ELIXIR’s service Platforms (Data, Tools, Compute, Interoperability and Training) consolidate national services from ELIXIR Nodes and provide the foundation for a European data federation. For instance, ELIXIR-EXCELERATE has supported the delivery of ELIXIR's Authorisation and Authentication Infrastructure (ELIXIR AAI) as the user-facing component of the ELIXIR-wide integration of services. By providing a unified single-sign-on system where users can access computational services across the whole of Europe with their home institute credentials, ELIXIR opens up national clouds, tools and data services for federated access. Together with data access standards, such as MIAPPE for plant phenotyping or GA4GH for human genomics, this provides the basis for an integrated European approach to data management. For example, through ELIXIR-EXCELERATE, eight European plant phenotyping centres are now providing routine access to MIAPPE encoded plant data via a unified data interface and an ELIXIR-wide federated search (
https://urgi.versailles.inra.fr/faidare/(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)) and the ELIXIR plant community are now taking this forward to incorporate further centres across ELIXIR’s Nodes. The Federated EGA - a set of services that support secure transnational collaboration and access collaboration on human genomics and biomedical data - is now being adopted as a solution by a growing list of European projects and will be used as a basis for the 1M European Genomes Initiative.
An important outcome of ELIXIR-EXCELERATE is the development of long-term roadmaps for the ELIXIR Platforms. The implementation of these roadmaps – and so the sustainability of the ELIXIR-EXCELERATE investments – is funded by the ELIXIR member states through the ELIXIR 2019-2023 Scientific Programme.
Long-term sustainable open data resources, including the submission databases for e.g. DNA sequences, are a key part of a European infrastructure for biological information. ELIXIR has designated a set of Core Data Resources –European data resources that are of fundamental importance to the life-science community and the long-term preservation of biological data – and engaged in discussions with funders on how to best support the long-term development of this ecosystem. ELIXIR-EXCELERATE delivered the indicators and selection process for ELIXIR Core Data Resources and supported the designation of the first set. This work has been internationally noted; ELIXIR and the Core Data Resources concept has been instrumental in shaping the Global Biodata Coalition, an initiative by an international group of funders (including NIH, HFSP and the Japanese AMED agency) to support the international data ecosystem.
Building on the experience from ELIXIR Core Data Resources, we have now also selected a set of ELIXIR Recommended Interoperability Resources that define ELIXIR’s Interoperability Architecture and provide a basis for consistent data management practices. The work on Core Data Resources, ELIXIR Recommended Interoperability Resources and the value of robust, continent-scale processes for identifying research data resources as scientific infrastructure, has been recognised by funders as best-practice: the ELIXIR recommendations now form part of the ERC’s data management guidelines to life-science grantees.
ELIXIR Training, Capacity building and Staff Exchange - all initiated during ELIXIR-EXCELERATE and carried forward in the 2019-23 Programme - support the long-term development of people in our Nodes and generally throughout the ERA. For example, the ELIXIR-EXCELERATE Training Work Package – via national programmes in ELIXIR Nodes - supported training for 23,000 trainees from 60 countries in over 1,000 training events (2,870 days of training).
