Pioneering technologies are currently transforming research in the life sciences being carried out in Europe in the areas of structural biology, chemical screening, advanced imaging, and data analysis. To perform this kind of multidisciplinary research, scientists urgently need access to high-end technologies and services. In most cases, however, this access is not easily available to every scientist.
European Life Science Research Infrastructures (EU RIs) were established to grant this access and to successfully translate the lab findings into future medical care.
Learn more about these RIs in our video.
The EOSC-Life project brought 13 European Life Science RIs and 50 work partners together with the goal to create a digital space for the life sciences. The consortium successfully achieved this goal.
These 13 RIs first joined forces in the H2020-funded projects BioMedBridges and CORBEL. Through the EOSC-Life project, they continued to offer combined services and have contributed a lasting legacy of tools, workflows, and data resources for the benefit of diverse stakeholders in society.
In addition to ensuring the success of the joint projects, the 13 Life Science RIs are determined to sustain their collaborations and enable cross-RI access. Although the EOSC-Life project has officially ended, you can learn more about how we are working together and how you can access facilities, services, and resources across RIs on the LS RI website.
A research infrastructure is an organisation that enables the research community to use specific facilities, resources, and services to accelerate scientific achievements and promote sustainable research.
To put science at the heart of societal and economic development, we need to devise strategies to stretch the limits of science. This enables us to promote innovation, tackle societal challenges, and deliver big results.
In Europe, one such strategy is the development of research infrastructures (RIs): organisations that make it possible for the research community to use specific facilities, resources, and services, thus fostering collaboration among scientists from different countries, economic sectors, research fields, and institutions.
EOSC-Life brought together 13 Life Science Research Infrastructures (LS RIs). You can find a list on our Partners’ page.
Even beyond the official end of EOSC-Life, the 13 LS RIs will continue to work together. Browse their Catalogue of Services on the LS RI website.
Research infrastructures provide an elegant solution to making science more effective and sustainable against the complex European backdrop of interactions among nation states. The RIs provide the framework for the creation of an organised, fair, and transparent system. Scientists can use this system to share knowledge and resources and, in doing so, contribute to data pooling and optimise the use of facilities and equipment, avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort.
By making high-quality facilities, resources, and services available to everyone, RIs ensure that science is driven by excellence and not by the research capacity of the individual countries, economic sectors, or institutions. They also guarantee that this excellence is applied to reduce bottlenecks, extend the frontiers of scientific disciplines, and promote transformative technological development.
By setting the goal to ensure high-quality science around the globe, European RIs include members and partners from diverse countries and regions and encompass many research fields, including those in the Biological and Medical Sciences, Material Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities, Environmental Sciences, Energy, and Astronomy.
These infrastructures are strongly supported by the European Commission, which has set up the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), a strategic instrument to steer policy-making and encourage the better use and development of research infrastructures.