Today, an international public-private partnership of eleven forward-thinking academic and private organisations announces its joint effort to establish the Leiden Institute for FAIR and Equitable Science (LIFES). The founding partners of LIFES are the GO FAIR Foundation, CCC (Copyright Clearance Center), FAIRscholar, HINQ, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR), Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Roche Nederland B.V., Sage, TNO and the University of Twente (UT).
Settingthe standard
LIFES will address the challenges of global data reuse by building a wide and diverse network of public and private members that want to incorporate the principles of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and equitable data reuse. It will coordinate a strong, coherent FAIR-compliant application and services offering for training, data stewardship, analytics/machine learning and infrastructure. LIFES will broker access to these services, stimulate collaborations to fill technological and methodological gaps, and take the lead in securing public and private funding for developing strategic capabilities.
“Currently, data reuse is severely hampered by inadequate discoverability, limited accessibility, and poor interoperability between data sets. Within LIFES, we are setting a new standard for how data and information should be formatted, visited, and reused for the greater good.” Says Prof. Barend Mons, founding director of LIFES, and leading the launch phase. “We will enable a step-change to advanced analytics through smart, visiting algorithms fostering trusted and machine-augmented science. In doing so, LIFES not only contributes to the advancement of scientific research and innovation but also ensures that the benefits of these developments are shared equitably across the global community”.
Themission
The mission of LIFES is to facilitate an ecosystem where FAIR data generation, privacy preserving data stewardship, and equitable reuse of information are the norm. A radically distributed approach, where data is visited and queried at the source, will be an essential characteristic of this ecosystem. LIFES will serve as a catalyst for removing unnecessary barriers to equitable data visiting for legitimate research questions that meet legal, ethical, and consent requirements.
“At Naturalis Biodiversity Center, we are passionate about accelerating data production for biodiversity and delivering it in a FAIR and equitable way.” Says Dr Dimitris Koureas, Managing Director for Digital & Chief Information Officer Naturalis Biodiversity Center. ”Among our goals is to create a comprehensive knowledge corpus for all species in the Netherlands and to deliver digital twins of our vast natural science collections. We believe that by establishing public-private partnerships, we can leverage our collective knowledge and expertise to enhance the impact of mobilised data across domains. We are proud to be a founding member of the LIFES Institute. By working together with the other founding partners, we can drive our shared aspirations in FAIR data forward and create a shared space for data innovation, standards development, and adoption of best practices.”
Goingglobal
LIFES will encourage and facilitate the creation of independent sibling institutes equally committed to the core principles of FAIR, privacy preserving, and equitable reuse. By laying the foundations for a FAIR and equitable data ecosystem that can be replicated throughout the world, LIFES is responding to the immediate needs of the global research community and also supporting the scale up to the future demands of a world increasingly reliant on data-driven decision-making. This initiative marks a significant step forward in fulfilling the potential of big data to solve complex problems, drive innovation, and promote a more inclusive and sustainable future.
AboutLIFES
The Leiden Institute for FAIR and Equitable Science (LIFES) is an initiative of an international public-private partnership of eleven academic and private founding partners: the GO FAIR Foundation, CCC (Copyright Clearance Center), FAIRscholar, HINQ, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR), Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Roche Nederland B.V., Sage, TNO and the University of Twente (UT).
LIFES will address the challenges of global data reuse by facilitating an ecosystem where FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data generation, privacy preserving data stewardship, and equitable reuse of information are the norm. It will coordinate a strong, coherent FAIR-compliant application and services offering for training, data stewardship, analytics/machine learning and infrastructure. LIFES will broker access to these services, stimulate collaborations to fill technological and methodological gaps and take the lead in securing public and private funding for developing strategic capabilities.
More information
- For more information on the GO FAIR Foundation, visit the website https://www.gofair.foundation/lifes, or contact Barend Mons, barend@gofair.foundation
- For general questions, please contact Naturalis' Communications & Partnerships Department at communicatie@naturalis.nl or 071 - 7519 648. Outside office hours, we can be reached for press inquiries at +316 - 35 11 29 99.