ELIXIR-UK All Hands 2024: A Celebration of Collaboration and Innovation

The ELIXIR-UK All Hands Meeting 2024, held at Cardiff’s iconic Principality Stadium on November 19–20, brought together 70 attendees from across almost all members of ELIXIR-UK, and representatives from the Welsh Government, BBSRC and MRC. Participants joined in to reflect on achievements and discuss the future and direction of our efforts. Hosted by our members at Cardiff University, the event showcased the power of collaboration in advancing research infrastructure and building a culture of collaboration in the life sciences.

Showcasing success stories

The meeting opened with inspiring talks from long-standing ELIXIR-UK members. Saskia Lawson-Tovey (University of Manchester), Emma Karoune (The Alan Turing Institute), Wendi Bacon (The Open University), and Yo Yehudi (OLS) shared personal success stories, highlighting the value of working collaboratively in traditionally isolated fields like bioinformatics and computational biology.  

New members energised the event by presenting their first contributions and aspirations within the network. Nicos Angelopoulos (Pirbright Institute), Simon Thompson (Swansea University), Peter Harrison and Emily Jefferson (HDR UK), and Jamie Harrison (University of Exeter) demonstrated the vibrancy and appeal of joining ELIXIR-UK.

A set of poster presentations at the end of the first day further showcased the relentless and successful efforts of our community.

Building cross-disciplinary connections

An important theme this year was forging partnerships with sister networks and Distributed Research Infrastructures (DRIs). Chaired by Susanna Sansone, the panel included external speakers Kenneth Ho and Todd Fallesen (Euro-BioImaging UK Node), Lucia Marucci (AIBIO-UK), and Tony Pridmore (PhenomUK). These collaborations are already bearing fruit, with plans for a joint workshop in March 2025 with AIBIO-UK promising to deepen cross-disciplinary engagement.

Discussing our symbiotic relationship with BioFAIR

The event also spotlighted the new UK BioCommons vision, now turned into reality, BioFAIR, with Gerry Reilly and Carole Goble. Attendees explored how ELIXIR-UK aligns with BioFAIR’s mission to simplify and amplify access to infrastructure for life sciences researchers. The natural symbiosis of the two shows a promising future, albeit with a long path to tread. We bring the community of Digital RTPs that will develop and sustain the tools, training and strategy so that BioFAIR can deliver an effective digital research infrastructure.

Chaired and organised for success

The success of the event owed much to its dedicated organising committee:  

• Xènia Pérez Sitjà, Earlham Institute 
• Robert Andrews, Cardiff University
• Saskia Lawson-Tovey, University of Manchester  
• Korneel Hens, Oxford Brookes University  
• Val Wood, University of Cambridge  
• Richard Ostler, Rothamsted Institute  
• Julie Hayward, Cardiff University  

The meeting was opened by Robert Andrews (as host), alongside ELIXIR-UK’s Heads of Node, Carole Goble (University of Manchester) and Neil Hall (Earlham Institute), who beautifully closed the event with inspiring words for 2025. Their leadership set a dynamic tone, driving engagement and inspiring participants to continue building ELIXIR-UK’s legacy of innovation and collaboration.  

With representation from the Welsh Government, BBSRC, and MRC as our funders, ELIXIR-UK All Hands 2024 reaffirmed our network’s central role in shaping the future of life sciences research infrastructure in the UK.