The ELIXIR Core Data Resources: fundamental infrastructure for the life sciences.

Motivation: Life science research in academia, industry, agriculture, and the health sector is critically dependent on free and open data resources. ELIXIR, the European Research Infrastructure for life sciences data, has undertaken the task of identifying the set of Core Data Resources within Europe that are of most fundamental importance to the life science community for the long-term preservation of biological data. Having defined the Core Data Resources, we explored characteristics of the usage, impact and sustainability of the set as a whole to assess the value and importance of these resources as an infrastructure, to understand sustainability to the infrastructure, and to demonstrate a model for assessing Core Data Resources worldwide. Results: The nineteen life science data resources designated as Core Data Resources by ELIXIR together form a data infrastructure in Europe that is a subset of the wider worldwide open data infrastructure. These resources are of crucial importance to research in Europe and throughout the world. We show that, from 2013 to 2017, data managed by the Core Data Resources tripled and usage doubled while staff numbers increased by only a sixth. Additionally, funding for the Core Data Resources is precarious, with all resources together only having ensured funding for less than a third of current staff after three years. Our findings demonstrate the importance of the ELIXIR Core Data Resources as repositories for research data and the knowledge generated from those data, for life sciences researchers worldwide, while also demonstrating the precarious nature of the funding environment for this infrastructure. The ELIXIR Core Data Resources are part of a larger worldwide life sciences data resources ecosystem. ELIXIR will work, within Europe and as part of the Global Biodata Coalition, for longer-term support for the worldwide life sciences data resource infrastructure and for the subset of that infrastructure that is the ELIXIR Core Data Resources.