ELIXIR Focus Groups are agile structures that bring interested parties together around a particular topic. Typically they are used to address emerging areas of interest and seek to identify a strategy that ELIXIR can follow.
Establishing a Focus Group may lead to a new ELIXIR Community, but that is not the default intention. In most cases that will not happen. In addition, it will not be a requirement for a proposed new Community to have previously been a Focus Group.
Focus Groups are open to any member of ELIXIR plus, where useful, external parties. They are established by a lightweight approval process, at the discretion of the ELIXIR Director.
You can find the rationale, a more detailed description, and the application form to create a Focus Group, in this Google Doc.
Current Focus Groups
- AI Ecosystem
- Communities Future
- Domestic Animals Genome and Phenome
- Environmental Impact
- EOSC
- Learning Paths
- Pathogen Data
- Professionalising Careers in Research Infrastructures
Past Focus Groups
- Biocuration (2021–25)
- Biodiversity – in May 2023 this group became the Biodiversity Community
- Cancer Data – in February 2024 this group became the Cancer Data Community
- FAIR Training (2021–25)
- Health data (2020–24)
- Machine Learning (AI) (2019–25)
- Research Data Alliance (RDA) Activities (2015–25)
- Registries (2020–22)
- Systems Biology – in May 2022 this group became the Systems Biology Community