On 22 June, Scotland’s Environment Web (SEWeb) won the Holyrood 2016 Connect ICT Award for Project Delivery.
This award category recognises large and complex projects being successfully developed and delivered each year across the public sector and is presented to the project team that can demonstrate best practice in the successful delivery of an ICT project.
In addition to this, and earlier in the month, the EU commission announced the five Best of the Best environment LIFE projects for 2015 and Scotland’s Environment Web was one of them. These awards recognise the most effective and inspiring LIFE projects in the field of nature protection and environment, which, if applied widely, would have a highly positive impact on the environment, boosting economic growth and providing significant benefits for European citizens.
Scotland’s Environment Web
Scotland’s Environment Web is an innovative partnership between a wide range of organisations involved in environmental protection and improvement in Scotland. In 2010, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) successfully applied to the European Commission on behalf of Scotland’s Environment Web partners for funding to support and develop this initiative
Scotland’s Environment website provides access to data and information held and managed by a wide range of organisations across Scotland. It is the start of a long term commitment to develop a new, modern and dynamic approach to presenting information by moving away from static, point-in-time reports, to a website where the most up-to-date environmental information is provided.
Between September 2011 and March 2015, the LIFE+ project funding has been used to further develop Scotland’s Environment Web, so that it provides much more than information on a website. The LIFE funding built on the existing website, and aimed to:
- build a platform for shared services and achieve efficiency savings by developing a range of online applications to facilitate a more streamlined approach to the provision and use of environmental information and data;
- deliver an advanced environmental information system that provides a single point of access to data on Scotland’s environment, and improves priority data stream reporting to Europe;
- improve sharing, analysis and presentation of environmental information through an enhanced network of partnerships between interested organisations, businesses, groups and individuals;
- improve understanding of Scotland’s environment through research and advanced analysis on collected data;
- improve methods of identifying and prioritising environmental problems, and targeting measures to manage and improve Scotland’s environment;
- develop citizen science initiatives and promote public involvement in the process of collecting data and observations;
You can read the final project report from Scotland’s Environment Web.
Scotland’s Environment Web and SEPA are also involved in the development of the Atlas of Living Scotland.
The Life+ programme
The LIFE+ programme is the European Union’s funding instrument for the environment. The general objective of LIFE is to contribute to the implementation, updating and development of EU environmental policy and legislation.
Further grants
The LIFE programme has launched two calls for proposals, underlining its commitment to supporting projects that protect the environment and tackle the impact of climate change.
The 2016 call for action grants for the LIFE programme was launched on 19 May 2016 and covers proposals for both environment and climate action sub-programmes.