ELIXIR in the European Research Infrastructure landscape
ELIXIR, as Europe’s life science data infrastructure, has an important role in connecting the 13 ESFRI BMS RIs. The ELIXIR 2019–23 Scientific Programme builds on the well-established national collaborations and European partnerships between the BMS RIs to ensure that our services are widely available to researchers as they access Europe’s advanced life science facilities. Our goal is to ensure that life science data is FAIR and readily available for reuse and that users have easy access to the computational tools and resources. There are many strong, national collaborations between BMS RIs, for instance the HealthRI collaboration in the NL brings together the national nodes of BBMRI, EATRIS and ELIXIR; IMIM in Spain co-hosts the nodes of Instruct, EU-OPENSCREEN and ELIXIR. International alignment is therefore a key requirement and we expect that joint solutions in the EOSC that link data, tools and workflows will drive further collaboration and harmonisation.
Building on established collaborative projects with BMS RIs and with European e-Infrastructures ELIXIR has coordinated the cluster projects that bring together the ESFRI research infrastructures within the EC research infrastructure programme. We have made our different data types interoperable (e.g. in the EC FP7-funded cluster project, BioMedBridges) and have enabled researchers to access any combination of our services in an integrated manner (e.g. in the EC H2020-funded cluster project CORBEL). Through these projects, the BMS RIs have mapped out their data management practices and generated metadata standards catalogues.27 These practices and standards, through the strong connection with data experts and users in other infrastructures, guide and embed the ELIXIR services throughout the community. The CORBEL project developed the concept of shared innovation pipelines; advanced biomedical research (e.g. biomarker discovery) needs to make extensive use of services across infrastructures (such as imaging, biobanks, and molecular structures) and to put in place effective interfaces, as well as the joint services needed for open, excellence-driven, calls for access across research infrastructures. The CORBEL data management work has been embedded into the ELIXIR Interoperability Platform and has delivered the services, identifiers and ontologies needed for the integration and interoperability of BMS RI data resources. The BMS RIs have also jointly engaged in the e-Infrastructure project, AARC2, to develop a specification of AAI suitable for the life science community. The ELIXIR AAI, and work planned on AAI in AARC2 (2017–2019), and the EOSC build on the foundation laid in ELIXIR-EXCELERATE (2015-2019) and in ELIXIR’s Implementation Studies. We now move towards the operations of a joint Life Science AAI, with component e-Infrastructure services provided by a GEANT, EGI and EUDAT consortium.
27. ELIXIR, EU-OPENSCREEN, BBMRI, EATRIS, ECRIN, INFRAFRONTIER, Suhr S (editor). Principles of data management and sharing at European Research Infrastructures. Zenodo 2014, http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8304
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ELIXIR Scientific Programme 2019–23
ELIXIR leads the joint BMS RI consortium in the EOSC (EOSC-Life), and we expect that this will be a key driver for the continued collaboration between BMS RIs in the context of the developing EOSC. ELIXIR is also a partner in EOSCpilot and in the e-Infrastructureled EOSC-hub projects, and is thus actively involved in shaping the European open data policy and data service landscape in close collaboration with other stakeholders.
Deepening the long-term partnership with European Research and e-Infrastructures The BMS RI partnership builds on joint long-term planning. In 2015, the BMS RIs, through a joint memorandum of understanding, established the BMS RI Strategy Board comprising the Directors of the established ESFRI BMS RIs together with the coordinators of the ESFRI preparatory phase infrastructures. The BMS RI Strategy Board actively monitors the overall development of the BMS RI landscape and provides an interface between the individual research infrastructures, emerging new infrastructures, and design studies. The BMS RI Strategy Board contributes to long-term sustainability by identifying synergies and by articulating joint priorities between infrastructures, and by ensuring that ELIXIR maintains strong political, scientific and technical links with the other BMS RIs. In particular it provides the high-level strategic discussion of common issues concerning data, where ELIXIR is considered the lead.
‘All ESFRI Biomedical Science Research Infrastructures generate data and these need to flow into sustainable databases that are interoperable, safe and secure.’
The BMS RIs are at different stages of development, from established ESFRI Landmarks to early preparatory phase projects. Aside from the work in our joint H2020 project, ELIXIR’s interactions and partnerships with the other BMS RIs will therefore consist of multiple mechanisms. For instance, in 2014 ELIXIR and EuroBioImaging agreed an Image Data Strategy to jointly work on data resources to enable Imaging Archives to be linked to genomics and other biomolecular data. ELIXIR’s Marine Community is working in close collaboration with the marine research stations in EMBRC; and likewise, the work of the ELIXIR plant community is closely aligned with the developing data strategy for the plant phenotyping centres in EMPHASIS. ELIXIR Nodes and resources covering molecular and cellular biology, chemical biology, translational research, environmental and agricultural sciences, form the research data backbone for life science in the European Research Area. Through our distributed organisation we bring together experts and users from all over Europe and aim to form strong national collaborations with the nodes of other BMS RIs. The ELIXIR Communities provide an important mechanism for these partnerships, where the domain experts from ELIXIR Nodes, who often work in close collaboration with national facilities from other BMS RI, can identify and implement the data services needed by the users of these facilities. ELIXIR will also seek to establish further joint data strategies, where necessary, supported by high-level collaborative agreements or MoUs, to drive the development of a shared European data landscape rooted in FAIR principles and based on shared data and metadata standards. As ELIXIR’s portfolio of Communities evolves we expect many of them to be closely aligned with other BMS RIs, facilitating closer interactions and co-working. Examples of possible future interactions at this level include the INSTRUCT and Infrafrontier BMS RIs.