ELIXIR Communities: Connecting infrastructure & life science experts

ELIXIR Communities are groups of experts across ELIXIR Nodes that represent a scientific or technological theme that drives the development of standards, services and/or training in and across ELIXIR. There are currently 17 ELIXIR Communities, representing diverse fields and areas of expertise.  The Communities play an important role in ELIXIR, fostering collaboration between Nodes via transnational expert networks, as well as providing a mechanism for long-term collaboration with other ESFRIs and large-scale initiatives. The Communities also assist in facilitating consortium building for funding opportunities, if available, and provide a valuable mechanism for enabling ELIXIR to capture user needs into formal requirements. Thus the Communities are an important formal mechanism for building human and relationship capital both within and beyond ELIXIR.  ELIXIR Communities have far-reaching impact - measured both through tangible performance metrics, and less tangible wide-spread impact. These include making research more efficient, contributing to bioinformatics resource uptake, and influencing policy. They also play an important role in contributing to research infrastructure sustainability, as well as leaving their own long-lasting scientific legacies.  As ELIXIR continues to evolve, the Communities portfolio likewise is expanding to reflect the various areas of ELIXIR’s priorities, covering the broad themes of human data; biodiversity, food security and infectious disease; and cellular and molecular research.   This poster aims to give an overview of the current  Communities portfolio, highlights their impact, and showcases their structure and how to join.