ALTER-Net is a founder organisation of LifeWatch, a European plan to link ecological monitoring data collected from marine and terrestrial environments with the vast amount of data in physical collections. The new infrastructure will open up new areas of research and new services by providing access to the large data sets from different (genetic, population, species and ecosystem) levels of biodiversity together with analytical and modelling tools.

LifeWatch is now supported by 8 co-operating EU networks. Along with participating EU member states, they have submitted a proposal to the European Commission for a preparatory phase of work. This will cover the following areas:

• Strategy for the infrastructure establishment
• Organisation and legal structures
• Financial plan
• Construction logistics and technical plans
• Service, support and publicity