{"id":25236,"date":"2011-09-14T00:58:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T22:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=25236"},"modified":"2021-07-12T18:08:58","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T16:08:58","slug":"five-countries-and-embl-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-make-elixir-a-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/lab-matters\/five-countries-and-embl-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-make-elixir-a-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Five countries and EMBL sign Memorandum of Understanding to make ELIXIR a reality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Today marks an important step for ELIXIR, Europe\u2019s emerging research infrastructure for life-science information, as five countries plus the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to catalyse the implementation and construction of ELIXIR. The memorandum has been signed by Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and more countries are planning to join in the near future. All European countries are invited to engage with ELIXIR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ELIXIR is a pan-European initiative to operate a sustainable infrastructure for managing and safeguarding biological information in Europe. It will secure public access to information about the building blocks of life, including genes, proteins and complex networks. This will support life science research and its translation to medicine and the environment, the bio-industries and society to deliver economic growth. Consistent with the movement towards open access to data and publications, ELIXIR will make important information freely available to researchers across academia and industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Memorandum is a first formal \u2013 yet non-binding \u2013 step towards the implementation and construction of ELIXIR. Countries signing the Memorandum (including EMBL) will be represented on the Interim Board, which will be the main body for negotiating the final legal and governance structure of ELIXIR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are very excited that five countries have signed ELIXIR\u2019s Memorandum of Understanding so quickly, and that several others are already going through the process. This underlines the broad consensus on the need to establish a sustainable infrastructure for managing the data underlying life science research in Europe,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebi.ac.uk\/about\/people\/janet-thornton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Professor Janet Thornton<\/a>, Director of EMBL-EBI and coordinator of ELIXIR. \u201cELIXIR has the potential to make a real and lasting difference to Europe\u2019s citizens \u2013 access to data is central to answering the pressing problems of our time, including food security and the health and well-being of an ageing population.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The successful collaboration between just two of Europe&#8217;s major life science data providers \u2013 the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and EMBL-EBI \u2013 shows what can be achieved when experts pool their knowledge and vision,&#8221; said Professor Ron Appel, Executive Director of SIB and member of ELIXIR&#8217;s Steering Committee. &#8220;But we need to take this further. ELIXIR, with the support of European and national funding agencies, will allow for collaboration on an unprecedented scale, and open the door to the science of the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ELIXIR will be coordinated from its hub at EMBL\u2019s European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton, near Cambridge in the UK, and its nodes are likely to be sited at existing centres of excellence in participating countries throughout Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first meeting of the Interim Board is planned for November 2011 to kick off ELIXIR\u2019s construction phase. An important role of the Interim Board will be to establish an international consortium agreement and agree on how ELIXIR will be governed and funded in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information about ELIXIR, please visit <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.elixir-europe.org\" target=\"_blank\">www.elixir-europe.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today marks an important step for ELIXIR, Europe\u2019s emerging research infrastructure for life-science information, as five countries plus the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to catalyse the implementation and construction of ELIXIR. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[179,36,43,803,1748,369],"embl_taxonomy":[2906],"class_list":["post-25236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lab-matters","tag-elixir","tag-embl-ebi","tag-heidelberg","tag-mou","tag-press-release","tag-thornton","embl_taxonomy-embl-ebi"],"acf":{"show_featured_image":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"article_intro":"","article_sources":false,"related_links":false,"in_this_article":false,"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","translations":false,"press_contact":"EMBL Generic"},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"b14d3f13-5670-44fb-8970-e54dfd9c921a\";i:1;s:36:\"89e00fee-87f4-482e-a801-4c3548bb6a58\";i:2;s:36:\"a99d1a7c-ca83-4c00-ab61-d082d3e41ce3\";}","parents":[],"name":["EMBL-EBI"],"slug":"embl-ebi","description":"Where &gt; All EMBL sites &gt; EMBL-EBI"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Five countries and EMBL sign Memorandum of Understanding to make ELIXIR a reality | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An important step for the implementation and construction of ELIXIR, Europe\u2019s emerging research infrastructure for life-science information.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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