ELIXIR-UK contributions to BioHackathon Europe 2025

2 December 2025

Earlier this month, around 300 people from across the international life science and open data communities gathered in Berlin for BioHackathon Europe 2025. Now in its eighth year, the event has become one of ELIXIR’s most productive community-led development spaces: more than 2,200 participants have contributed to over 275 projects since its launch. ELIXIR-UK continues to be a significant part of these efforts, with UK teams leading and supporting work that strengthens FAIR data practices, sustainable workflows and interoperable research infrastructure across Europe.

The event brings together a diverse mix of contributors – from tool builders and domain experts to researchers, infrastructure providers and community managers – all working side by side to develop practical solutions that strengthen the wider ecosystem. To date, 43 preprints resulting from BioHackathon Europe projects have recorded over 14,000 downloads, demonstrating their continued value.

ELIXIR-UK–led projects

This year, ELIXIR-UK researchers led and contributed to several projects spanning benchmarking, interoperability, sustainability and FAIR data practices. These contributions build on UK strengths in research data management, workflow technologies, standards and community-driven infrastructure development.

Beyond the projects led by UK members, several others received key contributions from our community. For instance, in harmonising and connecting existing tools to form a Research Data Management Ecosystem, with better integration of RDMkit, FAIRsharing and FAIRCookbook.

Biohackathon photo including ELIXIR-UK members

Project 2: Advancing the ELIXIR Maturity Model for RDM providers with Node-level implementation guidance
Leads: Marina Popleteeva, Mijke Jetten, Xènia Pérez Sitjà (ELIXIR-UK), Ivan Mičetić

Building on the first version of the ELIXIR RDM Maturity Model, co-developed earlier this year, this project focused on improving its clarity and usability. The team enhanced indicator descriptions, added examples, and more closely linked the model to ELIXIR guidance, such as RDMkit and the FAIR Cookbook. The team also worked on the home for this resource, the future, the Data Stewardship Handbook.

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Project 10: Expanding the benchmarking landscape for long-read transcriptomics
Leads: Ana Conesa, Willfried Hartey (ELIXIR-UK), Kristina Gruden

This project launched the next phase of benchmarking for long-read transcriptomics, extending the foundations laid by LRGASP. By integrating new protocols, technologies and datasets, the team is helping to establish European leadership in transcriptome benchmarking through updated assessments within the OpenEBench framework. The aim is to support more reproducible and comparable long-read analyses across the research community.

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Project 20: New ELIXIR Recommended Interoperability Resources (RIRs): transparent and automated evaluation for a FAIRer Future
Leads: Marek Suchánek, Allyson Lister (ELIXIR-UK), Munazah Andrabi (ELIXIR-UK)

This project updated the RIR framework by developing a FAIR-aligned approach to evaluating and periodically re-evaluating interoperability resources. The team drafted a more transparent assessment process and explored validation checks to assess the FAIR-enabling and FAIR-implementation capabilities of the resources, and laid the groundwork for a transparent, sustainable process as well as a regularly updated listing of RIRs that feed into ELIXIR’s FAIR-enabling resource portfolio.

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Project 24: Sustainable computing in Galaxy through reuse and energy-aware job scheduling
Lead: Nicola Soranzo (ELIXIR-UK), with collaborators

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Project 28: Towards a robust validation service for data and metadata in ARC RO-Crates
Leads: Matthijs Brouwer, Kevin Schneider, Eli Chadwick (ELIXIR-UK)

This project explored an integrated validation approach for ARC RO-Crates, ensuring both metadata and data are rigorously assessed against FAIR and community standards. By combining the RO-Crate validator with Frictionless and experimenting with schema-linked validation within the crate itself, the team aimed to build a deployable microservice that supports consistent, trustworthy digital research objects.

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Find out more about the BioHackathon by visiting the official news from ELIXIR Europe.

Notes to editors

About ELIXIR-UK

ELIXIR-UK is part of the European ELIXIR infrastructure, which supports life science research and its translation to medicine, the environment, and society. By integrating national bioinformatics resources, ELIXIR-UK aims to provide a sustainable infrastructure for biological information, ensuring that data is effectively managed, analysed and shared across the scientific community.

For further details, reach out to us at contact@elixiruknode.org