ELIXIR-ITA: a growing support to national and international research in life sciences

Motivation ELIXIR-ITA, the Italian Node of ELIXIR, gathers most of the excellence centres for bioinformatics in Italy and is striving to assume a pivotal role for the national and international life science communities. This is reflected by the growing number of bioinformatics services, initiatives and projects supported or participated by ELIXIR- ITA, including H2020 grants and a number of training efforts delivering state of the art courses on basic and advanced topics. Methods ELIXIR-ITA comprises today 17 institutions organised in a Joint Research Unit (JRU). The JRU manager and the assembly of the institutions representatives lead the JRU. A technical and a training coordinator provide inter- and intra- Node coordination, working together with their colleagues from other Nodes and a network of Local Technical Coordinators (LTeCs) respectively. Results In 2016, ELIXIR-ITA has become a full ELIXIR member and four new institutions have joined the Node. In 2015/2016, in order to support its members to maintain and improve key bioinformatic resources, ELIXIR-ITA has awarded nine grants through a peer reviewed selection. A collaborative ELIXIR-ITA website integrating events from all member institutions has been developed and will be published soon. We closely collaborate with other ELIXIR Nodes and the ELIXIR Hub and are involved in international initiatives, like the H2020 projects ELIXIR-EXCELERATE, INDIGO- Datacloud and EMBRIC, which are stimulating the development, rationalisation and integration of bioinformatics research in Italy.