Public services

ELIXIR's Data for Life podcast looks at the potential and current influence of data in medicine, genomics, biodiversity and many more life sciences. It features pioneers, entrepreneurs, investors and academics, who discuss  the rapid growth of the bioinformatics industry, the factors steering the field towards success, and the importance of open science. 

Episodes include influential and innovative people in biodata in Europe, such as Maria Chatzou Dunford (Founder of Lifebit), Hans Garritzen (Sales Director at MediSapiens) and Abel Ureta Vidal (Founder of Eagle Genomics).

The podcast is hosted by Hannes Rothe (Professor for Educational Service Engineering and IT Entrepreneurship, Freie Universität Berlin)  and Katharina Lauer (Industry Officer, ELIXIR Hub). Learn more about the hosts.

Previous episodes

About the hosts

What do a medical scientist and an economist have in common?

Kathi Lauer, ELIXIR Industry officer and doctor in medical sciences, met Hannes Rothe, an economist and entrepreneur, in Berlin at an entrepreneurship event on Digital Startup Ecosystems in 2017. Since then, they have been working together to understand what drives businesses to succeed in the field of biodata.

Innovation in life sciences data is their common denominator. It has inspired them to join forces and create this exciting podcast. Yet, this is not the only outcome of their collaboration. Data for Life is part of a larger project to update the ELIXIR report on ‘Public data resources as a business model for SMEs’. They will revamp this report not only thanks to the insights from experts’ featured in the series of podcasts but through a meticulous analysis, currently underway, of the booming innovation ecosystem in Europe. 

The ELIXIR Data Management Coordinators group consists of one or two appointed representatives from each ELIXIR Node. The Data Management Coordinators are the main contact points for each Node regarding Data Management issues.

The Data Management Coordinators form the core of the ELIXIR Data Management Network. Its formation was a milestone in the ELIXIR-CONVERGE project (WP1), and its members help ensure the delivery of the expected outcomes of this project work package. To achieve this, the Data Management Coordinators will rely on members of the larger ELIXIR Data Management Network and resources in the different Nodes.

The Data Management Network interacts through a mailing list, as well as through regular monthly meetings that are used for sharing of best practices, and how Data Management support is done in different countries.

It is expected that the Data Management Coordinators will continue as a function of ELIXIR after the completion of ELIXIR-CONVERGE.

The ELIXIR Data Management Network group brings together the Data Management community across ELIXIR. If you are interested in Data Management, it is a way you can communicate and share ideas across all the ELIXIR Nodes. The group has been established as an outcome of the ELIXIR-CONVERGE project.

The core of the Data Management Network is the Data Management Coordinators group. This group is made of Node representatives, who rely on the wider Data Management Network to deliver the outcomes of ELIXIR-CONVERGE.

The Data Management Network interacts through a mailing list, as well as through regular monthly meetings. These are used for sharing best practices and for discussing how Data Management support is done in different countries.

The group is open to join for anyone interested in Life Science Data Management issues. If you belong to an ELIXIR Node and you are interested in Data Management, you are strongly encouraged to join!

The ELIXIR Director is responsible for implementing the decisions of the ELIXIR Board. The Director:

• Manages and administers ELIXIR and the ELIXIR Hub staff;
• Appoints and dismisses ELIXIR staff;
• Prepares the Scientific Programme in consultation with the Heads of Nodes Committee, supervises and executes the Programme and oversees the Financial Plan;
• Proposes each year no later than 1 October a detailed ELIXIR budget for the following year;
• Presents annual scientific and financial reports to the ELIXIR Board.

The current ELIXIR Director is Tim Hubbard.

• Governance
• About us
• Back to the top

This Focus Group supports genotype to phenotype analysis for farmed and companion animal species. Connecting researchers and data scientists across species and countries is needed to accelerate genotype to phenotype research in domestic animals, and develop a coordinated, open and standardised data life cycle.

We aim to develop the case for a future Community and make initial progress at promoting and aligning tools, databases, standards, and best practices for domestic animal genomics and phenomics research. 

Goals

• Promote the Focus Group activities, seek membership, and scope future Community needs in different ELIXIR Nodes.
• Coordinate discussions and explore potential for data/technology solutions for addressing key issues in welfare, behaviour, health, infectious diseases, metabolism and nutritional efficiency and preservation of genetic diversity and environment.
• Develop data standards, coordination, workflows and visualisation for key developing areas of pangenomics, functional genomics, genome editing, phenotyping and biorepositories, which are needed to enhance data analyses.
• Develop FAIR data management guidelines, standards and ontologies and promote best practices in data coordination and archiving.
• Organise tools and data training and knowledge transfer events.

Leadership

Empowering ELIXIR staff members

The ELIXIR network has grown significantly in recent years, with several new Nodes and Communities joining. To effectively support the planning and delivery of Node activities such as coordination, training, service provision, infrastructure management, events and communication, it’s essential to empower new and existing ELIXIR members in growing their skills and capacities. Members also need easy access to key information, including clear onboarding pathways to participate in the wide range of activities across ELIXIR.

In 2019, the ELITMa management training programme was initiated to address these needs – ELITMa modules are designed for ELIXIR Node staff. In 2023, five modules were delivered, covering topics such as governance, Node data management strategy, strategic management, financial management and project management. In the near future, the programme will offer ten modular training courses on operations and management, including technical management. These activities are part of the EU-funded ELIXIR-STEERS project and PeoplePulse, the internally-funded ELIXIR project.

By the Nodes, for the Nodes 

Experts from the Nodes develop, lead and deliver ELITMa modules to benefit all ELIXIR members. Each module has a dedicated contact person at the ELIXIR Hub, to ensure alignment of strategic goals between the Hub and Nodes. As part of the PeoplePulse Project, an ELITMa Steering Group will be set up, with representatives from the Hub and Nodes. This group will oversee and guide the content, development and integration of the growing ELITMa portfolio.

Current efforts focus on consolidating and rolling out existing modules, as well as designing, developing and delivering the newly-planned ones. This will involve collaboration between ELIXIR-STEERS and the PeoplePulse internal project. The team will also engage with the wider ELIXIR community, inviting colleagues to contribute their expertise to ELITMa module development. The course portfolio will be developed using Training Platform resources and best practices, and showcased in the Training Platform portal SPLASH – short for Skills, Professional development, Learning Assessment, Support and Help. The ELITMa development team will also coordinate with the Professionalising Careers in Research Infrastructures Focus Group. Please contact Celia van Gelder at celia.vangelder@health-ri.nl if you would like to contribute.

ELITMa module overview

Note: The ELITMa programme was originally conceived with input from Ana Portugal Melo, whose early contributions were key to shaping ELITMa’s vision.

The ELIXIR All Hands meeting is an annual event that brings together members of the ELIXIR community. The goal of the event is to review ELIXIR’s achievements and activities so far, and discuss plans for the future. It includes:

• Presentations from the ELIXIR Platforms and Communities
• Workshops where groups within ELIXIR can plan, review and discuss their work
• Keynote lectures by invited speakers
• Social events where members of ELIXIR can network and meet new people

The All Hands event usually takes place in June and is for ELIXIR members and invited guests only.

Previous All Hands meetings

Videos of presentations are available for the 2020 meeting. Other meetings have links to presentation slides and photographs.

• All Hands 2024 (Uppsala)
• All Hands 2023 (Dublin)
• All Hands 2022 (Amsterdam)
• All Hands 2021 (online)
• All Hands 2020 (online)
• All Hands 2019 (Lisbon)
• All Hands 2018 (Berlin)
• All Hands 2017 (Rome)
• All Hands 2016 (Barcelona)
• All Hands 2015 (Hinxton)

The ELIXIR Board is the decision-making body in ELIXIR. The Board consist of scientific and administrative representatives from each ELIXIR Member State and EMBL. Members of the Board are authorised to deliberate, negotiate and decide on behalf of the respective Members.

What the Board does

The Board's powers are defined in the ELIXIR Consortium Agreement. Among other responsibilities, the Board:

• Approves the ELIXIR budget and ELIXIR’s Scientific Programme
• Appoints the ELIXIR Director, who is responsible for executing Board decisions
• Appoints members of the ELIXIR Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which advises the ELIXIR Board and the ELIXIR Director on scientific matters
• Establishes and oversees ELIXIR rules and procedures, approves and monitors the ELIXIR Nodes, drawing on advice from the SAB
• Oversees the management of risks and liabilities of ELIXIR

Members of the Board

• Chair: Prof. Alexander Goesmann (DE)
• Vice-Chair: Dr Zsuzsanna Dosztányi (HU)
• Vice-Chair: Prof. Christine Orengo (UK)

Observers

In addition, countries working towards signing the ECA have appointed representatives to the ELIXIR Board as Observers.

The ELIXIR Collaboration Agreement is the legal document that grants the status of an ELIXIR Node to a national community in an ELIXIR member state. It ties together the ELIXIR Hub with the national Node, establishing general responsibilities, a baseline governance structure and oversight of Node services. It enables the ELIXIR Hub to commission services (i.e. Commissioned Services) to ELIXIR Nodes and establishes framework conditions for the funding, with further details defined in separate funding agreements (i.e. Proposals of Funding).

The ELIXIR Board approved the original Collaboration Agreement template in 2014, which has since been revised. The updated version of this template, i.e. Collaboration Agreement 2024 template, is currently in use. Please contact legal@elixir-europe.org if you wish to request a copy of the Collaboration Agreement template 2024.

The Collaboration Agreement includes two Annexes:

• Governance
• About us
• Back to the top

In order to support ELIXIR's industry and innovation programme, the ELIXIR Hub is encouraging the Nodes to host Industry engagement days with the aim to connect with the national industry ecosystem and boost the open innovation ecosystem in the life sciences in the country.

Companies will have the chance to learn more about ELIXIR services and to forge strong links with the local ELIXIR representatives running these services, and consider building collaborative projects.

This scheme gives the opportunity to Nodes to explore the relevant national landscape, and define the Node’s motivation and focus for building an industry engagement strategy aligned with the Node’s strategic goals and priorities.

This scheme covers the costs of the venue, catering, travel expenses and salary costs up to a maximum of 1/2 person month per project.

See the detailed information about the 2023 Open call for how to apply.

Benefits of hosting an Industry Day

• To understand industry’s bioinformatics and bio-data needs in your country/region and be inspired for funding proposals.
• To showcase the Node’s resources and national infrastructure to funders and industry, therefore helping to increase long term sustainability for bioinformatics resources.
• To establish/strengthen relationships with local companies.

What could follow-up after the event

• Start a collaborative project with an industry partner through a Knowledge Exchange Scheme
• Work on a collaborative BioHackathon project

Relevant document: How to Engage with Industry

ELIXIR Nodes provide services that you can use to support biodiversity research. These include: analysing, annotating and archiving DNA sequence and other molecular data; finding and annotating biodiversity-relevant data; linking and integrating data sets, and many others. The page below provides further information, it will be updated frequently, any questions please contact Physilia Chua (Physilia.chua@elixir-europe.org).

• Archive DNA data in the correct repository
• Access and retrieve data relevant to biodiversity
• Make your data easier to find and share (FAIR)
• Find software and workflows to analyse your data
• Find computing resources to help you analyse datasets
• Find training materials to help you get started
• Contribute to ELIXIR’s Biodiversity work
• Other European-based biodiversity-relevant infrastructures

Archive DNA data in the correct repository

Sequence-based approaches to address biodiversity questions are now widely used and diverse. They can range from the generation of full annotated genomes to short sequence markers. These data can be used to address questions around taxonomies, species occurrence, dietary make-up, species abundance, and many others.

As an open data infrastructure, we encourage you to deposit all raw and consensus DNA sequence data in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). If you are not sure how to use the ENA then take the free online course. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.

Wider assitance and guidance to help with data management, can also be found in the ELIXIR RDM Kit, an online guide containing good data management practices applicable to research projects from the beginning to the end.

Access and retrieve data relevant to biodiversity

ELIXIR provides a range of data resources that allow scientists to access and retrieve Biodiversity  relevant data of various types:

• European Nucleotide Archive (ENA): the ENA provides a comprehensive record of the world’s nucleotide sequencing information. It covers raw sequencing data, sequence assembly information and functional annotation. For instance. search by species name to find all sequences for a particular organism. To learn more about how to use the ENA, take their free online course. 
• UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot: search UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot to find protein sequences for a particular organism. 
• MGnify: search MGNIFY using a range of environmental and biodiversity-related variables to retrieve relevant taxonomic, occurrence and abundance measures for a very wide variety of microbial species. 
• EuropePMC: use EuropePMC to search and annotate relevant literature by organism name or other biodiversity-relevant search terms. The search results include include full text access to publications where available. 
• SILVA: use SILVA to find and retrieve curated ribosomal RNA sequence data based on the dataset of millions of ribosomal sequences. The data includes genus-level taxonomic classification. 
• ITSOneDB: use ITSoneDB to find and retrieve curated ribosomal RNA ITS-1 sequence data with species identity, based on the carefully assembled dataset of millions of ITS-1 sequences. 
• Marine Metagenomics Portal: search the Marine Metagenomics Portal (MMP) to identify richly annotated and manually curated contextual (metadata) and sequences in connection with the biodiversity of the marine environment. 
• Ocean Gene Atlas (OGA): search the OGA to discover sequencing-derived species distribution and abundance maps for marine organisms. 
• BacDive: search BacDive to find manually curated knowledge about bacterial and archaeal biodiversity including taxonomy, physiology, morphology, molecular biology, isolation sources. 

Make your data easier to find and share (FAIR)

ELIXIR has an extenisve set of services that can help in making Biodiversity data sets more FAIR, including:

• ELIXIR Recommended Interoperability Reources (RIR) help to make your biodiversity data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). 
• FAIRsharing: find data and metadata standards, inter-related to databases and data policies relevant to biodiversity. 
• Bioschemas: you can use Bioschemas via schema.org markup on your websites so that they are indexable by search engines and other services to make their data more findable.

Find software and workflows to analyse your data

ELIXIR provides a diverse range of Services that can assist in the analysis of Biodiversity data:

• bio.tools: find biodiversity-specific software and analysis tools via bio.Tools, the ELIXIR tools registry. 
• Galaxy: browse to find workflows that enable biodiversity-relevant data processing and analysis including genome assembly, genome comparison and many other techniques.
• MGNIFY: access MGNIFY for an automated pipeline for the analysis and archiving of microbiome metagenomic data. This can help determine the taxonomic diversity and functional and metabolic potential of environmental samples. 

Find computing resources to help you analyse datasets

ELIXIR Nodes run computing services that can be accessed by research projects. Many additional computing resources have been made available to support a range of research projects and a number offer access to Docker Orchestrators including Mesos and OpenStack access, Kubernetes/OKD and potentially GPUs where needed - for assistance please contact jonathan.tedds@elixir-europe.org, ELIXIR’s Compute Platform Coordinator. Specific examples of compute resources include:

• de.NBI cloud (ELIXIR Germany) provides access for projects relating to biodiversity.
• CSC (ELIXIR Finland) cloud services.
• e-INFRA CZ (ELIXIR Czech Republic) offers supercomputer resources, storage services and distributed compute resources.
• The European Galaxy server is an open, web-based platform for data intensive research and provides access to compute and storage resources, more than 2,500 different scientific tools, training materials and workflows to guide users.
• EMBASSY Cloud resources is contributed by EMBL-EBI, as detailed on the European Open Science Cloud, EOSC Marketplace.
• ExPASy SIB Portal from SIB (ELIXIR Switzerland) provides a ready-to-use slurm workload manager with a scientific software stack.
• High performance compute and cloud resources provided by IFB (ELIXIR France), includes a federated set of national and regional servers.

Find training materials to help you get started

Use the ELIXIR Training Portal TeSS to find training courses and materials for hundreds of Bioinformatics Tools and Services.

Contribute to ELIXIR’s Biodiversity work

Join the ELIXIR Biodiversity Community.

Additional key Services, not part of the ELIXIR Infrastructure

The work of the ELIXIR Biodiversity Focus Group has identified a number of key services that are highlighted below, which are not currently part of the ELIXIR infrastructure, but which are highly relevant:

COPO - COPO is a data brokering service to help describe, store and retrieve genomic  data more easily, using community standards and public repositories.  For instance, DNA sequence data can be deposited in the ENA more easily using the standards and processes set out by COPO.

GlobalFungi - global repository of fungal metagenomic data obtained by next-generation-sequencing shared through a web based interface that allows various queries of the database and visualization of the results. The database covers data from all terrestrial habitats except those subject to experimental manipulation, containing information on fungal communities from soil, litter, dead plant material, living plant tissues and others.

Treatmentbank - Search the Plazi resource Treatmentbank using fulltext search or taxonomic names, bibliographic records or observation records to retrieve rich data about described species. 

Biodiversity Literature Repository is a community in Zenodo providing FAIR data liberated from taxonomic publications, that is taxonomic treatments, figures and annotated deposits of publications. It is the repository of the TreatmentBank service.

SIBiLS - Triage the literature with SIBiLS, which has pre-annotated the literature (MEDLINE, PMC, Treatmentbank, Allen AI pre-prints, ...) with a broad range of ontologies (taxonomic names, biotic interactions, ...). SIBiLS is a back office curation-support service and several of its annotations are mirrored into EuropePMC.

Other European-based biodiversity-relevant infrastructures

ELIXIR is part of a much wider network of Infrastructures dedicated to Biodiversity and with whom ELIXIR collaborate.  

• DiSSCo: The Distributed System of Scientific Collections is a new Research Infrastructure (RI) for natural science collections. The DiSSCo RI works towards digitally unifying all European natural science assets under common curation, access, policies and practices, and aims to ensure that the data is easily Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR).
• EMBRC-ERIC: EMBRC is a pan-European Research Infrastructure for marine biology and ecology research. With its services, it aims to answer fundamental questions regarding the health of oceanic ecosystems.
• Lifewatch-ERIC: LifeWatch ERIC seeks to understand the complex interactions between species and the environment, taking advantage of High-Performance, Grid and Big Data computing systems, and the development of advanced modelling tools to implement management measures aimed at preserving life on Earth.
• Catalogue of Life: Catalogue of Life has the aim is to collate the names of all species set in the context of a taxonomic hierarchy and of their distribution.
• CETAF: CETAF is the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities, a European network of Natural Science Museums, Natural History Museums, Botanical Gardens and Biodiversity Research Centres with their associated biological collections and research expertise.
• GBIF: The Global Biodiversity Information Facility is an international network and research infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.
• MIRRI-ERIC: The pan-European distributed Research Infrastructure for the preservation, systematic investigation, provision and valorisation of microbial resources and biodiversity. It offers its users a single point of access to the broadest range of high-quality microorganisms, their derivatives, associated data and services.
• OBIS: The Ocean Biodiversity Information System is a comprehensive gateway to the world’s ocean biodiversity and biogeographic data and information required to address pressing coastal and world ocean concerns.

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Introduction

A webinar is a live presentation by one or more speakers and open to all. The presentation will last 30-45 minutes followed by Q&A. The registration link will be promoted through ELIXIR channels and others. The presentation will be recorded and made available on YouTube. 

• Submission form for new webinars 
• Webinar details (internal) 
• Events guidelines 
• Presentation templates 
• Housekeeping slides  
• ELIXIR's Code of Conduct

Purpose of a webinar

• Presentation of work
• Disseminate information (eg. Outline a RFP / grant application process) 
• Maturity process of a group within ELIXIR (eg. Community  /  Focus Group) 
• Outreach, raising awareness of activities
• Training 

Planning a webinar

If / when the idea is first raised please complete this form. The more details the better, but everything can be discussed before the event is published. 

• Title 
• Speaker/s
• Contact details
• Date (if known or TBA) 
• A one-off event or part of a series?
• Is technical support required for the event?
• Branding guidelines 

Technical requirements

• Zoom Webinar
  • Attendees will be mute and unaware of who else is attending
  • Q&A and chat functions are available
  • Attendees can be invited to participate directly by the host
  • Zoom will be used for registration, circulating links and reminders.
• Alternatively Zoom Meeting (very similar, attendees able to engage more directly) 
• It is assumed presenters are familiar with Zoom, if not a rehearsal could be arranged prior to the event. 
• Slide deck: Powerpoint, Google Slides, Keynote, PDF or whichever is preferred. 

Promotion (ELIXIR Hub)

• Set up a public webpage (in time this will include the recording and slide deck as a lasting record of the webinar) 
• Open registration (via Zoom) 
  • Email
  • Gender data (Same question as other platforms: F/M/Non-binary/not say) 
  • If relevant, ask for consent to share participants' list (e.g. for EBIF type event)
  • Registrations will be handled inline with GDPR requirements.
• Promote the event (Comms team and others) 
  • Weekly Brief and/or Key Contributors Update 
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Mailing list, Slack Channels etc

Before the event (ELIXIR Hub)

• Liaise with speaker/s
• Share Housekeeping and Templates
• Arrange for Chair, if reqd. 
• Prepare an introduction for the speaker/s

On the day

• Open Zoom 30 minutes before the start
• Confirm that connections work (mic, camera, screenshare) 
• Review running order: 

Afterwards (hub)

• Download the recording, edit and upload to Youtube channel
• Update webpage 
  • Link to recording
  • Link to Slide deck (pdf)
  • Redraft the grammar (past tense) 

Considerations

• Videos or pre-recorded talks are strongly discouraged
• Live demonstrations can be very effective but it is advisable to a backup (slide deck of screenshots) 
• Lapel microphones (built into the headphone cable) are perfectly good but can brush against clothing which will be picked up on the recording 

Examples of Webinars include: 

• Commissioned Services around the time of the final report
• RFP guidelines
• Launch of activities / projects
• Communities or Focus Groups
• White paper publication
• Ongoing activities 
• AH proposals that are unsuccessful (Alternative outlet) 
• Platforms
• Nodes (esp. Node AH activities or Annual meeting) 
• Other (eg. GA4GH, EOSC) 

The European COVID-19 Data Platform enables the collection and sharing of research data for the European and global research communities. Data mobilisation is a core role for the Platform: via the SARS-CoV-2 Data Hubs viral raw sequence and assembled genomes can be systematically processed, openly shared, and variants examined in a wide ecosystem of visualisation and phylogenetic analysis tools.

The objective of this work-package is to mobilise viral genomes from national sequencing efforts in Europe and beyond into truly open data resources for surveillance of COVID-19 variants and expose variation data rapidly for analysis. This will be achieved by linking nascent and established national sequencing efforts to the COVID-19 Data Platform by setting up submission and annotation pipelines to the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). Participating efforts will commit to open sharing of variant data through ENA.

Objectives

Tasks

Task 9.1 Strengthen central Covid-19 Data Portal help desk for individual centres and brokers

Task 9.2 Coordinate nascent and established national data hubs focusing on brokering services to mobilise data and define and foster common best practices

Task 9.3 SARS-CoV-2 data standards

Task 9.4 SARS-CoV-2 Analysis

Deliverables

WP leaders

Commissioned Services and Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange programme

ELIXIR funds activities that connect and integrate services across ELIXIR Nodes. These projects are led by experts from specific Platforms or Communities, leveraging national strengths and facilitating collaboration and integration across ELIXIR Nodes.

There are two types of ELIXIR-funded activities:

• Commissioned Services (also known as Internal projects)
• Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange programme

Commissioned Services

Commissioned Services are projects funded through ELIXIR's own budget. They’re projects that:

The current Commissioned Services projects align with ELIXIR's 2024–28 Scientific Programme priorities: Science, Technology, People and Nodes. Click on the links below to discover more about the Commissioned Services projects for each priority.

• 

  Science Tier

  Enables scientists to access and analyse life science data

• 

  Technology Tier

  Deliver services to support distributed data management and analytics

• 

  Nodes Tier

  Equip national Nodes for successful long-term operations

• 

  People Tier

  Develop people and capacity to benefit science and society

Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange programme

These funding opportunities strengthen the links between and facilitate capacity building in ELIXIR Nodes, as well as supporting the exchange of best practices in bioinformatics service provision. They include Staff Exchanges, Travel Grants, Knowledge Exchanges and Industry days.

ELIXIR-STEERS aims to help life science researchers to access national data sets and conduct large-scale, cross-border analysis of data from across Europe.

It will promote good software management practices and support life scientists with their software management needs.

It will collect these good practices into a toolkit for green and reproducible software and workflows.

Background

ELIXIR STEERS builds on the work of two previous European projects:

• ELIXIR-EXCELERATE (2015-19) was a HORIZON 2020 project that helped establish ELIXIR. The project focussed on the coordination and delivery of bioinformatics services from national Nodes (see Who we are). It laid the foundation for a coordinated European life science infrastructure.
• ELIXIR-CONVERGE (2020-23) was another project funded by the European Commission. It developed the work of ELIXIR-EXCELERATE and added a critical component: it drove best practices, standards, training and support in data management across the ELIXIR Nodes. It also connected data management experts and established a network of data stewards across Europe.

Objectives

ELIXIR STEERS ensures that ELIXIR continues to operate as a world-class Research Infrastructure (RI), and continues to enable wider participation in computational life science research. It will focus on a new and critical area of scientific need: the provision of software and workflows to life scientists, maximising productivity in research, and minimising consequent energy usage. It will:

1. Create a toolkit for robust, reproducible, and green software and workflows.
2. Enable cross-border data analysis in the life sciences by embedding common practice across the whole European Research Area via the ELIXIR Nodes.
3. Partner in Europe and internationally for global competitiveness and sustainability.

Work Packages and their leaders

• WP1: Coordination and support
  Nikki Coutts, Juan Arenas (ELIXIR Hub)
• WP2: Implementation of research software best practices through ELIXIR Communities
  Silvio Tosatto (Univerity of Padua), John Hancock (University of Ljubljana), Fotis Psomopoulos (CERTH)
• WP3: Infrastructure services to enable adoption and deployment of software best practices
  ​Frederik Coppens (VIB)​, Salvador Capella-Guttierez (BSC)
• WP4: Strengthening and equipping ELIXIR Nodes and Node staff with key skills and resources in organisation, management and training
  Jessica Lindvall (University of Uppsala), Jiří Vondrášek (UOCHB), and Ana Portugal Melo (biodata.pt)
• WP5: Communications, outreach, industry and international
  Elaine Harrison, Despoina Sousoni (ELIXIR Hub)

Participants

38 research institutes in 25 countries across Europe.

Deliverables

There are 17 deliverables. See the deliverables page.

Governance

The project is coordinated by the ELIXIR Director (at the ELIXIR Hub). It is overseen by the Management Board, which is made up of the STEERS Work Package leaders and the ELIXIR Director. The Board receives input from the ELIXIR Heads of Nodes Committee, the ELIXIR Scientific Advisory Board, and the ELIXIR Industry Advisory Committee. For more about these advisory bodies and how ELIXIR is run see Governance.

Principal Investigator

Duration

Three years (February 2024 - January 2027)

Budget

€4M

Contact

steers-info@elixir-europe.org

• EU projects
• How we are funded
• Back to the top

• ELIXIR-STEERS
• EU projects
• Back to the top

The ELIXIR-STEERS project involves 36 institutes in 23 countries.

Institute	ELIXIR Node
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna
ATHENA-RC (ATHENA Research and Innovation Information Technologies)
BioData.pt
BSC (Barcelona Supercomputing Center)
BSRC (Biomedical Sciences Research Center 'Alexander Fleming')
CERTH (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas)
Clusterul Roman de Bioinformatica (CRB)	(Romania is not yet an ELIXIR Node)
CNB-CSIC
CSC
The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics
Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, Università degli Studi di Padova
Earlham Institute
EMBL-EBI (European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Bioinformatics Institute)
Hellenic Pasteur Institute
INRAE (l'Institut National de Recherche en Agriculture, Alimentation et Environement)
Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Czech Academy of Science
National Research Council, Institute of Biomembranes, Bioenergetics and Molecular Biotechnologies (IBIOM-CNR)
PNED G.I.E
SIB (Institut Suisse de Bioinformatique)
Stichting Health-RI
Stockholm University
TERMESZETTUDOMANYI KUTATOKOZPONT / Research Centre for Natural Sciences
UiT The Arctic university of Norway
Universität Wien (University of Vienna) (AV)	(Austria is not yet an ELIXIR Node)
University College Dublin (UCD)
Université de Rennes
University of Bergen
University of Copenhagen
University of Cyprus
University of Ljubljana
University of Manchester
University of Southern Denmark
University of Tartu
University of Zagreb School of Medicine	(Croatia is not yet an ELIXIR Node)
Uppsala University
VIB VZW
Weizmann Institute of Science

• ELIXIR-STEERS
• EU projects
• Back to the top

This WP will oversee the project execution and ensure the project goals are accomplished within the expected scope, timeframe, and resources, and with the required level of quality. It will also monitor the risk, issues, and opportunities to maximise the benefit delivered by the project.

Objectives

Tasks

Task 1.1 Project mobilisation and guidance - adoption of project management boards, governance and internal project communication

Task 1.2 Project monitoring and support

Task 1.3 Development and implementation of a project data management plan and correlated activities

Task 1.4 Development of long-term sustainability plan for project outputs

Task 1.5 Excellence in Management

WP leaders

• ELIXIR-STEERS
• EU projects
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WP3 will extend existing infrastructure components to implement the best-practices and indicators for research software and workflows developed in WP2.

To ensure adoption of the best practices and aid recognition of the indicators, WP3 will integrate relevant features in community-adopted and recommended registries, and expose them in platforms used for assessing research outputs.

Further dissemination of these practices will be done through the development of a Software Management Planning tool, with integrated guidelines.

Objectives

Tasks

Task 3.1 Enable crediting scientists for research assets

Task 3.2 Contributing towards sustainable research software through Software Management Plans

Task 3.3 Identify fit-for-purpose reproducible workflows through technical and scientific benchmarking

Task 3.4 Integrating optimisation criteria for environmental impact in commonly used workflow management systems

WP leaders

• ELIXIR-STEERS
• EU projects
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The overall goal of this WP is to strengthen the organisational, managerial, and training skills of ELIXIR Nodes, thus enabling their effective operation.

Effective operations will lead to more efficient, more visible, and widely accessible services, in addition to increased performance of ELIXIR as a pan-European RI.

Objectives

Tasks

Task 4.1 Embedding good practices in ELIXIR Node Operations

Task 4.2 Organisational and research management capacity for Nodes

Task 4.3 Capacity building in training skills for ELIXIR Node staff

WP leaders

• ELIXIR-STEERS
• EU projects
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