of data and services
Exploiting interoperability standards
3.2.3 Management of Intellectual Property
Dissemination and exploitation of iMarine is based to a large extent to the openness of the results. The fewer
restrictions apply the greater degree of exploitation will be possible. The latter applies to a substantial degree of
software produced by the project, which will be mostly delivered under an Open Source Licence (EUPL being the
most suitable), unless an infringement of IPRs and/or violation other explicit/implicit IPR ownerships occurs.
Exploiting or delivering commercial or proprietary licensed software products for the needs of the project is not
excluded, if such a need arises or seems appropriate. However knowledge and technology developed as part of the
project will flow freely among the partners that implement and exploit the system as part of their contractual
obligations. In general, tools, methodology documents, benchmarks, case studies etc. will be available to all unless
otherwise dictated in special cases. The above will be clearly described in the project’s Consortium Agreement,
necessary under the FP7 regime, which will include any sensitive issues of IPR, and the structure and organization
of the project, including specific IPR directives to be applied among the participants and their affiliates, in
compliance with the general arrangements stipulated in the contract, such as:
 The specific management of IPR regarding knowledge held by Universities or other academic/public
participant;
 The exclusion of background and the rights of the other parties to know of such limitation;
 The possibility of agreeing upon an economic access rights regime regarding access to background.
The Consortium Agreement will address: ownership and transfer of ownership of knowledge, protection of
knowledge, use and dissemination of knowledge and access rights to knowledge. Any patents applied that are
related to knowledge developed in the project will be communicated to all partners and to the Commission-funded
IPR.
The knowledge produced throughout the duration of the project will be organized, stored and disseminated. The
overall management, storage and internal dissemination of knowledge will be the responsibility of the Project
Manager, while work package leaders will be responsible for communicating knowledge produced for the work
packages or specific tasks undertaken. The knowledge produced within the scope of the project can be grouped in
three main categories:
 “knowledge products” (deliverables, reports, minutes of meetings etc.)
 Technology portfolio
 “supportive knowledge material” i.e. material that is required for the production of knowledge products (such as
background material, state-of-the-art material, etc.).
Effort will be placed in minimizing the restrictions in accessing the data hosted in and exploited by the services of
the system, however, it is apparent that strict policies do apply to several data sets and services that serve them to
the community and iMarine will have to preserve these policies. For handling these datasets, Memoranda of
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Understanding (MoUs) may be signed among the producers/owners/managers of the data sets and services and the
Consortium of iMarine. A selection involved are listed here:
 Source sources related to aquatic species: NeOn Lifecycle for Networked Ontologies, Census of Marine Life
(CoML), Ocean Biogeographic Information System Database, World Register of Marine Species, FishBase,
ReefBase;
 Large fisheries’ related resources such as Global Ocean Observing System oceanographic datasets, Vessel
Monitoring System (VMS) data repositories of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs), the
global database of world marine protected areas (MPA Global), UN statistics, including the UN Commodity
Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade), FAOSTAT, ASFA Abstracts, AGROVOC;
 The GENESI-DEC digital repositories for Earth scientists, gathered by several operation Earth Observation
Centers;
 The hundreds of external repositories such as DRIVER and OpenAIRE hosted repositories.
Deployment over a distributed system such as the data e-Infrastructure delivered by iMarine can potentially end up
delivering assets (software and data) beyond the scope of access policies. On the other hand, despite the fact that
the raw or source data might be subject to access restrictions, the knowledge produced by their processing, via tools
offered within and around iMarine data e-Infrastructure, may become public. Thus safeguarding the infrastructure’s
payload (software and content) shall be considered on a per-case basis. Technology and specifications will have to
complement and support such complex scenarios and the agreements in place, as the latter ones will be established.
3.3 Contribution to socio-economic impacts
3.3.1 Socio-Economic Impacts
The welfare of marine living resources and their balance in nature is not only a concern restricted to marine
ecosystems but may seriously affect the economy at local, regional, and global scale. Frequently, human activities
have an economic outlook but in deriving such benefits one must be well informed of the balances and the possible
reduction in biodiversity in extensive geographic ecosystems. The challenge is to balance benefits and costs that are
both of economic and ecological nature to sustain the continuous use of open-seas and oceans. Actions that
invariable tend to increase economic productivity and the well-being of societal groups, have contributed to the
vulnerability of ecosystems worldwide. Taken without expeditious evaluation of accumulated empirical data about
the status of ecosystems, our daily choices and decisions will surely generate heavy economic losses and social
changes in the long term. For example, the introduction of black bass into regions that “pescado blanco and
charal” [10] grew for thousands of years in the Americas created not only high economic losses but also forced
social changes in the indigenous populations. It is critical for naturalists, field-workers and policy makers to
understand the relationship between economic choices and the health of the ecosystems affected. If countries
protect their ecosystems, they protect human health, production standards, un-interruptive access to overseas
markets for local products, and beyond and above all, they grow confident of the long term security and cultural
identity. The iMarine project will play a pivotal role as, through its rich-data-based approach, will enable
comprehensive computational methods for improved fishery management of marine living resource conservation
and empower thus far isolated pertinent approaches to reach well informed and judicious verdicts as far as fishery
human activity is concerned.
Socio-economic impacts can be classified into two broad categories: market and non-market impacts. The former
have mostly to do with the changes in prices of commodities and the latter with changes occurring in the
ecosystems themselves. Market impacts imply reduced productivity of fish products sold in the marketplace. For
example, excessive fishing shall steadily yield losses in production and reduction in aquaculture commodities. This
in turn will affect availability of species and contribute to biodiversity reduction in ecosystems from one hand. On
the other, people whose welfare is affected will be part in local depressed communities and markets. Non-market
impacts entail potential risks to human capital due to illness or death as result of poor living conditions, increases in
transactional costs for business, decline in social capital and last but not least, decline in natural capital due to the
deterioration or permanent damage of the ecosystems. The value of such non-market aspects is tremendous.
The distribution of the above impacts has to be considered as well. A large fraction of human population -not only
those living near coastal line but also beyond- rely on fish and marine commodities for their nutrition. Individuals
who are in the business of treating, storing, shipping and serving fish-products will all be affected. Those within
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the lower income brackets will feel more severe impact. Public policy bodies have an obligation to understand the
underpinnings of such business and societal changes, ascertain costs involved, draft contingency plans and act upon
when required.
The iMarine project will assist in handling all aspects of ecosystems in a comprehensive data-intensive way,
helping alleviate long standing issues in fishery management and marine living resource conservation:
1. judiciously reveal and better visualize market, non-market impacts and geographic inequities;
2. help understand the benefit and the extend of required human intervention to alleviate pressure from endangered
ecosystems;
3. gauge the different market level impacts that we may have once we apply stepwise corrective actions to reestablish biodiversity when this is feasible;
4. provide the quantitative means to policy makers for reaching the best possible decisions for the sustainability of
regional and continental ecosystems;
5. offer enhanced and more comprehensive monitoring of existing conditions in ecosystems and derivation of
more accurate forecasts of their species populations.
In general, sustainability is considered one of the global drivers of change across all industries, sectors and
countries. Making better use of natural resources will be hugely important and tightly regulated issues in the future.
The iMarine data e-Infrastructure will provide the critical computational and informational elements to allow the
members of the EA-CoP to come up with the best-educated decisions for long-term sustainable impact.
3.3.2 Environmental Impacts
The main motivation for the proposed iMarine effort emanates from the recognition of the vital role that oceans
and seas play on Earth and its climatic systems coupled with the tremendous impact that human-inflicted changes
in the sea and coastline may have on both the marine living resources as well as the well-being and economic
environment of millions of people around the world. Unfortunately, according to the UN, almost 50% of the
oceans’ fish is already close to the limits of sustainability and another 28% is either overfished or nearing
extinction. Despite this difficult environmental situation, social situations raise difficult dilemmas that require very
careful studying before obtaining a balanced answer. Just as an example, how will we meet the demand for fish,
which is expected to increase by 50% between now and 2050 to help satisfy a need for developing countries’ diets
change for more protein-rich foods such as red meat and consequently fish? [13] The answer is far from obvious.
Clearly, we cannot turn time back for many marine living resources. Nevertheless, armed with the new data
infrastructure to be established and operated by iMarine, we will be able to manage, process, and analyze the
rapidly-produced voluminous datasets that represent the heartbeat of marine life, use that to increase our knowledge
and improve our understanding of the marine world, and eventually help restore the functioning of marine
ecosystems so they can be productive, healthy, and sustainable. In parallel, juxtaposition of environmental and
socio-economic data through the appropriate iMarine data infrastructure services will shed light onto potential
balance points between the conflicting forces underlying dilemmas like the one exemplified above, allowing
humanity to make wise educated decisions for the benefit of both human and marine life together.
3.3.3 Promoting Innovation and Developing Appropriate Skills in Europe
As emphasized earlier, the overall concept and objectives of the iMarine proposal is perfectly aligned with the
spirit of the policy on ICT infrastructures for e-Science described in the recent Communication “ICT
Infrastructures for e-Science”19, which highlighted the key role of e-infrastructures as a crucial asset underpinning
European research and innovation policies. Such a role has also been endorsed by the Competitiveness Council (3
December 2009). Promoting scientific excellence, improving accessibility, assessing infrastructures transformative
impact on science and their capacity to act as innovation platforms and precursors for the ICT markets were the key
ICT Infrastructures for e-Science: Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council –
COM(2009) 108 final.
19
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points agreed. The recent “Digital Agenda for Europe” (DAE) Communication20 (conceived as one of the flagships
of “Europe 2020: A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth", providing a policy framework that
aims at delivering sustainable economic and social benefits from a single digital market based on fast and ultra-fast
Internet and interoperable applications) adds that “Europe should also build its innovative advantage in key areas
through reinforced infrastructures”. Among others such as GÉANT and EGI, it highlights scientific data
infrastructures as key infrastructure components with increasing attention. As such, it becomes evident that the
iMarine data infrastructure will be right in the middle of the critical path of the efforts to promote technological as
well as scientific innovation in Europe, for the great variety of disciplines involved in fishery management and
marine living resource conservation.
Regarding the human capital in the iMarine environment, its diversity and richness is directly derived by the
constituency of the EA-CoP. The iMarine project will have the advantage of carefully selecting engaging
representatives of the EA-CoP for the iMarine Board, who will play a vital role in bringing substantial datasets to
the infrastructure. Through their active presence in iMarine activities, they will also serve as role models and
educators to younger scientists, engineers, managers, and policy makers, who will have the great opportunity of
developing their skills next to them. Moreover, due to its substantial size and the breadth and depth of its available
data and services, the younger EA-CoP members’ exposure to and practice with the iMarine data infrastructure
will be ideal for the development of state-of-the-art skills in the relevant domains. The fact that this will be a joint
effort involving mixed teams from different fields will be an additional benefit as it will cultivate
multidisciplinarity and collaboration skills. In turn, through all these, iMarine will have great socio-economic
impact for European industry and government, as these are the likely employers of these scientists, engineers,
managers, and policy makers during the project and beyond.
20
A Digital Agenda for Europe : Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European
Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - COM(2010) 245, 19.05.2010 a digital agenda for Europe
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Section 4: Ethical Issues
The Coordinator confirms that no ethical issues arise in this proposal, including, but not limited to issues of
research on human embryo/foetus, research on humans, privacy, research on animals, research involving ICP
countries, and dual use.
Table 5. Ethical Issues Table
YES PAGE
Informed Consent
Does the proposal involve children?
Does the proposal involve patients or persons not able to give consent?
Does the proposal involve adult healthy volunteers?
Does the proposal involve Human Genetic Material?
Does the proposal involve Human biological samples?
Does the proposal involve Human data collection?
Research on Human embryo/foetus
Does the proposal involve Human Embryos?
Does the proposal involve Human Foetal Tissue / Cells?
Does the proposal involve Human Embryonic Stem Cells?
Privacy
Does the proposal involve processing of genetic information or personal data (eg.
health, sexual lifestyle, ethnicity, political opinion, religious or philosophical
conviction)
Does the proposal involve tracking the location or observation of people?
Research on Animals
Does the proposal involve research on animals?
Are those animals transgenic small laboratory animals?
Are those animals transgenic farm animals?
Are those animals cloning farm animals?
Are those animals non-human primates?
Research Involving Developing Countries
Use of local resources (genetic, animal, plant etc)
Benefit to local community (capacity building ie access to healthcare, education etc)
Dual Use
Research having potential military / terrorist application
ICT Implants
 Does the proposal involve clinical trials of ICT implants?
I CONFIRM THAT NONE OF THE ABOVE ISSUES APPLY TO MY
PROPOSAL
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References
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Billet, N. StatBase. SWIOFP / IRD. [Online] http://vmstatbase-dev.mpl.ird.fr/statbase_3
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Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. FAO Technical Guidelines for Responsible Fisheries;
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Foster, I., and Kesselman, C. The grid: blueprint for a new computing infrastructure. Morgan Kaufmann,
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Galway, Ireland August 2010. ICES Journal of Marine Science, in press.
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ICES. Fishery management strategies. Oxford University Press. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64(4): 580587
Garcia, S.M.; Zerbi, A.; Aliaume, C.; Do Chi, T.; Lasserre, G. The ecosystem approach to fisheries. Issues,
terminology, principles, institutional foundations, implementation and outlook. FAO Fisheries Technical
Paper. No. 443. Rome, FAO. 2003. 71 p.
Garza, E., and Mendez, F. Caracterización Biológico-Pesquera del Lago de Chapala, Jalisco-Michoacán,
México, con un Análisis de las capturas de charal, Chirostoma chapalae en Redes Mangueadoras y Atarrayas.
Publicaciones Biológicas, FCB/UANL, México, 8(1-2):62-96, 1995.
java.net Wiseman https://wiseman.dev.java.net/
Lave J. and Wenger E. 1991. Situated learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge. Cambridge
University Press: 138 p.
Watson, R. Future Files – A Brief History of the Next 50 Years. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2010
Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of Practice. Learning as a social system, Systems Thinker, http://www.co-il.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml. Accessed June 2010.
Wenger, E. 1999. Communities of Practice. Learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 318 + xv pages.
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Appendix A Profile of the iMarine Board
A.1
iMarine Board members
Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental (CRIA)
URL: www.cria.org.br
Description: The Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental, CRIA (Reference Center on Environmental
Information) is a not-for-profit, non-government organization. Its aim is to contribute towards a more sustainable
use of Brazil's biodiversity through the dissemination of high quality information and education. CRIA develops
software for fundamental niche modelling. The software includes facilities for reading species occurrence and
environmental data, the selection of environmental layers on which the model should be based, creating a niche
model, and projecting the model into an environmental scenario. A number of algorithms are provided as plug-ins,
including GARP, Climate Space Model, Bioclimatic Envelopes, Support Vector Machines and others.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Dr. Vanderlei Perez CANHOS, President Director of the
Reference Center on Environmental Information (CRIA) which leads the development of the OpenModeller Java
project, will be a Board Member with particular focus on distributed data processing services for species
distribution prediction modelling.
FAO/FIGIS
URL: www.fao.org/fishery/figis
Description: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is the largest autonomous agency
within the United Nations.
The Fisheries and Aquaculture Information and Statistics Service (FIPS) is responsible for global statistics and
information on fisheries and aquaculture. FIPS also coordinates the development of international standards for
fishery and aquaculture statistics (CWP), and supports partnership arrangements for the collation and sharing of
information (FIRMS, ASFA). FIPS maintains FAO’s Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS) through which
the Fisheries and Aquaculture Department’s information is disseminated.
The Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS) provides the web based infrastructure to the Fisheries and
Aquaculture Department’s integrated information resources, and the backbone to global information partnerships
such as the Fishery Resources Monitoring System (FIRMS). It’s also within FIGIS that the development of
OpenSDMX and Linked Open Data semantic services have been initiated.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Marc TACONET, FAO Senior fishery information Officer, is
responsible for FIGIS and leads a team of developers and information management and communication specialists
of about 15 persons. He is also Secretary of the FIRMS partnership, and has held the role of the Fisheries and
Aquaculture Resources Management (FARM) Communities Manager in D4Science. In this project M. Taconet will
be the chair of the iMarine’s Board.
FAO/TechCDR
Description: The Knowledge Information System branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (UNFAO/CIOK) supplies and supports information systems solutions to better deliver the
scientific and technical programme of work of the Organization. CIOK has considerable experience and capacity to
provide and support information systems solutions in the domain of Agriculture and Consumer Protection,
Economic and Social Development, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry, Natural Resources Management and
Environment.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Karl MORTEO, Systems Development Specialist in
UNFAO/CIOK leading the Knowledge Information System Services, will be a member of the iMarine Board,
representing more particularly the interests of interoperability with FAO’s TechCDR infrastructure, including for
SDMX and Semantic software components.
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FAO OEKC
Description: The Office of Knowledge Exchange, Research and extension (OEKC) provides leadership towards
an integrated approach to the generation, management, sharing, communication and transfer of knowledge and
information related to food, agriculture and towards the sustainable use of the earth’s natural resources in order to
respond to the knowledge, technology and capacity development needs of member countries and the fostering of
research, innovation, extension and learning. Within the Office the team “knowledge standards and services” is
responsible for metadata and vocabularies.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Johannes KEIZER, leader of the OEKC team “knowledge
standards and services“, responsible for the international AGRIS network and the multilingual agricultural
thesaurus, AGROVOC, and outreach manager of the D4Science-II project, will contribute in the Board with
particular focus on semantic approaches and Linked Open Data. His alternate will be Yves Jaques who has
coordinated FAO’s inputs in the EC NeOn project .
FIN/Aquamaps
URL: http://www.fishbase.org/search.php
Description: The FishBase Information and Research Group, Inc. (FIN), mandate is to support the growth of
FishBase, a public domain information system dedicated to enhance understanding, conservation and management
of fishes worldwide; to support interaction of the FishBase team with international experts on taxonomy,
ichthyology, biodiversity and fisheries; to support participation in cutting-edge research in these fields; and to
support the interaction with FishBase users and partners worldwide to make sure their needs and contributions are
accommodated. FishBase is currently the largest global services information system on fishes with about 1.3
million visitors per month and over 1,300 citations in scientific literature.
FIN has been created and is continuously supported by the FishBase Consortium, a group of nine international
institutes and organizations.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Nicolas BAILLY, Scientific Director of FIN, contributes to the
Board’s activities with particular focus on (i) the generic species occurrence modelling , and (ii) the development of
policies and implementation guidelines regarding interoperability standards.
ICES
URL: http://www.ices.dk/indexfla.asp
Description: The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) coordinates and promotes marine
research on oceanography, the marine environment, the marine ecosystem, and on living marine resources in the
North Atlantic. Members of the ICES community now include all coastal states bordering the North Atlantic and
the Baltic Sea, with affiliate members in the Mediterranean Sea and southern hemisphere.
ICES is a network of more than 2200 scientists from 200 institutes linked by an intergovernmental agreement (the
ICES Convention) to add value to national research efforts.
Scientists working through ICES gather information about the marine ecosystem. The 20 member countries that
fund and support ICES use this advice to help them manage the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Neil HOLDSWORTH, data management specialist responsible
for ICES data center, will contribute in the area of standards and vocabularies related to iMarine data infrastructure
and ensure the connection between EC’s Data Collection Framework (DCF) data services and the linkages to other
European data infrastructures (EMODNET, WISE-Marine, EurOBIS).
IRD/ECOSCOPE
URL: http://www.ecoscopebc.ird.fr/EcoscopeKB
Description: The IRD conducts research programs oriented towards the study of the relations between man and his
environment. Most of the programs take place in Africa, in the Indian Ocean, in Latin America, in Asia and in the
Pacific. One of its research program targets Exploited Marine Ecosystems focusing on Ecosystem Approach to
Fisheries (EAF) and particularly its “Pole Observatoire” is dedicated to the collection, management and diffusion
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of data and information on Mediterranean and tropical marine ecosystems. Ecoscope is the Observatoire’s
integrating application to facilitate data discovery and sharing across IRD’s heterogeneous sources using semantic
technologies.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Julien BARDE, IRD's information system specialist, will provide
inputs on data interoperability using ontologies and implementing standards for (meta)data and related access
protocols. His work focuses on developing information system driven by standards related to Semantic Web
(W3C), spatial information (OGC and netCDF related standards), biodiversity (TDWG) and fisheries (COST).
Species2000/i4Life
URL: www.i4life.eu
Description: The i4Life project is to establish a Virtual Research Community that will enable participating
partners, all global projects with activities relevant to biodiversity data management, to engage in a common
programme enumerating the extent of life on earth. It builds on the common need of each organisation to specify
the entire set of organisms, their growing use of the Catalogue of Life as a common taxonomic resource alongside
their own catalogues, and the different expertise that each programme brings to the task.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Frank BISBY, who holds a managerial role in Species2000, will
be advising the Board on species diversity & taxonomic information systems. His work for the Catalogue of Life
and Species 2000, and knowledge of GRID technologies for building global biodiversity information networks
supports all 3 business cases.
Terradue
URL: http:// www.terradue.com/
Description: The geospatial services and datasets developed by Terradue are of particular interest for the further
development of a data infrastructure.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Pedro GONCALVES, Geospatial Information and Earth
Observation Adviser at Terradue, will help define policies on the access and use of Earth Observation data,
geospatial repositories and the implementation of technologies to modify and analyze geospatial data.
UNESCO/IOC/Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)
URL: www.iobis.org
Description: The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) seeks to absorb, integrate, and
assess isolated datasets into larger, more comprehensive overviews of life in the world’s oceans. The system
stimulates research about our oceans to generate new hypotheses concerning species distributions, evolutionary
processes, ecosystem services, and roles of organisms in marine systems on a local and global scale. The abstract
maps that OBIS generates contribute to the ‘big picture’ of our oceans: a comprehensive, collaborative, world-wide
view of our oceans.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Edward VANDEN BERGHE, executive Director of OBIS, will
facilitate the access to the OBIS data, and coordinate the biodiversity applications created by iMarine. His wide
expertise in the field of marine data- and information management, and his knowledge of the community, will be an
asset to the project, in support of all three business cases.
Vlaams instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ)
URL: www.vliz.be
Description: The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) is the coordination and information platform for marine
scientific research in Flanders. The VLIZ is a focal point for marine and coastal-related research and serves as an
international contact point. The VLIZ signs cooperation agreements with Flemish research groups and
administrations and furthermore integrates its activities in national and international networks. The Flemish Marine
Data and Information Centre (VMDC) is the data centre of VLIZ. VLIZ also operates the European Node of OBIS,
the IT infrastructure for PESI, and the World Register of Marine Species (of which ERMS is now a subset).
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PESI
URL: www.eu-nomen.eu/pesi
Description: PESI provides standardised and authoritative taxonomic information by integrating and securing
Europe’s taxonomically authoritative species name registers and nomenclatures (name databases) and associated
exper(tise) networks that underpin the management of biodiversity in Europe. PESI defines and coordinates
strategies to enhance the quality and reliability of European biodiversity information by integrating the
infrastructural components of four major community networks on taxonomic indexing into a joint work
programme. This will result in functional knowledge networks of taxonomic experts and regional focal points,
which will collaborate on the establishment of standardised and authoritative taxonomic (meta-) data.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Yde DE JONG or a colleague can join as Board Member. PESI
offers resources, focussed on the marine habitat, and acts as a clearinghouse to provide services to all business
cases also by exposing relevant social-economic information.
A.2
iMarine Observers
MAAP/DPMA
Description: the Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture (DPMA) for the French Ministry of Agriculture,
Food, Fisheries and Rural Development (MAAP) is the official contact point of DG MARE and EUROSTAT
with regards to fishery information and statistics workflow. In the recent years, it has been concentrating on drastic
modernization of its information system for fisheries and aquaculture (ISFA) in response to EC’s Fishery Data
Collection Framework.
The main objectives of ISFA is to provide integrated business solutions and data repositories through web browser
interface and a context for data collection and data management to improve the timeliness and accuracy of
nationwide data.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Olivier FORNER is office manager of the information
system for fisheries and aquaculture (ISFA). He is coordinating the fisheries projects portfolio among the French
partners (Maritime Affairs, FranceAgriMer, Producers Organizations, Ifremer), and between France and EU. He
will contribute in the Board his experience with reference to the policy he has set up for data exchange in order to
manage all exchange between vessels, partners, members states and regional fisheries management organizations
European Commission (EC - Eurostat and/or DG MARE)
Description: Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union based in Luxembourg. Its task is to provide
the European Union with statistics at European level that enable comparisons between countries and regions. For
fisheries, Eurostat's statistics work programme is first and foremost designed to support the European
Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) to analyse different aspects of
the European Union's common fisheries policy. Eurostat's fisheries collection, which is one of the largest and most
comprehensive databases of fisheries statistics in the world, is also used to respond to requests from other EU
institutions, primarily the European Parliament and the Council, as well as national authorities, international
fisheries organisations and the general public. Eurostat acts as the European Commission representative to the Coordinating Working party for Fisheries (CWP).
Description: The Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) is the Commission
department responsible for the implementation of the Common Fisheries policy and of the Integrated Maritime
Policy. With a staff of about 400 and based in Brussels, DG MARE is made up of 6 Directorates dealing with all
aspects of both policies, including among others conservation, control, market measures, structural actions and
international relations relating to fisheries.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Considering Eurostat’s ongoing cooperation with FAO through the
CWP in developing the new tools for data transmission, sharing and dissemination which is currently a major
priority for EU fisheries statistics, an Observer role from either Eurostat and/or DG MARE is important for policy
and technical reasons. This role will be to ensure consistency in the developments of structured data services in
particular regarding SDMX, and guidance with regards to anticipated impacts. Any eventual involvement as
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Observer of representative(s) of European Commission agencies will ensure that the participation rules in FP7 are
followed.
GENESI-DEC
URL: http://www.genesi-dr.eu
Description: In line with long-term initiatives for Earth Observation (EO) in Europe, GENESI-DEC is an
infrastructure for the integration, validation, preservation, and uniform dissemination of data which originates from
space, airborne, and in-situ sensors and is stored – along with related tools, models, and knowledge artifacts – in
digital repositories maintained at a number of Earth Centers dispersed all over Europe.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: a GENESI-DEC observer will be identified as required
IMR/Fridjoff Nansen database
URL: http://www.imr.no/om_havforskningsinstituttet/en
Description: IMR, the Institute of Marine Research, is Norway's largest centre of marine science. Amongst other
programmes, the Institute carries out development collaboration activities. An important corpus of marine data is
collected by the vessel “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen”, manned and operated by IMR within UNFAO programme.
Description Fritjoff Nansen database and mapping applications for species abundance: for 3 decades, the
Norwegian Research Vessel Fritjoff Nansen has conducted under the UN flag scientific cruises in waters of African
coastal states, with the goal to assess fishery stocks abundance levels and enabling countries to set sustainable
quotas. The data are owned by the coastal states and handled in the FN database at IMR Bergen under strict policy
requirements.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: an IMR Observer will be identified in case the project decides to
develop interoperability with Fridtjoff Nansen database.
United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
URL: www.unep-wcmc.org
Description: UNEP-WCMC strives to be an internationally recognised Centre of Excellence for the synthesis,
analysis and dissemination of global biodiversity knowledge, providing authoritative, strategic and timely
information for conventions, countries, organizations and companies to use in the development and implementation
of their policies and decisions.
The Centre has a mandate from the UNEP Governing Council to provide a range of biodiversity-related services to
UNEP, the biodiversity-related conventions and their constituent party-states and other bodies in the nongovernmental and private sectors (Decision GC 22/1/III). Other more specific mandates derive from the UNEP
Governing Council, decisions taken by Conferences of the Parties to specific international conventions, the World
Parks Congress and elsewhere.
UNEP-WCMC Interactive Maps System (IMapS) is designed to facilitate the integration of public-domain field
data, such as distribution, abundance, migration, trends, status, photographs, and information on index beaches,
together with habitat information such as presence and extent of sea grasses, coral reefs, mangroves, priority areas
such as Internationally and Nationally Protected Areas, and physical background parameters. A high seas IMAPS is
currently being developed as a new data platform.
Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: An Observer will be identified in case the project decides to
develop interoperability with UNEP-WCMS IMAP
VLIZ/EMODNET
Description: VLIZ (described above) is part of the EMODNET project, responsible for the Biological Lot.
EMODNET is a pilot component for a final operational European Marine Observation and Data Network, launched
by the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE). EMODNET aims to assemble
fragmented and inaccessible marine data into interoperable, continuous and publicly available data streams for
complete maritime basins.
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Role of the representative in the iMarine Board: Francisco HERNANDEZ, Project coordinator and
manager of the VLIZ data center, will be invited as observer in case the iMarine project decides to develop
interoperability with EMODNET.
A.3
iMarine Advisory Council
Serge Garcia, ex-Director of FAO Fishery and Aquaculture Resources Division, now promoting the emergence of
a global EA Community of Practice notably through EAFNet, will be part of the Advisory Council representing the
African LME pelagic EAF business case. Serge’s alternate will be Gabriella Bianchi, senior fishery resources
officer at FAO, who leads EAFNet at global level; she will provide guidance to iMarine Board for the development
of policies in the field of the Large Marine Ecosystem business case, in particular on pelagic fisheries in several
African Large Marine Ecosystems.
Kajrtan Hoydal, executive Secretary of NEAFC, and chair of the Secretariat of Regional Fishery Body Network,
will provide guidance regarding the Fisheries Policy and Management perspectives, in particular for the two
business cases “Support to FAO’s High Seas Deep Seas programme” and “Support to EU Common Fishery
Policy”. Kjartan has also a strong interest in the VMS part of the initiative.
Martin Pastoors, director of the Centre for Marine Policy, part of Wageningen University and Research Centre,
and lecturer Marine Policy at Van Hall Larenstein, Leeuwarden. He is also senior researcher at IMARES, Ijmuiden.
He will bring many years of experience in bridging between education and practice in marine policy, stakeholder
participation in fisheries management and, managing competing claims in the coastal areas.
Patricio Bernal, ex-Executive Secretary IOC and ADG of UNESCO for IOC, is presently the coordinator of the
IUCN High Seas Initiative and of the Global Oceans Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI). GOBI brings together many
organisations and science groups with an interest in marine biodiversity, several of them partners in this project.
The objective of GOBI is to make new data and scientific information available for the management of the ocean
biodiversity resources, with particular focus on the application of the seven CBD criteria for Ecological and
Biological Significant Areas (EBSA) in the Open Ocean and Deep seas.
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Appendix B Acronyms
ACFA: Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture
ASCLME: Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystem
BCLME: Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem
CBD: Convention on Biological Diversity [2].
CCLME: Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem
CCRF: Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries
CECAF: Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic, a regional fisheries body
CITES: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora http://www.cites.org/
CFP: Common Fishery Policy
COFI: FAO Committee of Fisheries
CoP: Community of Practice [14].
CRIA: Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental http://www.cria.org.br/
CWP: Coordinating Working Party on fishery statistical standards
DCI: Distributed Computing Infrastructure
DSF: FAO's Deep Sea Fisheries programme http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/4450/en
EA: Ecosystem Approach.
EAF: Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries.
EA-CoP: Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice.
EBSA: Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area.
ECOSOPE: A knowledge base about marine ecosystems http://www.ecoscopebc.ird.fr/EcoscopeKB
EGI: European Grid Initiative http://web.eu-egi.eu/
EMODNET: European Marine Observation and Data Network
http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/consultation_emodnet_en.html
FCPPS: Fishery Country Profiles Production System
FIGIS: FAO’s Fisheries Global Information System http://www.fao.org/fishery/figis/en
FIRMS: FAO’s Fishery Resources Monitoring System http://firms.fao.org/firms/en
GEF: Global Environmental Fund
GENESI-DEC: Ground European Network for Earth Science Interoperations - Digital Earth Communities
GENESI-DR: Ground European Network for Earth Science Interoperations - Digital Repositories
GFCM: General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, a regional fisheries body
GOBI: Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative http://www.gobi.org/
ICIS: Integrated Capture Information System
IOTC: Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, a regional fisheries body
IRD: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, a French public research institute http://en.ird.fr/theird/presentation
ITQ: Individual Transferable Quota
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IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature http://www.iucn.org
LME: Large Marine Ecosystem
MPA: Marine Protected Area
NEAFC: North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission http://www.neafc.org/
NGO: Non-governmental organisation
NSERC: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
OBIS: Ocean Biogeographic Information System
RAC: Regional Advisory Council
RFMO: Regional Fisheries Management Organisation
RSO: Regional Seas Programmes
SDMX: Statistical Data and Metadata exchange http://sdmx.org/
SWIOFC: Southwest Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission, a regional fisheries body
UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme http://www.unep.org/
VME: Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem
VMS: Vessel Monitoring System
WoRMS: World Register of Marine Species
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Appendix C Letters of Support
C.1
LIFEWATCH LoS
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ICES LoS
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