Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FoundingGIDE (Founding a Global Image Data Ecosystem)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2024-01-01 do 2025-06-30
In recent years, advances in imaging technologies have transformed biological and biomedical research. High-end microscopy, preclinical imaging, and other multimodal imaging technologies generate unprecedented volumes of complex image data. While these datasets hold immense potential for biological discovery, they are often siloed in separate repositories, described using incompatible metadata, and accessible only to limited specialised communities. This fragmentation hinders data discovery and reuse.
The foundingGIDE (founding a Global Image Data Ecosystem) project responds to this challenge by laying the technical and community groundwork for a truly global, FAIR-compliant (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) image data ecosystem. Such an ecosystem aims to connect partner image data resources, allowing data discovery and access, based on common standards and technologies, enabling an extensible system where future resources and tools can be built. The project unites seven partners from Europe, Japan, and Australia, leveraging the collective strengths of major research infrastructures, repositories, and community networks.
FoundingGIDE objectives are to:
- Establish coordination between global open bioimage data resources.
- Harmonise imaging ontologies and metadata models to ensure interoperability.
- Engage with diverse research communities and technical stakeholders worldwide.
- Provide proof-of-concept tools and connections between repositories.
- Create a sustainable framework for ongoing collaboration and expansion of the ecosystem.
The project’s long-term impact will be to enable seamless sharing and reuse of biological and preclinical image data globally, accelerating scientific discovery, fostering cross-disciplinary research, and strengthening Europe’s role as a leader in open science.
The foundingGIDE (founding a Global Image Data Ecosystem) project responds to this challenge by laying the technical and community groundwork for a truly global, FAIR-compliant (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) image data ecosystem. Such an ecosystem aims to connect partner image data resources, allowing data discovery and access, based on common standards and technologies, enabling an extensible system where future resources and tools can be built. The project unites seven partners from Europe, Japan, and Australia, leveraging the collective strengths of major research infrastructures, repositories, and community networks.
FoundingGIDE objectives are to:
- Establish coordination between global open bioimage data resources.
- Harmonise imaging ontologies and metadata models to ensure interoperability.
- Engage with diverse research communities and technical stakeholders worldwide.
- Provide proof-of-concept tools and connections between repositories.
- Create a sustainable framework for ongoing collaboration and expansion of the ecosystem.
The project’s long-term impact will be to enable seamless sharing and reuse of biological and preclinical image data globally, accelerating scientific discovery, fostering cross-disciplinary research, and strengthening Europe’s role as a leader in open science.
Since its launch in January 2024, foundingGIDE has advanced on both technical and community fronts providing foundational and tangible outcomes to global researchers and other stakeholders, including:
- Ontology landscape analysis and recommendations – A comprehensive analysis identified existing biological and preclinical imaging ontologies, evaluated their coverage and quality, and produced recommendations for a harmonised set suitable for global adoption.
- Metadata model gap analysis – Comparison of metadata models of major repositories (BioImage Archive, Image Data Resource, SSBD) revealed overlaps and gaps, leading to a phased plan for metadata harmonisation.
- Community engagement – Through the community event, technical coordination event and workshops in Japan (October 2024), the global image data community including local image data experts could be engaged in topic based dialogue. Additionally, using targeted outreach, the project has also engaged Euro-BioImaging Nodes, global communities such as OME and QUAREP-LiMi, and other key initiatives, like EDAM bioimaging, fostering alignment with existing efforts towards standardised data and metadata.
- Policy input – The first policy brief highlights the project’s alignment with EU policies, specially around Research Infrastructures and Open Science, and provides recommendations to promote solutions around global image data sharing.
- Global coordination – Collaborative activities with partners in Japan and Australia have strengthened international ties demonstrating successful development and implementation of global solutions. These activities have created a blueprint for future, wider, global engagement.
These efforts position foundingGIDE as a unifying initiative in bioimage data management, providing both practical tools and a shared vision for the community.
- Ontology landscape analysis and recommendations – A comprehensive analysis identified existing biological and preclinical imaging ontologies, evaluated their coverage and quality, and produced recommendations for a harmonised set suitable for global adoption.
- Metadata model gap analysis – Comparison of metadata models of major repositories (BioImage Archive, Image Data Resource, SSBD) revealed overlaps and gaps, leading to a phased plan for metadata harmonisation.
- Community engagement – Through the community event, technical coordination event and workshops in Japan (October 2024), the global image data community including local image data experts could be engaged in topic based dialogue. Additionally, using targeted outreach, the project has also engaged Euro-BioImaging Nodes, global communities such as OME and QUAREP-LiMi, and other key initiatives, like EDAM bioimaging, fostering alignment with existing efforts towards standardised data and metadata.
- Policy input – The first policy brief highlights the project’s alignment with EU policies, specially around Research Infrastructures and Open Science, and provides recommendations to promote solutions around global image data sharing.
- Global coordination – Collaborative activities with partners in Japan and Australia have strengthened international ties demonstrating successful development and implementation of global solutions. These activities have created a blueprint for future, wider, global engagement.
These efforts position foundingGIDE as a unifying initiative in bioimage data management, providing both practical tools and a shared vision for the community.
The foundingGIDE project is increasing compatibility between existing resources and coordinating co-development of shared solutions beyond the state of the art delivering:
- Landscape analysis and ontology recommendations for biological and preclinical imaging domains, ensuring use of consistent terminology across repositories.
- Metadata harmonisation across image data resources, derived from detailed technical gap analysis, paving the way for cross-repository search and integration.
- Proof-of-concept interoperability solutions, including groundwork for APIs enabling unified access to datasets from multiple repositories.
- A roadmap towards globally coordinated image data resources, informed by community engagement and technical stakeholder feedback.
To ensure sustainability of solutions and promote uptake of project outcomes, key next steps will include:
- Defining mechanisms of sustained collaboration between international partners beyond the project lifetime.
- Increasing the degree of metadata harmonisation by extending the model overlap terms
- Establishing a process for technical integration with additional repositories and connection towards the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
- Continuing policy advocacy for global data-sharing frameworks and funding mechanisms for shared solutions towards FAIR data.
Ultimately, the results will enable researchers worldwide to discover, access, and reuse high-value imaging datasets with minimal barriers, stimulating innovation in fields from basic biology to translational medicine.
- Landscape analysis and ontology recommendations for biological and preclinical imaging domains, ensuring use of consistent terminology across repositories.
- Metadata harmonisation across image data resources, derived from detailed technical gap analysis, paving the way for cross-repository search and integration.
- Proof-of-concept interoperability solutions, including groundwork for APIs enabling unified access to datasets from multiple repositories.
- A roadmap towards globally coordinated image data resources, informed by community engagement and technical stakeholder feedback.
To ensure sustainability of solutions and promote uptake of project outcomes, key next steps will include:
- Defining mechanisms of sustained collaboration between international partners beyond the project lifetime.
- Increasing the degree of metadata harmonisation by extending the model overlap terms
- Establishing a process for technical integration with additional repositories and connection towards the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
- Continuing policy advocacy for global data-sharing frameworks and funding mechanisms for shared solutions towards FAIR data.
Ultimately, the results will enable researchers worldwide to discover, access, and reuse high-value imaging datasets with minimal barriers, stimulating innovation in fields from basic biology to translational medicine.