The concept of BioFAIR was developed by ELIXIR-UK. What started as a pilot study proposal in 2020 led to ELIXIR-UK working with Technopolis Group to carry out a full Feasibility Study in 2021, and in turn to a successful joint proposal for ‘BioFAIR; A data commons infrastructure for biological and biomedical sciences”, to enhance the sharing, management and reuse of UKRI-supported data. More information about the UKRI Infrastructure Funded projects can be found here.
BioFAIR seeks to catalogue and pool life science data currently stored at different institutions and repositories. By bridging the gap between researchers, institutional data repositories, and existing data infrastructures, the project hopes to accelerate discoveries and innovation.
As bioscience research is often extremely collaborative, the gains from BioFAIR will not be limited to those that attend BioFAIR training courses or who embed the tools and workflows recommended by BioFAIR. Whole research groups, institutions and resource networks will see benefit from its adoption. Knowledge transfer will occur between academics and research groups, but is not limited to that space. Public and third sector innovation, private entrepreneurs and citizens will all benefit from this drive to ensure FAIR principles are adopted across UK bioscience research.