Cataloguing and pooling vast life science datasets across disciplines, institutes and infrastructure is no mean feat. Yet this is precisely the task facing the ambitious BioFAIR team.
Funded by UKRI, BioFAIR is a digital research infrastructure aiming to deliver a step change in Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) research data management.
In the last year, BioFAIR has built a community of researchers united by their work on research data systems, reaching out from its base at the Earlham Institute to connect with organisations spanning the UK from higher education institutions to industry partners.
Bringing together the community at the BioFAIR showcase in Cambridge earlier this year, the energy in the room was one of collaboration, optimism and shared purpose.
"Maximising the value of biological data through the FAIR principles is critical to maintaining the UK’s position at the forefront of global bioscience.
"As a major UKRI investment, BioFAIR has been designed to transform how we manage and share life sciences data. It is fantastic to see BioFAIR rapidly gaining momentum clearly demonstrating the strong appetite within the research community for cohesive, national-level FAIR solutions," said Dr Sarah Perkins, Executive Director for Strategic Planning, Evidence and Engagement at UKRI.
"What I love about this community is how open and collaborative everyone is. We are trying to build something better - the community and that consultation is integral, and that really excites me," explains Eva Caamano Guiterrez, Director of Computational Biology at the University of Liverpool and BioFAIR Pathfinder Project Lead.
One of BioFAIR's most immediate challenges is training and upskilling scientists in fundamental data management. Applying the same data standards is vital to ensure that datasets are interoperable and can be re-used.
However, changing behaviours and cultures to apply data standards consistently is a challenge, as Richard Ostler, agri-informatician and BioFAIR Pathfinder Project Lead at Rothamsted Research, explains: "The basic challenge is fundamental data management. It's about being consistent with your naming conventions and the data formats you are using. Last year we started doing in-house data management training, as we discovered people are not learning this at undergraduate level."
BioFAIR is now offering much-needed resources to tackle this directly, recently announcing £800,000 for Pathfinder projects to transform UK FAIR practices. Pathfinder projects create innovative solutions to overcome barriers to FAIR data practises from addressing cultural barriers to driving adoption of metadata standards. For Richard, the funding marks a turning point:
"We have been talking about this for years and years and years. The pathfinder project has given us the opportunity to do things that we just haven't been able to do," adds Richard.
As well as funding the projects to develop solutions, BioFAIR also recognises the importance of community to drive change. The BioFAIR Fellowship programme fosters and embeds FAIR experts across the UK.
Nicola Soranzo, Galaxy Platform Development Officer at the Earlham Institute and BioFAIR Fellow, who co-led a workshop on FAIRification of workflows with Marisa Loach (also a BioFAIR Fellow), shared: "Supporting FAIRification of workflows is one of the main activities of the Fellowship, and this workshop gave us a range of different perspectives from around 25 researchers and research technical professionals with varying levels of experience. We explored the different reasons for sharing workflows, identified which aspects of FAIR were most important for attendees, and discussed the practical, cultural, and technical barriers encountered in the FAIRification process."
We’re trying to do something a little different, with a team-first mindset designed to create new communities and bring together developers of the infrastructure with researchers that stand to directly benefit.
Tony Burdett, Director of BioFAIR UK
Upskilling scientists is only half the story. Across the life sciences, a proliferation of conflicting standards makes interoperability a serious obstacle - and establishing commonality is critical to BioFAIR's success.
Dorothea Selier Vellame, Research Data Steward in the UK Human Functional Genomics Initiative at the University of Exeter reflects: "We are asked a lot about metadata standards - it's a very big challenge. You don't want to create yet another standard that already exists."
Eva Caamano Gutierrez points to an issue at the implementation stage: "We have a lot of problems with standardisation of sample information. Trying to implement change in groups that already work in a certain way can be difficult."
Both observations link to something deeper. Much of what BioFAIR is working towards requires cultural shifts in the way scientists approach their work - which makes genuine community engagement essential to the project's success. Here, emerging AI tools may offer a practical way forward.
Charlie Harrison, Research Software Engineer at AI-BIO sees real potential: "Metadata standards are so onerous and detailed - how can we use AI and automated tooling to make it easier to fill out the metadata? We must think about AI in a realistic way, with AI doing the boring bits to help us improve our practices."
There is a clear sense of mission driving BioFAIR - but why should the wider scientific community get behind it? Tony Burdett, Director of BioFAIR, makes the case:
"With BioFAIR, we’re really trying to recognise the importance of the people that support digital infrastructure. It’s very easy to think of infrastructure as data centres, or sometimes the software that is used in research, whilst forgetting about the technical professionals that make it all work. We’re trying to do something a little different, with a team-first mindset designed to create new communities and bring together developers of the infrastructure with researchers that stand to directly benefit.
"In this way we hope to both drive adoption of existing best practice, and identify opportunities to deliver new services – especially taking advantage of the rapid growth of AI ones – to make digital research simpler and more efficient for everyone involved."
BioFAIR is not just talk - it's a place to get things done. I am really happy to be here, and there is a real sense of purpose that I find really exciting.
Richard Ostler, agri-informatician and BioFAIR Pathfinder Project Lead at Rothamsted Research
With millions in funding due to be announced throughout 2026 and beyond, BioFAIR is moving rapidly to establish three interconnected commons - data, method and people. Carole Goble, Current Chair of BioFAIR’s Research and Technical Advisory Group and Co-Head of-Node for ELIXIR-UK, outlined the vision:
“BioFAIR is an exciting opportunity to work with UK researchers and digital research professionals, to build the shared infrastructure we need to manage, share, analyse and reuse data effectively. The Method Commons brings decades of experience in trusted, reproducible workflows and analysis. We are thrilled to be part of this ground-breaking initiative to make robust computational methods available to UK scientists and make analysis a shared resource rather than something each team must build and maintain alone.”
As Richard Ostler put it: "BioFAIR is not just talk - it's a place to get things done. I am really happy to be here, and there is a real sense of purpose that I find really exciting."
With community spirit, collective optimism and significant UKRI investment behind it, BioFAIR has everything it needs to transform how life science data is managed - and in doing so, accelerate the discoveries that matter.
Visit biofair.uk to learn more and get involved.
