Romania has joined ELIXIR as an Observer, following approval by the ELIXIR Board on 30 October 2023.

Observer status enables the Romanian bioinformatics community to engage more deeply with other ELIXIR Nodes and facilitates transition towards full ELIXIR Membership, which is expected to occur in the coming years. ELIXIR has 22 other countries and EMBL as full members, and two other Observers, Cyprus and Austria.

ELIXIR Nodes bring together the national organisations that provide bioinformatics services to users, such as universities and research institutes. The Romanian Node will be centred around the institutes involved in the Romanian Society for Bioinformatics (RSBI) and the recently established Romanian Bioinformatics Cluster (CRB). 

In recent years, collaborations have deepened between existing ELIXIR Nodes and the Romanian community, in particular in human genomic data, where the Norwegian government has funded a collaborative project to build capacity. 

Viorel Vulturescu, Director of International and European Relations at the Romanian government’s Ministry of Research and Innovation, said “Developing a national data infrastructure for sensitive human data remains a priority for Romania, and connecting this with efforts across Europe through our involvement in ELIXIR will bring benefits to both Romania and beyond”.

Niklas Blomberg, ELIXIR Director, said: “We are delighted to welcome Romania into ELIXIR and look forward to working with the Romanian community and building links that will lead to full membership and integration into  the larger European infrastructure”.