Report from the Heads of Nodes Meeting 21-22 October 2013, Hinxton ELIXIR Report from the Heads of Nodes Meeting 21-22 October 2013, Hinxton

The role of the Heads of Nodes Committee Key body to develop and agree the ELIXIR Scientific and Technical Strategy: build the ELIXIR Programme leading role in developing the strategy for ELIXIR services monitoring of service performance identification of service gaps Key role in developing the ELIXIR Funding Strategy

Venue & participation New EMBL-EBI South Building – Day 1

Structure of the workshop 1st Day OVER DRINKS 2nd Day BEFORE LUNCH Discuss & debate the first draft of the Programme Breakout sessions around key topics Discuss H2020 opportunities Discuss Collaboration Agreement template draft & Service Delivery Plan Wrap-up the workshop and define next steps

Horizon 2020 opportunities Discussed planned calls HoN to decide what calls should be followed by ELIXIR as a consortium ELIXIR or a Node to be the Coordinator, or just participants ELIXIR Nodes to coordinate the applications No competing applications by nodes, esp. infrastructure calls Importance of transparency

Breakout session topics ELIXIR Kite-mark ELIXIR “Core services” Domain specific services Research data management and interoperability Technical delivery services Definition (process, etc.) What will this area look like at the end of 2018? Provide next steps and suggested timelines.

1. ELIXIR Kite-mark Collaboration Agreement to include a statement that if Node received a Kitemark, it guarantees to fulfill the commitments One level of Kite-mark (in-or-out), at least initially Kite-mark includes a time commitment (TBD) for how long the service is available In five years, every node will have at least one Kite-marked service. The brand is recognized. Preferably an internal process based on clearly-defined eligibility criteria (check list) It should be made clear why to apply for a Kitemark and what the benefits are.

2. ELIXIR “Core resources” What is a core resource/ criteria ? The resources that are essential to the larger international community Must be professionally run (24/7; sustainable; professional management) Why do we need “core resources”? If endangered, then ELIXIR commits to intervene Hub will provide support or technical services Prestige for the resource to be an “ELIXIR CR” In 2020: There is a set of essential services that are well run and professionally maintained; We promise to train the users on how to use them; We promise the are sustainable They will work together (interoperability). subsection of kitemarked services

3. Domain specific services Focus Standards development in specific domains: is ELIXIR a driver or a follower of standard? ELIXIR should recognize that user communities are in different states of maturity: e.g. GBIF versus less developed areas Bottom-up approaches in general to be preferred Aligning with other ESFRIs and international efforts Instruments: Cluster grants (e.g. BioMedBridges), node specific efforts (organism specific, data type specific, …) , reviews of user needs, calls for open competitions, … ELIXIR to systematize and organize community challenges

4. Research data management and interoperability Good practice could be made more explicit Focus on curation of items in registry, link to ELIXIR kitemark Document archives where data are submitted, define minimal standards Need a catalogue of pan-scientific and domain-specific standards – Hub to hold this catalogue Formation of Ad-hoc ELIXIR Working Group to review to define data dictionaries Create stakeholder list for ELIXIR (including other global data initiatives HoN should act as a representative for ELIXIR, e.g. Bengt Persson for RDA Hub to develop stakeholder map

5. Technical delivery services ”Node to Node” vs. ”Node to user” are quite different cases Measure the delivered Service Some nodes deliver technical services to themselves Some nodes deliver technical services to the other nodes Who’s need is serviced? Who succeeds better in their job? Technical services may have different terms of use e.g. cloud compute and storage resource is probably not free Technical Common features: network, physical ICT with virtualisation, electronic identification of users (”ELIXIR level of assurance” e.g. level that fuflills legal criteria), resource access control, changing application environment support and technical training Life cycle management: algorithm-pile as a service could have life of 12-120 months, thus virtual machine approach is appealing Resources and policy Node to Node dependencies/trustbuilding takes time, needs to be driven SLAs can be rewarding: how else to know if you succeed ?

5. Technical delivery services -Next steps 2014 : Request Service level declarations (legally non-binding) -> proceed Service level agreements 2015 : Build trust: support technical specialisation and dependency building between the nodes with ELIXIR pilots Learn from history of existing e-Infrastructures: key concepts of technical services have already been invented Network provides key infrastructure components : Geant, Nordunet, NRENs (National Research and Education Network providers) Distributed ICT: EGI can monitor a complex physical system Make a plan when ELIXIR must produce e-Infrastructure service for itself and when it will be possible for e.g. Geant, EGI etc. to deliver the services for ELIXIR In 2018 ELIXIR technical service providers need to be specialised. Nodes will trust each other to carry out their respective activities properly .

General remarks / Conclusions Important to distinguish between infrastructure and research: Node can be involved in both, but ELIXIR funding cannot be used to further the research agenda. However, it will be important to demonstrate visible impact on research projects early in life-cycle ELIXIR will need to identify areas to actively engage in and areas to follow Unacceptable for the ELIXIR brand to be used without any control  clear rules are needed No new pilots to be started in 2013 due to lack of funds, situation to be reviewed again in 2014

ELIXIR Programmes of Work – WG (1) Core services & Data resources Ron Appel (CH) , Rolf Apweiler (EBI) Tools Interoperability and Service Registry Bengt Persson (SE) , Søren Brunak / Peter Løngreen (Dk), ELIXIR Technical Services Tommi Nyrönen (Fi), Lurek Matyska (Cz) ELIXIR Training Programme Chris Ponting(UK)

ELIXIR Programmes of Work – WG (2) Research data management Barend Mons (NL), Jaak Vilo (EE) Data interoperability, vocabulary and ontology services Carole Goble (UK) ELIXIR Domain Specific Services Alfonso Valencia (ES), Inge Jonassen (No), Jose Leal (Pt) ELIXIR Management and Operations (Hub) Merged into one workstream

Personal comments ELIXIR has started its operations! All HoN present strongly wish to work together for the good of all The ELIXIR Director & Team: Already up to speed A lot of outstanding work done since May