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The CORBEL training curriculum is based on a competency profile (D9.1 - CORBEL Refined organisational competency framework needed by distributed RIs at 3 development stages) and the gap analysis that was completed based on it. The main target audience of the training programme is technical operators of biological and medical research infrastructures (BMS RIs). CORBEL organises the following types of training activities: webinars, face-to-face courses and staff programme (includes knowledge exchange workshops, staff visits and fellowships). The present deliverable reports on the online version of the CORBEL competency profile at the EBI competency mapper websiteand the training activities carried out since 2017. This includes 20 webinars and 8 face-to-face courses, as well as the 28 staff programme applications received. CORBEL has successfully delivered different types of training activities and their impact will continue after the end of the project. In addition to the impact on each participant who has gained new knowledge or skills, some of the courses designed within the CORBEL project will continue to be delivered as part of the EMBL (or EMBL-EBI) training programme: Data visualisation for biology, Machine learning for image analysis; User research and service design continues as part of EMBL-EBI and EMBO workshops. The new BMS RI cluster project EOSC-Life3, which will create an open, digital and collaborative space for biological and medical research, will continue training on, amongst others, ARIA, quality management and Authorisation and Authentication Infrastructure (AAI). To further promote the continuation of the project into EOSC-Life, we have delivered a joint webinar series (Engaging with your community through events and training), so that the communities within the two projects can benefit from it and that participants learn that many of the CORBEL activities will continue through EOSC-Life. EOSC-Life is a project that brings together 13 BMS RIs, including the ones in CORBEL. EOSC-Life will support the cooperation between RIs and organise training and knowledge exchange events. Many of the BMS RIs have since started their own webinar series. Recordings from the CORBEL webinar series will stay available online through the CORBEL website and the new LifeScience RI.

This deliverable reports on the outcome of Task 9.1 ”Analysis of the training needs of different EOSC-Life users”. An online survey was developed to get structured feedback on the training landscape from the Biological and Medical ESFRI research infrastructures (BMS RIs). One of the aims was to identify gaps in existing training offers and developing a plan on how to address these gaps. 35 responses were received, from 13 research infrastructures (RIs). All 13 RIs provide training as part of their activities, which is a great starting point for the EOSC-Life training strategy. The training needs with respect to EOSC-Life topics were analysed, which RI(s) expressed interest in the training topic, which RI(s) already provide training and which RI(s) are interested in providing training in the future. The survey results underline that the 12 pre-selected topics in the grant proposal cover the EOSC-Life training needs extremely well. However, the survey also highlighted that there is a need for outreach and awareness raising about EOSC in general, and EOSC-Life specifically, to RI staff within and outside of the project. In addition training needs were collected from the other EOSC-Life WPs and discussed during the project retreat in October. As a next step, we will facilitate that training in high demand areas will be expanded, e.g. by facilitating exchange of experience between RIs that expressed interest in providing training in a given topic with those already providing this training. In addition, as response to a high demand of introductory training on EOSC-Life and the clear need for EOSC-related outreach, a Translator group was initiated.

The Table 1 (EU declaration signatory and membership status) of the original article published online contained several errors: the IARC was incorrectly listed in the table, which only includes countries, and footnote; Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal were not listed as full EMBL members; Estonia is now listed as a Prospect Member of EMBL; Hungary, Ireland and Israel were incorrectly listed as BBMRI-ERIC members; Iceland was omitted from the table. Hyphens stand for ‘not applicable’; the table and footnote have been corrected accordingly. These errors have now been corrected online and in print.

The goal of this deliverable is to define the competencies required by technical operators of RIs by seeking input from experts in the four target areas defined by the CORBEL project as a whole – data management and integration, physical access, ethics and innovation – from within and beyond the BMS-RIs. We have capitalised on the experience that we have gained together in the EMTRAIN consortium, using methodologies that we are currently refining (www.lifetrain.eu), to document, gain broad buy-in for, and maintain competency profiles for technical roles.

BioMedBridges - d12.4 - Report of user training performed in months 36-48

This deliverable summarises the third and fourth workshops run by WP12 – Training – as part of the BioMedBridges project. Preparing for the data deluge, our third knowledge exchange workshop with project partners, brought together the BMS research infrastructures with the European e-infrastructures to discuss biological data needs in the coming five years. Data strategies for research infrastructures, our final knowledge exchange workshop, examined how research infrastructures can develop strategies for managing biological data. During both workshops we used ‘living documents’, which could be simultaneously edited by all the participants, to capture information on the delegates’ needs and expectations, and to address these. Subsequently BioMedBridges produced reports on the activities of these workshops and plans for the future. These are available on the BioMedBridges website.

WP12 outlines a user-training plan for the final year of the BioMedBridges project. This will involve the development of online training modules in collaboration with the technical work packages and developers from across the ESFRI BMS research infrastructures. Plans are presented to ensure that these modules have sustainable impact for end users of BioMedBridges services.

This deliverable summarises the first two workshops run by WP12 Training as part of the BioMedBridges project. Practical solutions with ontologies, our first knowledge-exchange workshop for project partners, brought together ontology experts with domain experts who had little or no previous experience of using ontologies. Computational aspects of high-throughput screening; planning and analysis enabled us to disseminate one of the BioMedBridges’ early deliverables, the UniChem resource, to EU-OPENSCREEN and others working on chemical screening. During both workshops we used "living documents", which could be simultaneously edited by all the participants, to capture information on the delegates’ needs and expectations, and to address these. Subsequent work on these living documents is converting them into openly available documentation on the BioMedBridges website.

Data is the lifeblood of science. Scientists produce data and analyse data, and service providers including research infrastructures (and e-infrastructures) provide facilities for data production and/or storage, sharing and reuse. There is increasing pressure for research infrastructures to have a clear, forward-looking data strategy: from funders during the forming process of new research infrastructures, as a result of technical developments (“explosion” of data coming from new instrumentation), and from the open access/open data movements, where the scientific community, journal publishers, and policymakers push for increasing amounts of data to be made available via various repositories. This document describes the high-level issues that may influence the data strategy of research infrastructures at various stages of development. The information is primarily targeted at research infrastructure project managers (or equivalent) as communication and knowledge hubs. However, the information presented here may also be interesting for technical staff operating at the management level, and aid communication exchange and collaboration between the two groups. The points presented here result from the discussions during the BioMedBridges workshop on data strategies for research infrastructures held on 19 February 2015 at ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany as well as an earlier workshop with representatives of various e-infrastructures and the document “Principles of data management and sharing at European Research Infrastructures”.

This deliverable proposes a set of guidelines for use by the technical workpackages, enabling them to employ a user-centred design approach to development of their services. User-centred design (UCD) is an approach to design that focuses the design process on the needs of the people who will actually use the product. The purpose of this deliverable document is not to provide a pre-defined “recipe” for UCD for the BioMedBridges end-products; rather, we hope to: stimulate discussion of how UCD could be incorporated into the project; bring all partners to a shared understanding of the importance of UCD in the planning, design and evolution of BioMedBridges services for end-users; share useful resources for UCD.

The success of BioMedBridges will depend on outreach and inreach to diverse groups of stakeholders. This deliverable report describes the use of a survey to define the broad stakeholder groups with whom BioMedBridges needs to engage, and to collect information on how the individual ESFRI-BMS RIs currently engage with these groups. We wanted to know who these stakeholders are, how the RIs are currently engaging with them, and what aspects of BioMedBridges the respondents felt we should be consulting this group of stakeholders on. Here we report on a preliminary analysis of the survey results and on what our next steps will be.

Access to affordable training on computational methodologies in Biology in the last 20 years has had a very positive impact in Portugal. This is due to a fortunate combination of circumstances, investments and decision-making. Consequently the density of bioinformatics-aware researchers in Portugal is relatively high. Contributing to this, the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência IGC) has provided bioinformatics services since 1991, and launched a regular training programme in 1999, the GTPB. Key to the success of this activity were the various forms of support provided by EMBL via its Hinxton Outstation, the European Bioinformatics Institute It would be unfair to single it out and ommit the contributions of tens of individuals that helped to organise and actually deliver the training. However, in the context of the present celebration, we need to recognise EMBL's support in helping to reach critical condition to make things happen, namely by allowing instructors to accept invitation to teach, by enrolling in large projects like BioSapiens that held a summer course for beginners, like Brenda and SLING that supported the creation of BTN and financed roadshows and workshops, by attaching to EMBnet for more than 20 years as a node, by helping to create ELIXIR for European infrastructure, by supporting GOBLET, etc. Training is essential to catalyse adoption of best practices in research and is all the more essential in bioinformatics, where the rapid growth in size and complexity of resources makes it challenging for researchers to keep up. Altogether, the Gulbenkian’s training activities have touched thousands of people. Here we present a summary of its history and impact.