The main goal with the present initiative is to establish a new national consortium with a unique national collaboration between the foremost institutions in Norway holding and operating hundreds databases of national character, highly relevant for future biodiversity research and management. The present proposal also includes international collaboration, both with a parallel Swedish LifeWatch and the FP 7 EU funded LifeWatch international program. NINA has also been invited by NordForsk to stimulate esta blishment of a Nordic Life Watch Network.
One of the main objectives of the project will, therefore, be to establish the national LifeWatch consortium, to map data availability and to work towards the development of e-tools for biodiversity data flow, har monized both with the EU project and the parallel Swedish strategy.
Collaboration and development of compatible systems for exchange of data at the national level represents an important step towards increased internationalization of biodiversity research . One of the ideas with the EU project LifeWatch, is to stimulate the partners to establish national funded LifeWatch Case studies.