The e-Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research (LifeWatch) is a distributed Research Infrastructure providing e-Science facilities and services to the biodiversity and ecosystem research community. LifeWatch ERIC seeks to understand the complex interactions between species and the environment, taking advantage of High-Performance, Grid and Big Data computing systems, and the development of advanced modelling tools to implement measures aimed at preserving life on Earth. LifeWatch tackles the constraints affecting biodiversity and ecosystem research, such as the pressing need for increasingly diverse data, larger and more advanced models, open data and open science clouds, thus allowing to explore new frontiers in ecological science and support society in addressing global challenges.

In the ESFRI Roadmap since 2006, LifeWatch established the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) in 2017 by bringing together seven European countries. LifeWatch ERIC Statutory Seat and the ICT e-Infrastructure Technical Offices are located in Spain and jointly assist the coordination and management of the day-to-day institutional relationships and administrative, legal, financial issues. It also coordinates the implementation of e-Services demanded by the Service Centre in Italy, and the Virtual Laboratories and Innovations Centre in The Netherlands. The national nodes, known as Distributed Centres, are operated by each of the seven members of the LifeWatch ERIC and are encouraged to establish Thematic Centres in accordance with ERIC overall architectural scheme.