Weekly Brief, 27 March 2023

This week's highlights

Reminder: ELIXIR All Hands 2023 poster abstract submission closing soon

Deadline: 3 April 2023

Registered participants at ELIXIR All Hands 2023 are welcome to present posters to share the broad variety of ELIXIR-related work and foster partnerships across the ELIXIR network. More information and the poster template can be found on the event website.

Submit your poster abstract by 3 April 2023 (registered participants only)

BioHackathon project proposal submission

Do you have a bioinformatics project idea that needs a little stimulus? Submit your project proposals to get the chance to meet with experts to drive the project forward.

Submit your project proposal by 10 April 2023

Recommended reads

Optimizing Short-format Training: an International Consensus on Effective, Inclusive, and Career-spanning Professional Development in the Life Sciences and Beyond

An ELIXIR Training Platform paper

Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) fields change rapidly and are increasingly interdisciplinary. STEMM practitioners use short-format training (SFT) for upskilling and reskilling. However, unaddressed challenges can limit SFTs effectiveness and inclusiveness. This paper describes the phenomenography and content analyses that produced a set of 14 actionable recommendations to systematically strengthen SFT. Recommendations were derived from findings in the educational sciences and the experiences of several of the largest life science SFT programs. Recommendations cover the breadth of SFT contexts and stakeholder groups and include actions for instructors, programs, as well as organizations and funders.

Read more

Remote visualization of large-scale genomic alignments for collaborative clinical research and diagnosis of rare diseases

An ELIXIR Implementation Study

One of the Solve-RD project objectives includes solving undiagnosed rare diseases through collaborative research on shared genome-phenome datasets. The RD-Connect GPAP, for data collation and analysis, and the EGA, for file storage, are two key components of the Solve-RD infrastructure. Researchers can identify candidate genetic variants within the RD-Connect GPAP and, thanks to the developments presented here as part of joint ELIXIR activities, are able to remotely visualize the corresponding alignments stored at the EGA. This study highlights the advantages of implementing interoperability standards for establishing federated genomics data networks from both the user and infrastructure perspectives.

Read more

Updates from Nodes

New job opportunities at ELIXIR Belgium

ELIXIR Belgium has six open job vacancies, from Data steward and project management to software development, data management and data analysis.

Apply now to join ELIXIR Belgium

DNA isolated from Baltic Sea sediment shedding light on climate change and biodiversity

Research director, geneticist Petri Auvinen and his research team are using DNA samples to find out what has been happening in the Baltic ecosystem during the past 10,000 years.

Find out more

Save the date for the Health-RI/EOSC-Life workshop

13-14 June 2023

Join Health-RI/EOSC-Life workshop with the theme Bridging the gap between researchers and research infrastructures in June. The aim of the event is to showcase resources developed in European RI, get feedback on these resources from anticipated users, and bridge the gap between RIs and the broader user community.

Check the event programme

SIB Training releases Glittr.org - A web app to find bioinformatics training materials on GitHub and GitLab

Glittr.org is a web app that showcases bioinformatics training repositories on GitHub and GitLab. It allows users to search and compare training materials that match their interest area and use them to learn new skills or reuse them in training courses.

Explore Glittr.org and its features

Updates from Communities

Provide your feedback on the emerging Data Management Community White Paper

Deadline: 30 March 2023

The emerging ELIXIR Data Management Community are presenting their white paper draft for consultation and feedback.
Please add your comments directly to the PDF document or send to clare.garrard [at] elixir-europe.org (ELIXIR's Scientific Officer - Life Science Communities, Clare Garrard)

Read the white paper draft

Join the ELIXIR Toxicology Community call & shape the Community Implementation Study

29 March 2023 | 15:00 CEST

The Toxicology Community will meet on 29 March 2023 (Wednesday) to discuss the Community Implementation Study. Please join and/or reach out to the Community co-leads if you are interested in contributing to their Implementation Study.

Agenda and connection details

Updates from Other Initiatives

EC Webinar: Lump Sum Funding in Horizon Europe

11 May 2023 | Online

The European Commission is holding another information webinar about lump sum funding in Horizon Europe: How does it work? How to write a proposal?

More information and registration

UK association to Horizon Europe: Latest update from UKRI and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)

• The UK Government is committed to building a strong research and innovation system which remains open to global engagement. The Science and Technology Framework includes a chapter outlining how the UK will enable broader European collaboration.
• The UK has remained open to discussing research and innovation collaboration with the EU, but no concrete proposals have yet been made and no concrete timeline has been agreed on the finalisation of the association process.
  More information can be found on UKRI website | Factsheet on UK participation
• In response to the delay to UK's association to Horizon Europe, the UK HE Guarantee has been extended by an additional three months and now covers calls with deadlines that close on or before the end of June 2023.
• The transitional measures in addition to the guarantee, announced last year, are still relevant.

ISIDORe annual meeting

29 March 2023

The ISIDORe first anniversary half-day event is open to external audiences. The event will gather speakers from key European infectious disease funding and policy-making bodies, relevant initiatives, as well as the ISIDORe project.

More information and registration

PATTERN Project survey to map researcher trainings in Open RRI and identity needs

Deadline: 25 April 2023

The European project PATTERN is mapping the current training opportunities in Open and Responsible Research and Innovation (Open RRI) that aim to better integrate research and innovation in society.

Fill out the survey

Upcoming ELIXIR events & webinars

ELIXIR Training Courses & Webinars

The ELIXIR TeSS portal has a variety of interesting events and courses organised by the ELIXIR Nodes. For more, visit TeSS portal

ELIXIR Events and Conferences

ELIXIR Systems Biology Community F2F/hybrid & Implementation Study kick-off Meeting
12 - 14 April 2023 | Hybrid - Braga, Portugal

ELIXIR Innovation and SME Forum: AI in Health Research
13 April 2023 | Utrecht, the Netherlands

ELIXIR All Hands 2023
5-8 June 2023 | Dublin, Ireland

BioHackathon Europe 2023
30 October - 3 November 2023 | Barcelona, Spain

Job vacancies

All vacancies are also published on the ELIXIR website (also including those from industry). If you need our help communicating your new open positions, you can submit a job advertisement and it will automatically appear on our newsletters. Go to our vacancy page to submit a job
 

Bioinformatics Technical Community Engagement Officer

Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), coordinators of INB/ELIXIR-ES

Senior Research Engineer

Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), coordinators of INB/ELIXIR-ES

Web Front-end Developer

Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), coordinators of INB/ELIXIR-ES

Junior Research Engineer

Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), coordinators of INB/ELIXIR-ES

Software developer

VIB