ELIXIR Project meetings

Pedro Fernandes

Instituto Gulbenkian. Oeiras, Portugal

Another round of meetings of the ELIXIR project, now in the last stretch of the preparatory phase, prior to the presentation of the project proposal to the EU, took place in Copenhagen, on May 18th - 21st  2009.

The meetings, this time organized by Søren Brunak of DTU and his team, were held at the Panum Institute, which hosts the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Copenhagen. More than 80 participants  attended the meetings.

The main session was the Stakeholders Meeting where the reports of the several workpackages were presented by the respective committee heads. The results of the feasibility studies have also been presented by their respective leaders. The meeting was started and closed by Janet Thornton, the Director of the EBI and coordinator of the ELIXIR Project.

The spirit of mission accomplished was in the air. The material collected allows for the assembly of a very sound and solid proposal, encompassing many aspects of the task of planning an European Infrastructure for Bioinformatics. On the other hand, it was quite evidently shown that the dimension and complexity of the problem have been addressed appropriately. The final proposal is now in preparation.

Several EMBnet members serve in the ELIXIR Workpackage Committees and were involved in the discussions and preparation of reports.

Present in this meeting: Terry Attwood, Pedro Fernandes, Lubos Klucar and Endre Barta.