The goal of the ELIXIR Data Platform is to drive the use, re-use and value of life science data. It aims to do this by providing users with sustainable data resources within a coordinated and scalable data ecosystem.
Bioinformaticians and life science researchers in both academic and industrial settings need confidence in the sound governance, life cycle management, and long-term sustainability of those data resources.
They also need open access to technically and scientifically excellent data resources for effective data discovery, deposition, and re-use. The ELIXIR Data platform promotes Open Access as a core principle for publicly funded research. ELIXIR resources ideally reflect this commitment and have terms of use or a licence that enables the reuse and remixing of data (see Open Definition for a list of open licenses).
Platform highlights
- ELIXIR Core Data Resources: European data resources that are of fundamental importance to research in the life sciences and are committed to the long-term preservation of data.
- ELIXIR Deposition Databases: repositories recommended for the deposition of life sciences experimental data.
- Data resource services: this list is updated as Nodes finalise or review their Service Delivery Plans (see How countries join).
How the Platform is organised
The Platform is organised into five Work Packages.
WP1: Management and coordination
Goal: To monitor and manage the Platform activities throughout the 2024-2026 work plan.
Activities:
- Organising annual face-to-face Platform meetings for discussion, planning and decision-making.
- Organising monthly teleconferences (TCs) to help coordination and collaboration within the Platform.
Leads: Patrick Ruch (SIB, Switzerland), Ulrike Wittig (HITS, Germany), Silvio Tosatto (University of Padua, Italy)
WP2: Connecting and brokering Node contributions to ELIXIR data resources
Goal: To develop best practises for data brokering across ELIXIR Nodes.
Activities:
- Exploring the current landscape for data brokering: the analysis of ELIXIR data resources and the requirements for data linkage and submission of multi-omics studies to ELIXIR Deposition Databases.
- Defining best practices for data brokering.
- Implementing use cases of these best practices.
Leads: Flora D'Anna (VIB, Belgium), Ugis Sarkans (EMBL-EBI), Zahra Waheed (EMBL-EBI), Wolmar Nyberg Åkerström (Uppsala University, Sweden), Monique Zahn (SIB, Switzerland), Sveinung Gundersen (University of Oslo, Norway)
WP3: Recognition and credit attribution of research contributions to data resources
Goal: To support the recognition and credit attribution of activities that contribute to the increase of data in resources such as knowledge bases.
Activities:
- Developing the technical means for recognition by extending the APICURON platform.
- Increasing the social engagement for recognition through gamification.
- Engaging with other ELIXIR groups and other organisations to promote the uptake of social and technical recognition methods.
Leads: Damiano Piovesan (University of Padua, Italy), SE-UU - Mihail Anton 1.5, Valerie Wood (University of Cambridge, UK), Patrick Ruch (SIB, Switzerland), Alban Gaignard (CNRS, France), Thanasis Vergoulis (Athena Research Center, Greece), Silvio Tosatto (University of Padua, Italy)
WP4: Scalable curation support from the long tail of biological data
Goal: To support the FAIRification of data stored in sematically poor files e.g. supplementary data attached to published scientific reports.
Activities:
- Coordinating literature curation practices, including defining some minimal data typology shared by all data resources.
- Turning the long tail of literature and supplementary data into FAIR digital objects.
- Exploring how published evidence could be better captured, cross-referenced and displayed. This will leverage methods to uniquely identify both sentences and sections in articles.
Leads: Julien Gobeill (SIB, Switzerland), Tom Lenaerts (Free University of Brussels, Belgium), Matt Jeffryes (EMBL-EBI), Aravind Venkatesan (EMBL-EBI), Luana Licata (University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy)
WP5: Establishing and shaping the landscape of Core and Community biological databases
Goal: To support the FAIRification of data stored in sematically poor files e.g. supplementary data attached to published scientific reports.
Activities:
- Coordinating the interaction between ELIXIR Data Platform and the Global Biodata Coalition.
- Establish a procedure for identifying and badging ELIXIR Community databases.
- Producing recommendations to establish improved Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to evaluate ELIXIR databases.
Leads: Damiano Piovesan (University of Padua, Italy), Julien Gobeill (SIB, Switzerland), Lucy Poveda (SIB, Switzerland), Patrick Ruch (SIB, Switzerland), Melissa Harrisson (EMBL-EBI)
Commissioned Services
The Data Platform has also completed a number of short-term projects called Commissioned Services. For details of these projects, see the Commissioned Services page.
Leadership
Ulrike Wittig
(ELIXIR Germany)
Platform Lead
(ELIXIR Switzerland)
Platform Lead
(ELIXIR Italy)
Platform Lead
(Platform Coordinator, ELIXIR Hub)
Find out more
- Learn about the Core Data Resources work:
- Durinx C, McEntyre J, Appel R et al. Identifying ELIXIR Core Data Resources. F1000Research 2017, 5(ELIXIR):2422 (doi: 10.12688/f1000research.9656.2)
- Rachel Drysdale, Charles E Cook, Robert Petryszak, et al. The ELIXIR Core Data Resources: fundamental infrastructure for the life sciences, Bioinformatics, btz959 (doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btz959)
- Drysdale R, McEntyre J, Durinx C et al. The Annual Indicator Monitoring and Periodic Review Processes: ELIXIR Core Data Resources and Deposition Databases [version 1; not peer reviewed]. F1000Research 2020, 9(ELIXIR):114 (document) (https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1117816.1)
- Learn more about the Global Data Resource initiative:
- Data management: A global coalition to sustain core data. Nature 543, 179 (09 March 2017) doi: 10.1038/543179a
- Towards Coordinated International Support Of Core Data Resources For The Life Sciences Biorxiv preprint (27 April 2017) doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/110825
- Stockinger H, Barlow M, Cook C et al. Plan for collation of metrics and quality data at the ELIXIR Hub. (Zenodo 2018) doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1194122
- See the current Database Services listing.