Since 2012, WoRMS has been contributing to LifeWatch (www.lifewatch.eu and www.lifewatch.be), a European research infrastructure that was established as part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). LifeWatch is a distributed virtual laboratory and will be used for e.g. biodiversity research. This large infrastructure consists of several biodiversity observatories, databases, web services and modelling tools, and it will bring together existing systems.

Within LifeWatch, Flanders is contributing to the central LifeWatch infrastructure with a Taxonomic Backbone. This Taxonomic Backbone consists of species information services which will be used to standardize species data and to integrate distributed biodiversity data repositories and operating facilities. As WoRMS is the world standard for marine taxonomic information, WoRMS is a major contributor to this Taxonomic Backbone. Filling the gaps in WoRMS and ensuring that the current information reaches a high quality standard fit perfectly within the activities of this LifeWatch Taxonomic Backbone.
 
Through LifeWatch, The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) – host of the WoRMS database – has a budget available to financially support editors to address a number of priority gaps within WoRMS. This can be done through the organization of an editor-workshop.
 
LifeWatch also provides support to taxonomic societies, giving them the opportunity to meet face-to-face to discuss problems at hand and work together in making their data systems more complete.
 
The workshops should aim at physically bringing together the editors, giving them the opportunity to organize themselves better, discuss the way they work (e.g. responsibilities within the group), work on pending issues and make concrete plans towards the future.
 
The target groups can be either taxonomically, geographically or thematically oriented, with as main goal to make the Register more complete and to define a (long-term) plan to maintain it. To make the most of these workshops, the program needs to include at least 0.5 to 1 full day of hands-on working with the online editing interface. This part of the workshop will be covered by the Data Management Team and will allow to give a full overview of the existing and newly developed tools and possibilities of the interface. Next to a future vision, the organizer should also aim at some short-term tangible outcomes, e.g. presentation of the progress, plans and results at an upcoming conference.
 
Conditions to apply for financial support for an editor workshop:

• Workshop preferably to be held back-to-back with an already planned event (e.g. conference, meeting, workshop) OR workshop to be organized at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ, Belgium)
• Workshop program needs to include at least 0.5 to 1 full day of “hands on” work or training for the present people, using the online editing interface.
• The announcement and program need to include clear goals and discussion topics, so these can be directly dealt with during the workshop
• The announcement and program need to list targeted goals, outcomes and (future) results which lead to a more complete Register

 
All workshops will need to take place between November 6st 2017 and May 31st 2018 (with the exception of December 2017).
 
To apply for financial support for an editor workshop, please provide the following information to info@marinespecies.org:

• Target group (taxonomy – geography – theme)
• Contact & responsible person for the workshop
• When & where the workshop will be organized (back-to-back with which event)
• A (preliminary) program, including clear outcomes & goals
• A (preliminary) participants list
• Detailed (tentative) indication of costs (travel – hotel – meals – rental price of the location - ….)
• Add “application for LifeWatch editor workshop 2017-2018” to the subject line

 
The deadline for applications is September 10th 2017. All applications will be evaluated after that date and the outcome communicated with the relevant people.