The Interoperability Platform helps people and machines discover, access, integrate and analyse biological data. It encourages the life science community to adopt standardised file formats, metadata, vocabularies and identifiers. The Platform works internationally to achieve its goals.
Platform highlights
- Recommended Interoperability Resources (RIRs): as reviewed and selected by ELIXIR.
What the Platform does
Join the Interoperability Platform group and its mailing list.
- Identifies and promotes interoperability best practices for data providers and data integrators.
- Delivers the interoperability services that underpin ELIXIR Communities and Platforms.
To achieve these goals, the Platform's work is split into four Work Packages (WPs) spanning 2024 - 28:
WP1: Management and coordination
Goal: To provide the project management and coordination of the Interoperability Platform.
Activities:
- Setting up regular Platform meetings, both online and face-to-face.
- Monitoring and reporting the Platform's progress.
- Ensuring bi-directional communication about the Platform activities with other ELIXIR Platforms and Communities.
- Representing the Platform in external contexts and strategic partnerships.
- Where appropriate, pursuing additional avenues of funding and support, including industry engagement, to boost sustainability.
Leads: Tony Burdett (EMBL-EBI), Chris Evelo (Maastricht University, Netherlands), Susanna-Assunta Sansone (University of Oxford, UK)
WP2: Growing the FAIR-enabling portfolio of products
Goal: To align and coordinate the development of the RDMkit and FAIR Cookbook, and to map out the landscape of FAIR-enabling products, including services and standards, within ELIXIR.
Activities:
- Coordinating the RDMkit and FAIR Cookbook in the wider context of the RDM ecosystem.
- Minimising duplication of efforts and maximise synergies between all resources.
- Optimising user experience, navigation and use.
- Continuing to place the resources in the wider context of other FAIR-enabling products.
- Mapping out the landscape of FAIR-enabling products, including services and standards, within ELIXIR.
- Identifyng gaps in the current portfolio and proactively engage with other stakeholders within ELIXIR to address them.
- Redefining/reshaping the current RIRs procedures to form the portfolio of FAIR-enabling products.
- Delivering guiding materials for users to easily and effectively navigate the wide range of resources within the portfolio.
Leads: Danielle Welter (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
WP3: Standardising processes for FAIR data management
Goal: To identify, assess and test processes, resources and best practices in FAIR data management, and consolidate them into a common FAIRification framework.
Activities:
- Defining the components of a common framework for interoperability that will support FAIRification of data and services across ELIXIR Nodes, Communities and projects, and promote alignment with EOSC and ELIXIR’s global partners.
- Curating a comprehensive and well-organised library of interoperability case studies and use cases. These will serve as input to initiatives across ELIXIR Platforms, and as examples (including lessons learned) to a wide range of stakeholders across ELIXIR.
Leads: Vassilios Ioannidis (SIB, Switzerland), Wolmar Nyberg Åkerström (Uppsala University, Sweden)
WP4: Establishing best practices for interoperable data management and use
Goal: To establishing best practices for interoperable data management and use.
Activities:
- Evaluating and draw attention to issues of interoperability (positive or negative) that occur during actual data analysis or integration of different types of data, and also in relation to data and compute models.
- Conducting a use case-driven inventory of individual steps and complete workflows, and the resources supporting these processes, to identify any missing components.
- Evaluating resources with training materials for their actual content and links among these resources (think TeSS, Galaxy, WorkflowHub) and between them and bio.tools.
- Assessing both the content of training materials provided by resources such as TeSS, Galaxy and WorkflowHub, and the connections between those same resources and to others such as bio.tools.
Leads: Tooba Abbassi-Daloii (Maastricht University, Netherlands), Antonio Hermoso Pulido (Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain)
Commissioned Services
The Interoperability Platform has also completed a number of short-term projects called Commissioned Services. For details of these projects, see the Commissioned Services page.
Leadership
Susanna-Assunta Sansone(ELIXIR UK)
(ELIXIR Netherlands)
Tony Burdett(EMBL-EBI)
(Platform Coordinator, ELIXIR Hub)
(Platform Liaison, ELIXIR Hub)
Find out more
- Contact Fabio Liberante (fabio.liberante@elixir-europe.org).
- Ask us a question with our online form.
- ELIXIR Scientific Programme 2019-23, where you can find the Platform's plans for the next five years.
- Browse the list of Interoperability services provided by ELIXIR Nodes.
- Search for BYOD workshops in the Events section or ELIXIR's TeSS training portal.
- Learn more about the FAIR Principles:
- Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences (DTL) - the ELIXIR Dutch node website.
- FORCE11
- Wilkinson, M. D. et al. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Sci. Data 3:160018 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18 (2016)
- ELIXIR Interoperability Platform (EIP) roadmap (2016-19)