BioFAIR is investing up to £2 million over an initial two-year period (from Q1 2027) to establish the BioFAIR Knowledge Hub. We anticipate extending successful collaborations to deliver the full programme through June 2029 and beyond.
BioFAIR is a UKRI-funded initiative developing digital research infrastructure to accelerate FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) research. The Knowledge Hub is a core capability dedicated to empowering the UK life sciences community with authoritative guidance on research data management (RDM), workflows, and software stewardship.
The Knowledge Hub will serve as a national focal point for RDM materials, planning, and standards. It will create a national support capability for researchers and research technical professionals (RTPs) throughout the RDM lifecycle, providing access to reference materials and key services to embed excellent data management practices.
Key Dates
| Activity | Date |
| Expression of Interest deadline | 30th September 2026 |
| Scope Development Workshop | Mid-October 2026 (Date TBC) |
| Full Proposal deadline | 30th November 2026 |
Page last updated on 30/09/2026
The BioFAIR Knowledge Hub addresses the UK life sciences community’s need for comprehensive, practical resources on FAIR RDM within the UK life sciences sector. We invite you to help shape this vital national infrastructure and contribute to a more efficient, collaborative future for UK life sciences.
Background
The UK life sciences sector is highly data-intensive, yet is challenged by a fragmented landscape. Despite the introduction of FAIR principles a decade ago, adoption remains inconsistent; recent research indicates that while most studies generate new data, few actually share it effectively. Bottlenecks often stem from inadequate RDM skills and difficulty accessing trustworthy best practices. This capability gap results in variable data access, poor metadata, and low reproducibility, with over 70% of biologists unable to replicate existing work. Failure to embed robust RDM practices as a core component of research initiatives risks wasting public investment and undermines the high-quality foundations required for future AI and drug discovery technologies.
While project-based solutions exist, they often fail to cultivate long-term, scalable expertise. Existing supported resources within the FAIR data community include RDM guidance services (e.g. RDMkit, FAIRsharing, TeSS, FAIR Cookbook) and data management planning services (e.g. DMPonline, Data Stewardship Wizard). Such services, and the efforts of initiatives like ELIXIR, have driven significant progress, yet awareness and uptake of these services and how they can help is variable. A national effort is now required to democratise access and establish a central Hub for RDM guidance and FAIR tools across the UK.
Aims
The BioFAIR Knowledge Hub will serve as a national repository of RDM tools and reference materials, upskilling roles across independent research organisations. Adopting a “reuse, don’t rebuild” philosophy, the project will scale community-led platforms to provide practical RDM assistance.
By providing a single point of entry for RDM knowledge, the Hub will enable:
- Researchers to access consolidated guidance and services for managing, evaluating, and depositing FAIR-compliant data.
- Research Technical Professionals to utilise agentic assistance and best-practice resources to build RDM expertise across diverse life science data types.
- Research Performing Organisations to draw on trusted, national-level knowledge and community standards to benchmark their current practices and ensure consistent staff upskilling.
- Under-resourced teams to gain equitable access to RDM capability-building resources.
The Knowledge Hub will exist alongside the other BioFAIR spokes — Data Commons, Methods Commons and People Commons — ensuring full coverage of the FAIR data cycle and reflecting the knowledge and outcomes of other BioFAIR teams, with which it will collaborate closely to deliver a cohesive user experience across all steps of the data lifecycle journey.
This funding opportunity is open to team members based at:
- higher education institutions
- research council institutes
- approved independent research organisations
- public sector research establishments
EOI applicants must demonstrate a strong track record in service delivery (especially services that operate as part of national-scale research infrastructure), collaboration on data science platforms, and community coordination. While you are welcome to apply with a pre-formed consortium, it is not mandatory for the EOI stage. Individual organisations should submit their own expressions of interest. We expect that applicants will form a consortium capable of delivering the full scope of the Knowledge Hub prior to submission of full proposals. Opportunities for matchmaking will be provided at the Scope Development Workshop.
The assembled Knowledge Hub team can include industry or third-sector partners. Expressions of Interest are invited from applicants in industry or third-sector, not eligible for UKRI funding, but note that at the full proposal stage they must join as subcontracted partners within a consortium led by an eligible organisation. Enquiries regarding eligibility are welcome prior to application.
The BioFAIR Hub can support centralised procurement or subcontracting of specific services if required and we invite enquiries prior to submission if you think this might be needed.
Due Diligence
To ensure UKRI funding is used appropriately and responsibly, EOI applicants must answer several questions related to the status of the lead organisation. Applicants must supply:
- Organisation details, including legal status and financial details, signed by an authorised legal signatory
Applicants must also make a declaration of whether they have the following policies/controls in place:
- Anti-fraud/bribery policy
- Conflicts of interest policy
- UK GDPR/data-protection policy
- Procurement policy
- Research integrity & misconduct policy
- Bullying, harassment & safe working environment policy
- Equality, diversity & inclusion policy
- Open research (data, software, publications) policy
- Trusted research, security & export controls.
These declarations are for due diligence and proportionate risk management. They do not constitute eligibility criteria. Where key items are not yet in place, BioFAIR may discuss mitigations (for example, named contacts, timelines, etc.) before award.
The Knowledge Hub is the landing zone for researchers getting started with Research Data Management (RDM) and FAIR. The Knowledge Hub should go further than being an encyclopedia of best practice by providing researchers interactive and actionable tools to use their data management plans throughout their research. The Knowledge Hub acts as an RDM assistant, helping researchers to embed best practice in their research from project inception to completion. It aims to provide useful tools that keep researchers engaged in the RDM process throughout the data management lifecycle enabling teams to reach greater FAIR maturity.
The Knowledge Hub activities should be designed to collaborate with and enhance the services developed by the other Commons. Successful applicants will create a platform that can integrate on various touchpoints with the Methods and Data Commons to provide machine-readable research data management plans that can be used throughout the BioFAIR Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI).
Many resources to support research data management are already available, but we expect the Knowledge Hub to find innovative ways to drive adoption of such guidance, increasing its value to researchers. For example, the Knowledge Hub could explore advanced filtering and summarisation of information across a number of resources using AI agents giving researchers actionable domain specific knowledge to help them on their RDM journey in a way that saves them time and provides the commonly expected user experience.
Expected Capabilities
The Knowledge Hub team will deliver three key capabilities at a national scale for UK life sciences. These capabilities are:
- Data and Metadata Standards Discovery and Recommendation: Providing centralised access to validated community standards and registries.
- Research Data Management (RDM) Best Practice Provision: Developing and disseminating expert guidance and stewardship resources.
- Automated Data Management Planning: Enabling the generation of machine-readable, funder-compliant data management plans that can be used across the BioFAIR DRI.
Together, these capabilities will empower researchers and Research Technical Professionals (RTPs) to define reusable and reproducible processes that manage any data, software or pipelines they produce throughout the dataset lifecycle.
In the initial two year funding period, we expect the BioFAIR knowledge hub to focus on supporting several key features:
- Comprehensive Asset Stewardship: Ensures immediate access to reusable resources such as standard operating procedures, metadata templates, and validation criteria for datasets, computational workflows, and scripts, focusing explicitly on the practical needs of institutional data stewards, software authors, and bench scientists.
- Defragmenting the Digital Landscape: Consolidates scattered documentation for data standards, workflow environments, and software best practices into a single, navigable national capability that can facilitate complex queries.
- Practical Project Planning: Empowers research teams at the inception of a project by providing standard, accessible data management planning environments that capture data types, computational code, and intended analysis pipelines in line with funder expectations.
- Moving towards FAIR Maturity: Recognises that diverse scientific communities are at varying levels of digital readiness and improves data stewardship throughout the BioFAIR user community.
- Democratising Open Research Standards: Lowers the technical barriers to entry for life sciences communities by providing clear, user-friendly documentation and guidance on adopting packaging and metadata standards.
Not all of these features are required as part of a minimum viable product (MVP); development of the Knowledge Hub services is expected to follow an incremental approach that delivers early value to the life sciences research community, based on user-driven design principles. It is intended for the specific scope of what will be delivered in the first two years to be refined during the scoping and development workshop, using the expertise of participants. However, all three capabilities should be achieved to some level of support by the end of the initial funding period
Collaboration
The BioFAIR Hub team will facilitate the Knowledge Hub team in developing the required capabilities and achieving their deliverables. The BioFAIR Hub team will provide:
- Connections to the wider BioFAIR network,
- Connections and help with integration amongst the spokes,
- Connections to research technical professional with the availability and willingness to support the embedding of Knowledge Hub services in scientific communities (especially through the BioFAIR fellowships and Pathfinder Projects), and
- Support for outreach and engagement opportunities.
Additionally, the BioFAIR hub team will be responsible for:
- Foundational technical services that can be utilised as required (including e.g. a federated identity provider service, service hosting, platform as a service offerings, and centralised cybersecurity services such as Cloudflare),
- BioFAIR-wide governance processes (including e.g. security audits and penetration testing), and
- Procurement processes (including e.g. procurement of physical and virtual technical infrastructure, cloud resources and supercomputing facility time).
We recognise that, as the establishment of the Knowledge Hub will be led by the Knowledge Hub team, active collaboration between the BioFAIR Hub, the Knowledge Hub, and the other BioFAIR spoke teams will be needed to deliver and operate a robust, sustainable infrastructure.
Team Science
The Knowledge Hub is expected to assemble a diverse and distinctive team of researchers and other specialists drawn from the full breadth of expertise available across the UK with the collective capability of delivering the proposed work. At full application, applicants will be encouraged to dedicate staff to the project at a high level of commitment (more than 50% FTE) to support the creation of an effective and collaborative distributed team.
Project or Grant Managers
The Knowledge Hub should include a project or grant manager in the core team to support day-to-day project coordination, tracking of project progress and proactive risk management throughout the lifetime of the project. At this stage, applicants are encouraged to consider whether they have this type of leadership capability within the team, and whether they would wish to host the project manager in their organisation.
Data Stewardship
At full application stage, applicants will be strongly encouraged to include Data Stewards or Research Data Managers in the core team to support materials curation and provide expertise to the project. Applicants should highlight anyone in their expression of interest who fits this role. The Data Steward or RDM in the Knowledge Hub team is expected to work closely with the Methods and Data Commons to ensure that materials are fit for purpose. Their knowledge may also be used for testing AI Agents that are used in the project.
Research Technical Professionals
Building on the Technician Commitment UKRI Action Plan and the UKRI people and teams action plan, applicants are particularly encouraged to include research technical professionals in the team. Applicants are also encouraged to consider including research technical professionals as project co-leads.
Submission Guidelines
Overview
The selection process for the Knowledge Hub spoke is organised in three stages.
- Expression of Interest (due 30th September)
- Scope Development Workshop (Mid October, date TBC)
- Full Proposal Submission (due 30th November)
Selected applicants will be invited to submit full proposals after the scope development workshop in October. The call text for full proposals will be released in October, prior to the Scope Development Workshop.
At this stage, EOIs are not expected to outline a full vision for the knowledge hub, but rather focus on the experience and areas of interest of applicants, to help the BioFAIR Hub identify what expertise participants will bring to the scope development workshop. The Scope Development Workshop will be a hands-on, practical event designed, led by the BioFAIR Hub, to refine the scope of the initial two year Knowledge Hub programme and align an ambitious vision for BioFAIR with a pragmatic, realistic expectation of delivery, informed by the experience of potential partners. Following the development of a shared scope at this workshop, invited applicants will be expected to define a delivery strategy and a programme of work that will be submitted as part of the full proposal
You should complete the application form using the provided template. Each organisation should submit their own expression of interest — so even if you are interested in work with a group of collaborators, each partner should express their interest separately.
Please note that your expression of interest will not be peer reviewed and scored at this stage, but will be used by the BioFAIR Hub to identify the potential role you may play in the Knowledge Hub, and this may influence your role at the Scope Development Workshop. Materials you provide at this stage may subsequently be made available to the Spoke Selection Review panel to provide a complete picture of your background. However, the review panel will carry out their review based only upon submitted full proposals, using criteria that will be provided as part of the call text.
Expressions of Interest should provide details on your team and track record, emphasising why your organisation has the established skills, expertise and track record to deliver required capabilities of the Knowledge Hub at a national scale. Focus on why your organisation is well placed to form and/or host members of the BioFAIR Knowledge Hub team. We are asking you to use the UKRI R4RI template to capture this; please provide only one R4RI, whether this is for a single individual or for an entire team within your organisation.
When completing your R4RI, please especially explain:
- Your track record of delivery of tools, materials and/or services aligned to the scope of the Knowledge Hub (within Module 1, Contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies or knowledge)
- Any collaborations you have been part of in the past that you wish to continue as part of the Knowledge Hub i.e. mentioning any other organisations that you know also plan to submit an Expression of Interest to this call (Module 2, The development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships)
- Your current engagement with communities of potential users of the Knowledge Hub, and how this engagement drives the delivery of any tools, materials or services you maintain. (Module 3, Contributions to the wider research and innovation community)
Expressions of interest should also briefly outline any planned activities you envisage undertaking as part of the Knowledge Hub team. Focus on:
- Which services, tools or materials you plan to bring to the Knowledge Hub team, aligned with the scope of the call
- Your view on the priorities of the community to engage with RDM and FAIR that are within the remit of the Knowledge Hub, and how you might help address these
- What gaps you see that exist in data stewardship, RDM information, and tooling, and what your contributions might be to address these gaps
Within the Expression of Interest, applicants are especially encouraged to consider how they would organise and prioritise their efforts to ensure that value is delivered to users, addressing their most urgent needs, as early as possible while capabilities are being developed and expanded incrementally.
| Section | Content Description | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant Details | Identify individual or team applicants from a single organisation. | 1 |
| Résumé for Research and Innovation | Provide a narrative CV using the UKRI R4RI template, focusing on alignment with the project scope. | 4 |
| Proposed Activities Plan | Summarise your proposed contributions and general vision for the Hub. An optional summary figure may be included. | 2 |
| Potential Collaborators | Identify potential collaborators or consortium partners (if applicable — not mandatory for the EOI stage). | 1 |
| Due Diligence | Complete the mandatory due diligence form. | N/A |
Submission Process
- Download the mandatory EOI Application Form and the Due Diligence Form
- All expressions of interest must be sent electronically to opportunities@biofair.uk by 30 September 2026 at 12:00pm BST.
- Questions regarding this opportunity should be directed to the Hub team at opportunities@biofair.uk before the close of business on 28 September 2026.
Ready to submit?
Expressions of Interest closed 30 September 2026.
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We look forward to receiving your EOIs to establish the BioFAIR Knowledge Hub.