Key Contributors Update 25 May 2018

This update is sent weekly on Friday afternoon and goes to ELIXIR key stakeholders. It contains requests for actions regarding operations and developments within ELIXIR. Contact joana.wingender@elixir-europe.org for any questions.

An ELIXIR HoNs shared folder including meeting materials from HoN meetings, reference documents, slides & graphics archive can be found on google drive.

For action

New

Recently thirteen Member States (including many ELIXIR countries) signed an EU Declaration on providing access to 1 million human genomes by 2022. ELIXIR is referenced as a key infrastructure in the Declaration itself and whilst the national implementation of this may vary between countries, ELIXIR Nodes should at least expect to be seen as a part of the picture. We would like to build an understanding of what the Declaration means for Nodes, so have generated a brief survey to gather information on its impact.
This survey is open and we would like one reply per Node by Friday, 16 June.

For action

Ongoing

Final Reminder! As approved by the Board, in this year's Work Plan we have allocated funds for Community-led Implementation Studies. To ensure a transparent process driven by scientific excellence we will use the ELIXIR Board approved process for internal tendering (ELIXIR/2015/27.1) to select a small portfolio of Implementation Studies.

We are developing the request for proposals and will bring it to the HoN for approval at the HoN meeting at the All-Hands meeting in June. We then expect to open the request for proposals in Q3/2018. The ELIXIR Communities and Services Coordinator, John Hancock, is coordinating this project.

In preparation for the call, please suggest potential reviewers for these Implementation Studies. Reviewers should be senior, active researchers who are not current participants in ELIXIR. They should have background and expertise in infrastructure services and in particular expertise relating to the existing seven ELIXIR Communities: Galaxy, Human Data, Marine Metagenomics, Metabolomics, Proteomics, Plant Science and Rare Diseases.

Please send suggestions to John Hancock (john.hancock@elixir-europe.org) by the end of May 2018.

For information

The agendas for the ELIXIR EXCELERATE Heads of Nodes meeting (5 June) and the Heads of Nodes meeting (6-7 June) taking place at the All Hands have been made available on Google Drive.

The draft ELIXIR 2019-23 Programme will be among the documents discussed at the HoN meeting.
The RItrain project is organising an interactive workshop for Research Infrastructures (RIs) to cooperate on equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The agenda will be shaped by the needs and priorities of the participating RIs, but the overall workshop aims are for participants to:

Increase knowledge and understanding of the full spectrum of equality, diversity and inclusion
Network and exchange experiences with other RIs on their status and challenges
Identify best practices
Create or revise an RI-specific action plan

The workshop is to take place from 29-30 October 2018 (TBC) at EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK. There is no registration fee, participants are expected to cover their travel and accommodation costs.

Register your interest via this Doodle poll or contact Claire Johnson (claire@ebi.ac.uk) for further information.

Key dates and meetings

Heads of Nodes meeting @ ELIXIR All Hands

  • 6-7 June 2018, Berlin, Germany

Extraordinary ELIXIR Board meeting

  • 2 July 2018, Barcelona, Spain

Heads of Nodes meeting @ ECCB 2018

  • 13 September 2018, Athens, Greece

SAB Teleconference

  • 21 June 2018

ELIXIR Board meeting

  • 12-13 November 2018, Ljubljana, Slovenia

ELIXIR 5th Anniversary event

  • 11 December 2018, Brussels, Belgium

Heads of Nodes meeting

  • 12 December 2018, Brussels, Belgium