Info

ELIXIR is an inter-governmental organisation that coordinates life science data resources across Europe. Hub-and-spoke model: central Hub at Wellcome Genome Campus (Hinxton, UK, alongside EMBL-EBI) with 23 national bioinformatics Nodes. Established as an EMBL Special Project with ring-fenced budget. Fourth five-year scientific programme commenced 2024. PDBe is an ELIXIR Core Data Resource.

People

NameRoleAffiliation
Tim HubbardDirector (since March 2024)ELIXIR Hub, Hinxton
Niklas BlombergFounding Director (2013-2023)ELIXIR Hub (historical)
Carole GobleJoint Head of Node, ELIXIR-UKUniversity of Manchester
Neil HallJoint Head of Node, ELIXIR-UKEarlham Institute

Funding

  • EMBL member states (core)
  • EU Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe (EXCELERATE, CONVERGE, EOSC-Life, GDI projects)
  • National funding through member state Nodes
  • UKRI (BBSRC, MRC, NERC) for ELIXIR-UK

Governance

  • ELIXIR Board (governing body, member state representatives)
  • ELIXIR Director (reports to Board)
  • Legally an EMBL Special Project with separate accounts/auditing
  • 5 Platforms: Data, Tools, Compute, Interoperability, Training

Key Relationships

  • PDBe is an ELIXIR Core Data Resource
  • Signed strategic collaboration with Instruct-ERIC (Nov 2024) on FAIR data, AI-ready repositories
  • Co-located with EMBL-EBI at Wellcome Genome Campus
  • 13 shared member states with Instruct-ERIC
  • ELIXIR 3D-BioInfo Community connects structural biology data resources

DiffUSE relevance

ELIXIR’s focus on FAIR data principles, Core Data Resource designation, and federated infrastructure model is directly relevant to DiffUSE’s open science strategy and data governance work.

Key Reference

Blomberg et al., Bioinformatics 37(16), 2506 (2021)