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The original vision on what later became LifeWatch ERIC started about a quarter of a century ago in 1996. In those days, the promise of digital technologies entered biodiversity and ecosystem research. Not only by digitiing relevant information, but also with applications to process such data. While several (inter)national initiatives embarked on specific topics, there was also an idea that the upcoming view on grid computing provided attractive solutions for federated data sources, together with a strong computing capacity. This paper presents the history from conception to early actions, until actual preparations towards a research infrastructure on the European scale.