ELIXIR, the European life science infrastructure, has released its eighth Annual Report. The report covers the efforts and achievements of over 800 experts from 22 ELIXIR Nodes, and highlights ELIXIR’s expertise in connecting people, data and resources.
The report represents the midpoint in the 2019-2023 Scientific Programme and details the progress that has been made against ELIXIR’s long-term strategic objectives.
In 2021, ELIXIR was involved in 13 EU-funded projects, four in a coordination role. The €12M BY-COVID project was added to the portfolio to provide the infrastructure for making data from COVID-19 and other infectious diseases open and accessible to everyone. The ELIXIR-CONVERGE project received a €2M uplift to mobilise viral variant surveillance data tracking services and tools to feed the European COVID-19 Data Platform.
During the year, ELIXIR added to the 32 ongoing internal projects by funding 12 new projects, with a total investment of €3.3M. Operated by the ELIXIR Nodes, these projects drive the integration of services and build links between ELIXIR Platforms, Nodes and Communities.
2021 was a year of reflection, not just on the role of Open Science in the COVID-19 pandemic response but also on the progress made with implementation of the ELIXIR Scientific Programme.
“As an advisory body, the SAB never hesitates to make recommendations for improvements, this year we were more than impressed with not just how the suggestions were received, but how many were implemented and others challenged.”
BF Francis Ouellette, Chair of ELIXIR Scientific, Advisory Board (2018 - 2022)
The report highlights the expansion of ELIXIR’s horizons through collaborations with global organisations and life science industries. The impact of ELIXIR on the scientific and policy fields is demonstrated through analysis of scientific publications and policy documents.
In the second half of the Programme cycle, ELIXIR will continue to serve the research community in enabling the exploration and exploitation of open life science data and resources.
“As we look ahead into 2022, we will build on the learnings from the pandemic: the value of strong collaborations, European networks and Open Science to mount rapid responses. ELIXIR is a distributed infrastructure – our services, expertise and support to scientists is delivered through our Nodes – and these values are at the core of our work.”
Niklas Blomberg, ELIXIR Director
All Annual Reports and Scientific Programmes are archived on our Publications page