ELIXIR today launches 28 new technical and scientific projects that will implement the Scientific Programme for 2019-2023. These projects bring together technical experts across all ELIXIR Nodes and connect people and services across Europe into a federated infrastructure for life-science data. Collectively they strengthen ELIXIR’s portfolio of bioinformatics services and develop new strategic services to address existing bottlenecks in working with life science data.
The 28 new projects will receive over EUR 5 million in total, representing the largest tranche of projects funded by ELIXIR so far.
“The launch of these studies marks a new phase in ELIXIR’s development,” said Niklas Blomberg, the ELIXIR Director. “During the 2014-18 Scientific Programme we established the portfolio of ELIXIR services managed by our 22 Nodes. These 28 projects build on those achievements with the overall goal to establish a European federation of life-science data based on global standards. We are now in a position to address some of the major challenges in computational biology, such as responsible sharing of sensitive human data, and the reproducibility and reusability of bioinformatics workflows,” added Blomberg.
Of the 28 new projects, 20 will support the technical activities in the five ELIXIR Platforms - Data, Tools, Compute, Interoperability and Training. Five of them are Community-led ELIXIR Implementation Studies focusing on developing services for ELIXIR Communities; three projects are strategic Implementation Studies aimed at boosting the impact of ELIXIR services in the areas of federated human data, rare diseases and reproducible workflows.
Each of these projects is led by a team of experts from one or more ELIXIR Nodes, drawing on national investments and scientific specialisation strategies. Their collaborative nature also enables newly established Nodes to take part in the technical activities, developing new capacity and quickly integrating their national communities into ELIXIR.
See the list of the 28 new projects below, organised by ELIXIR Platform and Community.