BBMRI-ERIC establishes, operates and develops a pan-European distributed research infrastructure of biobanks and biomolecular resources in order to facilitate the access to resources as well as facilities and to support high quality biomolecular and medical research. With 17 members, BBMRI-ERIC is today one of the largest research infrastructures in health research.

On 3 December 2013, BBMRI was officially awarded the Community legal framework for a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). This specific legal form is designed to facilitate the joint establishment and operation of research infrastructures of European interest. The ERIC status allows biobanks and biomolecular resources to be pulled into a pan-European facility.

BBMRI-ERIC provides access to the collections of partner biobanks and biomolecular resources, their expertise and services on a non-economic basis. BBMRI-ERIC establishes, operates and develops a pan-European distributed research infrastructure of biobanks and biomolecular resources in order to facilitate the access to resources as well as facilities and to support high quality biomolecular and medical research.

With 17 members, BBMRI-ERIC is today one of the largest research infrastructures in health research. Founding Member States of BBMRI-ERIC are; Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands and Sweden. Official Observers of BBMRI-ERIC are: Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey and IARC/WHO (The International Agency for Research on Cancer). One important task in BBMRI-ERIC ́s Work Programme 2014 is to set up a Working Party "Education & Training Policy for Europe".

EMBL-EBI is one of two organisations worldwide with a mandate to provide biomolecular data resources to the research community, and forms component of several global and pan-European research infrastructures: it is the European node of several global data collections for the life sciences; it hosts the hub of ELIXIR (www.elixir- europe.org), Europe's research infrastructure for biomolecular data; and as EMBL's second largest site, it is a member of EIROforum (, linking it with other major international organisations providing research infrastructure, such as CERN and ESA.

Demand for access to EMBL-EBI's services is high and growing, averaging 7 million web requests and 11,000 unique users to the website each day. Training is embedded in EMBL-EBI's mission. The Training Programme works with colleagues and collaborators worldwide to deliver an extensive portfolio of advanced training via face-to-face and online courses and workshops. The programme encompasses training for both users and operators of bioinformatics services. In 2013 EMBL-EBI reached >6000 individuals face-to-face through its training and outreach activities; furthermore, 82000 unique IP addresses accessed its e-learning resource, Train online . EMBL-EBI has forged technical and training collaborations with other research infrastructures: it coordinates BioMedBridges, the FP7 cluster project for biomedical science research infrastructures; it is a partner on the EMTRAIN project, an IMI project to provide a training platform across the biomedical sciences in collaboration with industry and the ESFRI biomedical science research infrastructures, and it is a partner in the HelixNebula project – a pan-European project to develop a sustainable cloud computing infrastructure for European science.

Research Infrastructure: EMBL-EBI is both a research infrastructure and an e-Infrastructure. As EMBL’s second largest site (>500 of EMBL’s 1800 staff; 43 nationalities), EMBL-EBI has been providing bioinformatics data and services to an ever-expanding global community since its foundation in 1994. EMBL was a founder member of EIROforum, through which we uphold collaborations with research infrastructures beyond the life sciences; this gives us access to a highly multidisciplinary community of experts in international affairs, provision of transnational access to large facilities, IT security and licensing, and technology transfer – all topics relevant to the effective management of research infrastructure.

EMBL-EBI coordinated the preparatory phase of ELIXIR, Europe’s ESFRI research infrastructure for biological data. ELIXIR operates a ‘hub and nodes’ model, with EMBL-EBI hosting ELIXIR’s hub. Since December 2013 ELIXIR has had its own legal personality as a special project of EMBL. To become a node of ELIXIR, a country must sign the ELIXIR Consortium Agreement, which includes a commitment to providing support for a node of ELIXIR. Ten countries plus EMBL have signed the ECA to date (Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and UK). A further seven countries (Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia and Spain) have signed a memorandum of understanding with ELIXIR and are working towards becoming nodes. In May 2014 ELIXIR was one of only three priority projects identified by ESFRI as mature enough to be under implementation in 2015-2016 and whose timely implementation is considered essential to extend the frontiers of knowledge in its field. EMBL-EBI is also a partner in several other ESFRI consortia at all stages of maturity including EuroBioImaging, Infrafrontier, Instruct and ISBE.

Training infrastructure: EMBL-EBI’s training and media suite, occupying the lower ground floor of the EMBL-EBI South Building opened in October 2013 (www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/press-releases/opening_ceremony), provides state-of-the-art IT training facilities for up to 60 people. There is also potential to web-stream activities in these facilities. We have access to other seminar rooms of various sizes suitable for knowledge-exchange workshops and networking meetings. The Wellcome Trust Conference Centre, on the same campus as EMBL-EBI, provides accommodation suitable for staff exchanges, workshops and networking meetings. We have developed our own online web-based elearning infrastructure, which includes user-friendly course-authoring tools and user interface. Video- based courses can be supported through EMBL’s mediasite license and we have a GoToTraining account and expertise in hosting webinars, which can be recorded to provide an archive of learning materials. 

MUW is a centre of excellence with high-quality contacts and recognised scientific output, providing an academic network, and running established higher education programmes. MUW offers a variety of different medical degree programmes. MUW is not only the largest medical organisation in Austria, it is also one of the most important top- level research institutions in Europe. Practically all of our organisational units are involved in medical science and medical diagnostic related research.

MUW fulfils the role of Managing Entity in the IMI-funded EMTRAIN project, a project that has originated the on-course® platform as well as the LifeTrain initiative. MUW is also leading the Education and Training module in the ESFRI BMS ECRIN ERIC, and thus will take advantage of existing scientific networks. Based on the experience and knowledge gained in context of the IMI-funded EMTRAIN project, MUW will take leadership of the proposed WP3 ‘mapping and gap analysis' and will support the proposed WP2 ‘competencies definition'. In addition, MUW will support WP5 ‘course delivery'.

Relevant infrastructure: MUW, in its role as Managing Entity of EMTRAIN (www.emtrain.eu), collaborates with all of the current ESFRI BMS Research Infrastructures. Formally MUW is partner of the ECRIN ERIC (www.ecrin.org) being responsible for education and training.

INFRAFRONTIER is the European Research Infrastructure for phenotyping and archiving of model mammalian genomes. The INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure provides access to first-class tools and data for biomedical research, and thereby contributes to improving the understanding of gene function in human health and disease using the mouse model. The INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure has currently 23 scientific partners in 15 European countries and Canada.

The core services of INFRAFRONTIER comprise the systemic phenotyping of mouse mutants in the participating mouse clinics, and the archiving and distribution of mouse mutant lines by the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA). In addition, INFRAFRONTIER provides specialised services such as the generation of germ-free mice (axenic service), complex cancer mouse models, training in state of the art cryopreservation and phenotyping technologies, and consulting services. AllINFRAFRONTIER resources and services can be accessed at www.infrafrontier.eu. The INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure processed almost 1400 user projects from around the globe in 2013. The INFRAFRONTIER GmbH was established in April 2013 to coordinate the transnational activities of the national partners that together form the European INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure. It is seated in Germany at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. The INFRAFRONTIER GmbH is responsible for developing the INFRAFRONTIER GmbH resources and services and for providing transnational access. It is also the contact point for all stakeholders of the INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure and coordinates the networking, outreach and training activities.

EATRIS–ERIC is the European Infrastructure for Translational Medicine, the objective of which is to make translation of scientific discoveries into medical products more effective and, ultimately, to improve human health and quality of life. It supports clients from academia and industry in developing their biomedical discoveries for novel preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic products up to clinical proof of concept. Around 69 academic institutions of excellence in translational research, based in eight EU Member States, are currently contributing to EATRIS.

The EATRIS headquarters, known as ‘Coordination & Support' (C&S) is located in Amsterdam (NL). Its staff includes the manager of operations, the scientific project managers, an education & training manger, a scientific director and a financial director. This team has successfully implemented a functional governance framework and solved the associated financial and legal issues (including becoming an ERIC) in the process of becoming an operational infrastructure. In addition it has successfully completed its transition phase and first year of operation. Thus EATRIS is well placed to contribute to defining the skills and expertise needed to construct and operate distributed research infrastructures, and to delivering training to meet these needs.

The European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN-ERIC) is a sustainable, not-for- profit, distributed infrastructure providing operational, coordinated services in the conduct of multinational clinical research projects in Europe. ECRIN is based on the connection of national networks of clinical research centres and clinical trials units. ECRIN has an "ERIC" (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) legal status and its sustainability is secured by the contribution of its Member countries.

Based on its experience gained through the development and the activity of the infrastructure and its involvement in projects such as EMTRAIN, ECRIN will help to define competences needed for an operational distributed infrastructure and will share its expertise.

The Universidade do Minho, as the Representative of the MIRRI RI, is a public, state- funded, academic institution in the Northwest of Portugal. It is the fifth largest university in Portugal, with about 17000 students, and courses in almost all disciplines. Micoteca da Universidade do Minho – MUM  – is a filamentous fungi culture collection established in 1996 and is hosted by the Centre of Biological Engineering, a research centre integrated in the Portuguese Science and Technology System.

Since 2002, CEB was awarded the grade of Excellent, and in 2006 CEB was one of the founders of the Associated Lab Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (IBB). Currently CEB aggregates 128 PhD researchers of which 23 are faculty members of the University of Minho and 14 are faculty scientists. CEB gathers the critical mass of expertise and resources necessary to respond to the industrial, economical and societal challenges related with the development and application of Biotechnology and Bioengineering: it combines fundamental research with applied research and finally implementation of practical solutions useful to society. Research focuses on three interdisciplinary areas: Industrial and Food Biotechnology and Bioengineering; Environmental Biotechnology and Bioengineering; and Health Biotechnology and Bioengineering. The Applied Mycology Group (AMG), one of CIB’s working groups, has a long experience in applied mycology., The AMG hosts the MUM.

The mission of MUM is to be a resource centre for fungal biodiversity preservation and information creating solutions for sustainable development and human well-being with the wide vision "A world in which fungal biodiversity is preserved and available for all". To keep its high standards, MUM has implemented a Quality Management System based on the normative reference ISO 9001:2008. The MUM maintains fungal collections with the main focus on Aspergillus and Penicillium as well other relevant strains for reference, providing expertise and information associated with well-characterised strains. MUM has high performance on post-graduate training (MSc and PhD) in mycology. The Universidade do Minho is focusing increasingly on lifelong learning, e-learning and long-distance training using new educational technologies and platforms. MUM is involved in these new educational programmes and teaching approaches.

The Institute of Molecular Genetics is a public research institution that belongs to the leading research institutions in the Czech Republic and is the Representative of Euro-BioImaging for this application. More than 350 employees, including 93 scientists, 95 PhD students and 31 diploma students, work in 23 research groups engaged in the topics of molecular and cellular biology, molecular immunology, functional genomics and bioinformatics, study of oncogenes, molecular biology of development, structural biology and mechanisms of receptor signalling.

Beside research itself, scientists at the Institute are engaged in education and training of students, starting from Bachelor studies. A number of the scientists actively work as university teachers. The Institute provides 33 semestral courses at the universities. The PhD programme at the Institute is part of a joint biomedical PhD programme organised by the Charles University and several institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The PhD programme at the IMG focuses on molecular, cell and developmental biology, immunology, genetics and virology. The high standing of the Institute's researchers is manifested by a number of recent awards and prizes, including the National Award of the Government of the Czech Republic "Czech Brains" awarded to Prof. Jan Svoboda in 2010. Several prospering biotech spin-off companies have been born at the Institute in recent years. The Institute was a partner in the consortium responsible for training strategy in the preparatory phase of a pan- European research infrastructure for biomedical imaging (Euro-BioImaging). It is also a coordinating body of the future Euro-BioImaging node for advanced light and electron microscopy.

Infrastructure for Systems Biology  Europe (ISBE)  was launched in September 2012 and was  funded by the European Commission under the FP7 capacities programme as a 'preparatory phase project'. Imperial College London coordinated the preparatory phase. This phase was completed at the end of July 2015. The project has now entered into its Interim Phase.

The project aims to establish the 'Infrastructure for Systems Biology – Europe' (ISBE) that will: interconnect hubs of technological excellence in systems biology, offering the best European research expertise, and experimental and modelling facilities, necessary for systems biology establish and make available repositories of data and models, enable real-time connections within and between components of the two aims above, and with external 'user' laboratories, through the provision of high performance connections to existing high capacity electronic network infrastructures.

The project announced the publication of the first edition of its Business Plan in July 2015. This sets out how ISBE will be built during the interim phase (2015-2018), and the following legal phase (2018 onwards), outlining plans for: the commencement of "ISBE-light" physical infrastructure in 2015; longer-term services and access; establishment of the legal and governance structure, and the legal phase financial model. More information on www.isbe.eu.

The University of Milano-Bicocca (www.UNIMIB.it) is a public, state-funded, academic institution established in 1998. Although it is a young institution, UNIMIB has great experience in education and its value becomes higher and higher every year. UNIMIB ranked 21st in the Times Higher Education ranking of Universities under 50 years and was 2nd in the national ranking of the large Italian Universities (2013). With 17 Departments and 4 Schools, UNIMIB offers 66 Degree, 29 PhD and 36 Medical Specialisation Courses to 33,000 students. The University of Milano- Bicocca is active in a wide array of research topics in the fields of Medicine, Economics, Education, Law, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology and Sociology, thanks to its 70 Research and Excellence Centres connected with the CNR (www.CNR.it).

These structures cooperate together, with different consortia, and with public and private third parties from outside the University. Centres of Excellence, Research centres and Consortia have been created to manage large multidisciplinary research activities and are managed according to guidelines that guarantee high scientific standards. The University of Milano-Bicocca has invested heavily in technologies to enhance and strengthen learning effectiveness. For this reason, a Multimedia Production Centre (http://www.cpm.unimib.it) has been constituted with the aim of developing a wide range of e-learning tools. UNIMIB is constantly improving its educational prospectus to provide students with opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfil the needs of the job market. UNIMIB is located in Milan, capital of Lombardy Region, the economic heart of Italy and one of the chief economic driving forces in Europe, closely connected to industries, job opportunities and economic growth. These aspects play a fundamental role in defining UNIMIB's educational prospectus. The operating structures involved in this project are the Medical School with the Department of Surgery and Translational Medicine and the School of Economic with the Department of Business Administration, Finance, Management and Law (Di.SEA.DE), established with the aim of collecting research and teaching activities on economic, financial, managerial and legal issues related to enterprises and territories. UNIMIB will take leadership of the proposed WP4 "Curriculum Development", will support the proposed WP2 "Competencies Definition" and participate inWP5 "Course Delivery"

Relevant infrastructure. UNIMIB collaborates with several ESFRI BMS Research Infrastructures (EATRIS, INFRAFRONTIER, EMBRC, ISBE) and is partner of BBMRI-ERIC being the legal body employing the National Coordinator. UMINIB also collaborates with infrastructures in the physical- and materials- science sectors such as CERN, Gran Sasso, ISIS, ILL- Grenoble, ESS and Elettra.

The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Centre for Scientific Research) is a public organisation under the responsibility of the French Ministry of Education and Research. CNRS encourages collaboration between specialists from different disciplines, in particular with universities, thus opening up new fields of enquiry to meet social and economic needs. CNRS has developed interdisciplinary programmes that bring together various CNRS departments as well as other research institutions and industry. CNRS laboratories (or research units) are located throughout France, and employ a large body of tenured researchers, engineers, and support staff.

Huma-Num is a Large Facility that aims to facilitate the digital transformation of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS): it organises a collective dialogue with communities via consortia in HSS for the production of corpora of sources. It also provides a technological infrastructure (a grid of services, a platform for the unified access to data (ISIDORE) and long-term archiving facilities). Huma-Num is also the National Coordinating Institution in DARIAH-ERIC (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities), www.dariah.eu, which is a distributed infrastructure and which has been established with 15 Founding Members. DARIAH's vision is to enhance and support digitally enabled research across the Arts and Humanities. It offers a portfolio of services and activities centred on research communities to help develop national initiatives and transnational research. As France is the legal host of the ERIC, Huma-Num has played a prominent role in its establishment. Huma-Num is supported by the CNRS, the University of Aix-Marseille and the Campus Condorcet.

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database of micro-data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of more than 85,000 individuals (resulting from approximately 150,000 interviews) from 20 European countries (+Israel) aged 50 or over. It is harmonised with the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), and has become a role model for several ageing surveys worldwide. SHARE's scientific power is based on its panel design, which grasps the dynamic character of the ageing process.

SHARE's multi-disciplinary approach delivers the full picture of the ageing process. Rigorous procedural guidelines and programs ensure an ex-ante harmonised cross-national design. SHARE responds to a Communication by the European Commission calling to "examine the possibility of establishing, in co-operation with Member States, a European Longitudinal Ageing Survey". SHARE has become a major pillar of the European Research Area, selected as one of the projects to be implemented in the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) in 2008.