1. 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

2. 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

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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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 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 ?

12. 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 .

13. 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

14. 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)

15. 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

16. 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