ELIXIR coordinates and develops life science resources across Europe so that researchers can more easily find, analyse and share data, exchange expertise, and implement best practices. This makes it possible for them to gain greater insights into how living organisms work.
More details of what we do
- Develop ways that researchers across Europe can access, store, transfer and analyse large amounts of life science data. See the Compute Platform.
- Identify key data resources across Europe and support the linkages between data and literature e.g. by making it easier to move from a scientific paper to the dataset that the paper was based on. See the Data Platform.
- Provide ways for researchers to find the best software to analyse their data. See the Tools Platform.
- Establish Europe-wide standards that can be used to describe life science data. This makes different data sets easier to compare and analyse. See the Interoperability Platform.
- Help scientists and developers find the training they need, and also provide that training. See the Training Platform.
- Develop communities, standards, databases and tools in selected life science domains (e.g. Marine Metagenomics, Human Data). See Communities.
What are Platforms and Communities?
The scientific and technical activities in ELIXIR are run by five Platforms and a number of Communities (formerly called 'Use Cases'). Platforms bring together experts to define the strategy and provide services in a particular area e.g. training, data. Communities bring together scientists who work in a specific domain (e.g. Plant Sciences). These scientists develop services targeted for their own domains. They also give feedback on the services the Platforms provide, to make sure that the services solve real world problems. See Platforms and Communities.
Scientific strategy
The scientific direction of ELIXIR is laid out in the Scientific Programme 2019-23 and in annual Work Plans. The Work Plans describe the activities that take place in each year.
