New strategic collaboration with ELIXIR

A new Collaboration Strategy between ELIXIR and the Australian BioCommons seeks to create a cooperative plan to exploit international synergies between the two research infrastructures. This three-year collaboration will actively involve Australian BioCommons in many of the activities related to the European life science infrastructures.

A number of common alignment areas have been identified for future collaboration including the adoption of international standards in software platforms, workflows, tools and data (such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH)). Supporting global research communities (such as in metagenomics methods, biodiversity, de-novo genome assembly, phylogenomics, plant phenotyping-genotyping), and the delivery of federated solutions to human data preservation and research access are prime examples of why these partners have come together to formalise a Collaboration Strategy.

ELIXIR and the Australian BioCommons are both already heavily involved in methodological platform and tool collaboration — a leading example of a joint project of interest being Galaxy, the open, web-based platform for collaborative research. International collaboration on training and training materials in bioinformatics has also begun, with ELIXIR Training Platform partners participating in the Australian BioCommons Training Advisory Group. Such initiatives will continue to strengthen links between BioCommons and ELIXIR over the course of this agreement.

Following years of fruitful discussions about shared challenges, including during reciprocal study visits, there was a realisation that the work programmes of both organisations align strongly in many areas. Both Australian Biocommons and ELIXIR coordinate distributed resources for biological research and together represent broad international perspectives on research infrastructure for the biosciences. ELIXIR is an intergovernmental organisation that brings together life science resources from across Europe. Resources including databases, software tools, training materials, cloud storage and supercomputers are coordinated so that they form a single infrastructure. Making it easier for scientists to find and share data, exchange expertise, and agree on best practices ultimately helps them gain new insights into how living organisms work.

The collaboration strategy between ELIXIR and the Australian BioCommons promises to identify our international synergies as we partner to tackle our shared challenges in biological research.

ELIXIR’s news release can be read here.

Further information regarding the Collaboration Strategy is available on our website here and on ELIXIR’s website here.