ELIXIR Norway

ELIXIR Norway is the Norwegian node of ELIXIR Europe, the European intergovernmental organisation that helps researchers work with life science data spanning genomics, proteomics, and related fields. Coordinated from the University of Bergen, ELIXIR Norway connects four additional partner institutions — the University of Oslo, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) — into a national network that links Norwegian research expertise to ELIXIR's broader infrastructure across 25 member countries. The node is staffed by more than 70 researchers, engineers, and scientists distributed across these five universities.

ELIXIR operates through a Hub and Nodes model. The ELIXIR Hub provides central coordination from the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge, UK, while each member country runs its own Node. ELIXIR Norway serves as Norway's Node, providing bioinformatics services, data management tools, training, and secure e-infrastructure for life science researchers nationally and internationally.

Organisational Structure

• ELIXIR Norway is headed by Sushma Grellscheid (Professor, University of Bergen) as Head of Node, with Eivind Hovig (Professor Emeritus, University of Oslo) serving as Co-head.
• Node Leaders at each partner institution include Rein Aasland (University of Oslo), Erik Hjerde (UiT The Arctic University of Norway), Pål Sætrom (NTNU), and Simen Rød Sandve (NMBU).
• Coordination roles cover technical coordination (Kjell Petersen, University of Bergen), data management (Korbinian Bösl, University of Bergen), node coordination (Ingeborg Winge, University of Bergen), and service and training coordination (Espen Åberg, UiT).
• A Steering Board chaired by Inge Jonassen (Head of the Department of Informatics, University of Bergen) provides governance, with members drawn from each partner university.
• A Scientific Advisory Committee includes international experts from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, the University of Marseille (ELIXIR France), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (ELIXIR Netherlands), and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
• A Stakeholder Panel includes representatives from NTNU, Oslo University Hospital, the Institute of Marine Research, and the Norwegian Directorate of Health (Helsedirektoratet).

Key Activities and Services

• Provision of bioinformatics services and secure e-infrastructure for life science researchers across Norway.
• Data management support and tools, including work on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) metadata standards — for example, contributing to improved discoverability and reuse of non-human pathogen data.
• Training programmes coordinated nationally across the five partner institutions.
• Development and evaluation of Trusted Research Environments (TREs), including co-leadership of the TRE Evaluation Workshop bringing together 30 stakeholders to advance a TRE Blueprint for secure data access across Europe.
• Participation in the Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI) initiative, including a three-day hackathon in Finnish Lapland involving 59 developers from 19 EU countries, focused on federated and secure cross-border genomic data sharing.

International Collaboration and Affiliations

• ELIXIR Norway is an active node within ELIXIR Europe, collaborating with nodes across 25 member countries and contributing to shared infrastructure, tools, and standards.
• The node coordinates with Norwegian representatives to the Global Biodata Coalition, a forum that brings together research funders and data resource managers to develop shared strategies and funding models for sustaining global biodata infrastructure.
• Impact from ELIXIR-funded work is categorised across distinct areas, with each activity mapped to one or more impact categories, following a framework adapted from Martin et al. (2021).

ELIXIR Norway's activities span research infrastructure, data stewardship, training, and international collaboration, with its five-institution network positioned as Norway's primary contribution to European and global life science data infrastructure.