SIB, as the Swiss node of ELIXIR, is pleased to announce its participation in ELIXIR-STEERS, a three-year EU funded project launched today with a total budget of €4M. The project is a collaboration between all ELIXIR Nodes, encompassing 36 institutes across 23 countries, plus EMBL-EBI. It aims to enhance large-scale, cross-border federated analysis in the life sciences throughout the European Research Area, such as by improving research productivity and minimizing energy usage.
ELIXIR-STEERS addresses the need for good software and workflow management, sometimes overlooked by funders and policymakers, which is essential for reproducible and efficient analysis of life science data. By adopting common analysis tools and good workflow practices, the project aims to minimise duplication, reduce energy consumption and lower the carbon footprint in computational life science, particularly in resource-intensive applications like AI.
Several SIB teams and experts are involved in the project, from building the technical toolkit for software best-practices and the benchmarking of reproducible workflows (Vital-IT – Mark Ibberson and Vassilios Ioannidis) and optimizing the environmental impact in workflow management systems (RNA Regulatory Networks – Alexander Kanitz) to coordinating best-practices and capacity building across ELIXIR nodes (Training – Patricia Palagi, Director’s office – Lucy Poveda).
The ELIXIR-STEERS project builds on the achievements of two previous EU-funded projects: ELIXIR-EXCELERATE (2015-19), which helped establish ELIXIR as a coordinated European life science infrastructure, and ELIXIR-CONVERGE (2020-23), which enhanced data management and stewardship across ELIXIR Nodes.
Read about our role on SARS-CoV-2 genomic data sharing in ELIXIR-CONVERGE
Andy Smith, ELIXIR Interim Director and Coordinator of ELIXIR-STEERS said “We are excited to initiate the ELIXIR-STEERS project, focusing on expanding ELIXIR's expertise in research software and workflows. This project is an important step towards strengthening the emerging European federated data landscape and optimising environmental sustainability in computational practices”.
More about sustainability of computational practices at SIB
By improving standards and best practices in research software and workflows across the ELIXIR Nodes, ELIXIR-STEERS strengthens Europe's position in global research while supporting environmental sustainability and enhancing international collaboration.
