Events & News
EVOLVE BBMRI project launched
The EvolveBBMRI project, coordinated by the Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Infrastructure – European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) in partnership with ten Member states, kicked off in Vienna on 30 January 2024. EvolveBBMRI aims to further develop BBMRI-ERIC for the advantage of its scientific communities and users, to increase its capacity to serve EU policy priorities and further deepen its collaboration with industry.
The event saw participants from across Europe present EvolveBBMRI’s Work Packages in detail, discuss strategic outcomes and initiate tasks that deal with fundamental topics including industry links, green biobanking, research infrastructure sustainability measures, datafication of biobanks, capacity building the community, strengthened outreach and project coordination.
The meeting started with the welcome and introduction by Jens K. Habermann, Director General at BBMRI-ERIC and Saba Abdulghani, Head of Biobanking Development at BBMRI-ERIC. Highlighting the community impact of EvolveBBMRI, Prof. Jens K. Habermann shares:
“The EvolveBBMRI project aims to further grow, advance and evolve the entire BBMRI-ERIC community including biobanks, National Nodes, the Headquarters and our various Stakeholder groups. This project will help to pave the way for BBMRI to evolve towards its next 10 year vision”.
The project is structured in four thematic Pillars:
Acceleration of datafication of biobanks and biomolecular resources to enable reproducible advanced medical research in support of EU health priorities;
Teaming with industry towards greener biobanking;
Long-term sustainability measures for BBMRI addressing also RI landscape gaps;
Strengthened approach for career paths, training and outreach activities to maximise impact.
Jana Pavlič-Zupanc, Head of Public Affairs at BBMRI, and Evolve project coordinator says:
“The EvolveBBMRI project is of strategic importance for our infrastructure as it is focused on furthering developments across 4 key areas: focusing on digitalization and datafication of biobanks and biomolecular resources; helping biobanks to become greener, taking up new measures to ensure long-term sustainability of BBMRI and strengthening training and communications to increase long term impact. With these developments BBMRI will remain an agile infrastructure in the next decade of its existence, not only being even better prepared to serve its users, but also to play a vital role in the implementation of EU priorities in the area of health and life sciences”.
EvolveBBMRI activities and outputs within its four Pillars will increase the long-term sustainability of BBMRI-ERIC and contribute to a better structured and strengthened European research infrastructure landscape.
The project will also ensure the implementation of specific results for six key target groups:
Scientific community (Universities, Hospitals, Research Institutes);
BBMRI-ERIC National Nodes, Biobanks in Europe and beyond;
Industry and private foundations;
Policy- and decision-makers at national and European levels;
European and International networks;
Donors, Patients and Citizens.
BBMRI-ERIC Link