The French ELIXIR node - IFB

General overview
The coordination team

ELIXIR Europe is a European research infrastructure for biological data, which coordinates, develops and brings together life science resources across Europe. These resources include databases, software tools, training materials, cloud storage and supercomputers. ELIXIR also coordinates and develops life science services across Europe, known as Service Delivery Plans (SDPs). These projects are generally submitted by the various nodes and then labelled ELIXIR SDPs for distribution to the European scientific community. Finally, ELIXIR CoS are internal technical projects that guide future services, the adoption of standards or scientific development, and also promote connections between ELIXIR nodes.

Listed on the ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) roadmap since 2006 and recognised as a ‘Landmark’ in 2016, ELIXIR aims to coordinate these resources to form a single infrastructure, thereby facilitating research and data sharing, the exchange of expertise and the definition of best practices for scientists. ELIXIR recently agreed to pilot the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) node for life sciences research (with EMBL, Instruct and EuroBioImaging). It therefore joins the 12 other EOSC nodes selected to build the EOSC federation.

ELIXIR is a distributed infrastructure composed of national nodes, which are national centres of excellence in bioinformatics. This organisation is coordinated by the ELIXIR Hub, based in Hinxton (United Kingdom) on the Wellcome Genome Campus, which also hosts the EMBL-EBI. Today, the infrastructure comprises 22 nodes (including the EMBL-EBI and three observer countries).

In order to coordinate the activities of the platforms, communities and nodes that make up the structure as effectively as possible, ELIXIR Europe’s scientific direction is guided by a five-year scientific programme. The current programme covers the period 2024-2028 of ELIXIR.

For more information on ELIXIR Europe

IFB/ELIXIR-FR, the French node of the European bioinformatics infrastructure for life sciences

IFB is the French ELIXIR node, a national infrastructure supporting bioinformatics research in France. ELIXIR France collaborates with other ELIXIR nodes to develop European digital services for the life sciences. French scientists specialising in this field thus have access to large amounts of high-quality data, software tools, data storage and analysis services, and training.

ELIXIR France has been a provisional member of ELIXIR since 2015 and has initiated the process of signing the ELIXIR Consortium Agreement (ECA) in order to become a full member of the organisation by the end of 2024.

What are France's contributions to ELIXIR?

Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups – for better consideration of scientific issues

ELIXIR-FR members are heavily involved in coordinating ELIXIR Europe platforms, communities and focus groups.

ELIXIR platforms – ELIXIR’s activities are divided into five technological areas, known as platforms: training, tools, data, computing and interoperability.

Until the end of 2025, ELIXIR-FR is co-coordinator of the Tools platform.

ELIXIR Communities – These are composed of European experts who develop standards, services and training courses, and participate in ELIXIR projects on research topics of common interest in the life sciences. They also contribute to the development of ELIXIR platforms and provide feedback on platform services to ensure that these services are practical and useful in their field of application.

ELIXIR-FR is currently co-coordinator of the Cancer, HCNV, Plant Sciences, Microbiome and Toxicology communities.

Focus Group – These are agile structures that bring stakeholders together around a specific topic. Their objectives are to address emerging topics of interest and identify a strategy to be followed at the ELIXIR Europe level.

To date, ELIXIR-FR members contribute to the Domestic Animals Genome and Phenome focus group, as well as the Communities Future focus group.

Des services labellisés au niveau européen

ELIXIR-FR also contributes to identifying and supporting bioinformatics services across the country using a two-step approach:

Selected and proposed French services of national and international interest for life science researchers in the Service Delivery Plan (SDP).

38 certified services

Among these, the TeSS training portal is an example that lists European bioinformatics resources and training courses on a single website. It makes it easier for scientists to find the training they need, but also helps to raise awareness of these courses.

How are services selected?

The certification of services by ELIXIR involves an annual, open and transparent process aimed at complying with a set of criteria designed to guarantee high service quality and correspond to France’s priorities as identified by our funders.

La certification des services par ELIXIR implique un processus annuel, ouvert et transparent visant à respecter un ensemble de critères destinés à garantir une qualité de service élevée et à correspondre aux priorités de la France telles qu’identifiées par nos bailleurs de fonds.

Orphadata Science has thus become a Core Data Resource, highlighting its importance for the management and integration of data on rare diseases. We can also mention the Bioimage Bioinformatic Index, which has become a Recommended Interoperability Resource, an important resource for helping researchers choose the best tools for image analysis.

Cos – internal European projects within the ELIXIR scientific programme

In addition, the French node actively participates in more than 60 Commissioned Services that have contributed to the implementation of ELIXIR’s four-year scientific programmes, which they help to draft.

The main ongoing projects to which ELIXIR-FR contributes or which it coordinates include:

Programm 2019–2023 :