Strengthening the EOSC life science infrastructure
Published October 27, 2025
ELIXIR, Euro-BioImaging, Instruct-ERIC and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have joined forces to establish a candidate European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) node, as part of the newly formed EOSC Federation. The four organisations have signed a memorandum of understanding outlining their shared commitment to support life science capacity within EOSC.
Following an open call in summer 2024, the EOSC Life Sciences Connect Node was selected as a first-wave candidate EOSC node, along with 12 others. The four node partners have since worked together to further develop their plans, created operational and governance structures and participated in the EOSC Federation Build-up Group meetings and subgroups.
Bringing biodata expertise to users
The EOSC Life Sciences Connect Node brings together biodata expertise and resources to improve access to repositories, software tools, services, standardised workflows and reproducible methods for life science researchers. It will work with other EOSC nodes to share expertise and give users access to interoperable, FAIR, secure and ethically compliant data, services and computational resources across Europe.
The node’s capabilities will be demonstrated through a series of use cases that connect resources to accelerate research across scientific fields. These include:
- Galaxy multi-domain graphical workflows platform
- Cross-domain interactive image data analysis with BAND virtual desktop
- FAIR image analysis across sciences
- Harmonising biodiversity observation
- Federated data storage of structural biology data
The EOSC Federation will bring together European, national and thematic nodes, each defined by their institutional context, user communities and service capabilities. Creating a federation of European open science resources aims to increase research efficiency and boost Europe’s competitiveness by integrating and standardising digital resources across scientific areas. Making research practices more interoperable, while removing or reducing barriers, will maximise the impact of public investment, accelerate discovery and ensure that outcomes remain trustworthy and widely reusable.
Introducing the EOSC Life Sciences Connect Node
The EOSC Life Sciences Connect Node will be represented by members from the four partner organisations at the EOSC Symposium, held in Brussels at the beginning of November. Following the symposium, node partners will work towards meeting the criteria required to progress from candidate to full node status.
“Each partnering research infrastructure of Life Sciences Connect brings a wealth of expertise, with multiple services and sites across Europe. By working together, within the framework of EOSC, we can make an even greater collective contribution to open science.” Peter Maccallum, Coordinator of the EOSC Life Sciences Connect Node.
“Euro-BioImaging has been actively engaged in the development of EOSC since its inception. We are delighted to have formalised the creation of a candidate EOSC node with ELIXIR, EMBL and Instruct, which will help make image data interoperable and accessible to all.” Antje Keppler, Bio-Hub Section Director at Euro-BioImaging.
“Experimental structural biology data has an impact on science and innovation across many fields. Accessibility of these data has long been spearheaded by the structural biology community. Instruct is excited to enter a substantial new collaboration as part of the EOSC Federation, bringing together stakeholders across Europe to increase the impact of structural biology data.” Harald Schwalbe, Director of Instruct-ERIC.
“Modern biology is data-driven, but one of the biggest challenges is harmonising different data types and putting them in the context of the surrounding environment. Cloud computing provides scientists with the tools to integrate complex information, understand the natural world and solve societal challenges.” Rob Finn, Section Head at EMBL-EBI.
About the Life Sciences Connect Node partners
ELIXIR is a European life sciences infrastructure, which brings together scientists from over 240 research institutes spread over more than 20 countries and one intergovernmental organisation - EMBL. It helps scientists find, share and analyse biological data by creating a coordinated, sustainable ecosystem for managing life science data.
Euro-BioImaging ERIC is a research infrastructure providing biological and biomedical imaging services to researchers across Europe and the globe. It offers open access to biological and biomedical imaging technologies, training and data services across 41 Nodes, comprising 247 facilities, in 18 countries and EMBL.
Instruct-ERIC is a pan-European distributed research infrastructure making high-end technologies and methods in structural biology available to users. Comprising 17 member countries and organisations, its aim is to promote innovation in biomedical science and operates on a non-economic basis within the scope of the ERIC Regulation.
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organisation covering the spectrum of molecular biology. With support from more than 30 countries, EMBL has more than 110 independent research groups and service teams covering the spectrum of molecular biology at six sites in Barcelona, Grenoble, Hamburg, Heidelberg, EMBL-EBI Hinxton, and Rome.
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