ELIXIR (the European life-sciences Infrastructure for biological Information) is an initiative that will allow

life science Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...

laboratories across Europe to share and store their research data as part of an organised network. Its goal is to bring together Europe’s research organisations and data centres to help coordinate the collection, quality control and storage of large amounts of biological data produced by

experiments. ELIXIR aims to ensure that biological data is integrated into a federated system easily accessible by the scientific community.

Mission

ELIXIR's mission is to build a sustainable European infrastructure for biological information, supporting life science research and its translation to medicine and the environment, the bio-industries and society. The results from biological experiments produce vast amounts of results that are stored as data using computer

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

. European countries have invested heavily in research that produces, analyses and stores biological information. However, the collection, storage, archiving and integration of these large amounts of data presents a problem that cannot be tackled by one country alone. ELIXIR represents the joining of independent bioscience facilities to create an integrated network that addresses the complex problem of biological data storage and management. By providing a sustainable and distributed structure for handling data and data retrieval tools, ELIXIR hopes to secure Europe-wide investment in

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combin ...

, providing the stability to conduct research in all areas of life science, both in academia and industry.

Organisation and structure

ELIXIR is an inter-governmental organisation which brings together existing

resources. It is coordinated by the ELIXIR Hub, based alongside the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (

EMBL The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

-EBI) on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton, Cambridge. The members of the ELIXIR consortium are European countries, represented by their governments and ministries; the scientific community in each member country develops thei
national Node
which operates the services and resources that are part of ELIXIR. Each ELIXIR Node is itself a network of national life science organisations, coordinated by a lead institute. European Molecular Biology Laboratory is an intergovernmental organisation so it is the only Node that is not associated with a country. ELIXIR focuses efforts around five central areas of activity, referred to a
Platforms
These cover Data, Tools, Compute, Interoperability and Training. Work in these areas is intended to improve access to open data resources and tools by improving connectivity, discoverability and access to computational power, as well as developing training for users and service providers to meet these aims. ELIXIR supports users addressing the Grand Challenges in life science research across diverse domains. ELIXIR supports
range of self-selected Communities
which focus on high-level topics such as ‘Human Data’ and ‘Plant Sciences’ to more specific and focused disciplines such as ‘Metabolomics’ and ‘Intrinsically Disordered Proteins’, as well as a community dedicated to the ‘Galaxy’ resource. These communities are in place to develop bioinformatic and data standards, services and training that are required to facilitate that community to reach their scientific goals.

Participants

As of August 2019 the following countries and EMBL-EBI have signed th
ELIXIR Consortium Agreement (ECA)
in order to become a member of ELIXIR: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Cyprus is an Observer country, working towards ratifying the ECA in the near future. Countries that have signed the ECA are allocated representation on th
ELIXIR Board
The preparatory phase of ELIXIR was coordinated by Professor Dame Janet Thornton of EMBL-EBI. The Founding Director of ELIXIR, Dr Niklas Blomberg, took up his position in the new ELIXIR Hub in Cambridge in May 2013.

Countries on Board

* EMBL - Prof.

Edith Heard Edith Heard (born 1965) is a British-French researcher in epigenetics and since January 2019 has been the Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is also Professor at the Collège de France, holding the Chair of ...

, Dr.

Alvis Brazma Alvis may refer to: *Alvis Car and Engineering Company, British luxury car and military vehicle manufacturer which later became Alvis plc *Alvis plc (formerly United Scientific Holdings plc), a defence contractor which acquired Alvis Cars and beca ...

* Belgium - Dr. Laurence Lenoir * Czech Republic - Prof

Jaroslav Koča Jaroslav (also written as Yaroslav or Jarosław in other Slavic languages) is a Czech and Slovak first name, pagan in origin. There are several possible origins of the name Jaroslav. It is very likely that originally the two elements of the nam ...

* Denmark - Prof. Anders Krogh * Estonia - Prof. Lili Milani * Finland - Dr. Per Öster * France - Dr. Frédéric Boccard * Germany - Prof. Rolf Backofen, Prof. Alexander Goesmann * Greece - Prof. Christos Ouzounis, Prof. Artemis Hatzigeorgiou * Hungary - Dr. László Patthy * Ireland - Dr. Maria Nash * Israel - Dr. Yossi Kalifa * Italy - Prof. Rita Casadio * Luxembourg - Prof. Rudi Balling, Dr.

Regina Becker Regina (Latin for "queen") may refer to: Places Canada * Regina, Saskatchewan, the capital city of the province ** Regina (electoral district) ** Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Regina France * Régina, French Guiana, a commune United States * R ...

* Netherlands - Dr.

Ruben Kok Reuben or Reuven is a Biblical male first name from Hebrew רְאוּבֵן (Re'uven), meaning "behold, a son". In the Bible, Reuben was the firstborn son of Jacob. Variants include Rúben in European Portuguese; Rubens in Brazilian Portuguese ...

* Norway - Prof.

Rein Aasland Reins are items of horse tack, used to direct a horse or other animal used for riding. They are long straps that can be made of leather, nylon, metal, or other materials, and attach to a bridle via either its bit or its noseband. Use for ...

, Prof. Stig Omholt * Portugal - Prof.

Isabel Rocha Isabel is a female name of Spanish origin. Isabelle is a name that is similar, but it is of French origin. It originates as the medieval Spanish form of ''Elisabeth'' (ultimately Hebrew ''Elisheva''), Arising in the 12th century, it became popula ...

* Slovenia - Prof. Damjana Rozman * Sweden - Prof. Björn Andersson * Spain - Prof. Ferran Sanz * Switzerland - Prof.

Christian von Mering Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...

* United Kingdom - Dr.

Chris Rawlings ''Doctors'' is a British medical soap opera which began broadcasting on BBC One on 26 March 2000. Set in the fictional West Midlands town of Letherbridge, the soap follows the lives of the staff and patients of the Riverside Health Centre, a fi ...

Funding

By the end of 2012 ELIXIR had completed its five-year preparatory phase funded by the EU’s

Seventh Framework Programme The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europe ...

as part of the

European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe a ...

(ESFRI) process. In 2015 ELIXIR was awarded €19 Million HORIZON 2020 funding to run the EXCELERATE project. This project enabled ELIXIR to coordinate and extend national and international data resources and ran until 31 August 2019. ELIXIR has also set up collaborations to apply for other large scale funding for other EU projects, in which it is also involved in an organisational capacity, for example for the CORBEL, FAIRplus, and EOSC-Life projects. Each member state jointly contributes towards the funding of the ELIXIR Hub in proportion to their GDP. Some countries have allocated new funds to contribute towards their ELIXIR Node. The services and activities of the ELIXIR Nodes will continue to be funded by national agencies. Collectively, ELIXIR members will apply for additional external funding.

References

External links

ESFRI Strategy Report on Research InfrastructuresELIXIR website
{{Authority control Bioinformatics organizations European Union and science and technology Information technology organizations based in Europe South Cambridgeshire District Science and technology in Cambridgeshire Wellcome Trust