TDCC-LSH Project initiatives
TDCC-LSH has two types of project strands to support collaborative projects in the Life Sciences and Health domain: Bottleneck projects and Challenge projects. These projects are meant to further support the TDCC network and support the digitalization of science as a whole. The TDCC-LSH is building on the working relationships and collaborations it has established with various stakeholders in the health and life sciences domain and aims to utilize the TDCC-LSH network to develop community-driven projects. In most cases, this is not about developing new scientific knowledge, but about finding and disseminating the right knowledge, and agreeing on its joint application. The projects will therefore focus mainly on support and networking.
*If you are interested in one of these projects, would like to join the initiatives or want to launch a new initiative: please contact the TDCC-LSH through celia.vangelder@health-ri.nl (Network manager), kimberley.zwiers@health-ri.nl (Community Coordinator Life Science) or fieke.schoots@health-ri.nl (Community Coordinator Health).
Bottleneck projects
The bottleneck project is a one-off investment of €950,000 by NWO to tackle challenges described in the TDCC-LSH roadmap.
Title: The TDCC-LSH FAIR fellowship programme: Building a network of experts for responsible handling of digital research data
Project lead: Dr. C.W.G. (Celia) van Gelder
Duration: 18 Months
Status: TDCC-LSH Programme board approved & submitted to NWO
Public Summary
Digital research data is increasingly important for research in the life sciences and the health domain. This programme aims to increase the knowledge needed to carefully manage this data and, if possible, make it usable for follow-up research. Research institutions in the Netherlands can delegate a fellow. The TDCC-LSH fellows receive training and work for a year under the guidance of a coach on their digital skills and on joint solutions. This creates a national network of experts that ensures that knowledge is shared and can be applied by all research organizations in this domain.
Responsible institution(s) and department(s)
● Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Systems and Synthetic Biology & UNLOCK
● Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Genetics & NPEC
● Naturalis, ARISE
● Leiden University (LU), LIACS & NEMI & NL-Bioimaging
● UMC Groningen (UMCG), Faculty of Medical Sciences & NEMI & NL-Bioimaging
● UMC Groningen (UMCG), Genetics, Genomics Coordination Center & X-Omics
● Amsterdam UMC (AUMC), Medical Informatics
● GO FAIR Foundation (GFF)
● Health-RI
Challenge Projects
Challenge projects are mid-sized projects with a duration of 24 – 30 months and a budget between €50,000 – €400,000. There will be several calls for projects and the first call for these projects launched in 2023-2024 with an initial sum of €1,6 million per TDCC domain. TDCC-LSH has two rounds of funding opportunities in 2023-2024, with the first deadline being 8th of January 2024 and the second deadline at 5th of April 2024 to submit an expression of interest. Afterwards projects go through a transparent, collaborative and community led review process before receiving a submission letter, which focuses on connecting initiatives to strengthen project applications and prevent fragmentation of project funding.
Below you will find an overview of the challenge project initiatives 2023-2024 in different stages of development. If you want to know more or get involved, please contact TDCC-LSH Network or Community Coordinators.
2023-2024
Title: A FAIR tool framework for bioinformatics services, tools and workflows in digital Life Sciences and Health (LSH) research
Project lead: Dr. H. (Halima) Mouhib
Duration: 24 Months
Status: TDCC-LSH Programme board approved & submitted to NWO
Public Summary
Various tools and services are available for Life Science and Health data research, but users cannot easily find them or assess their quality. As a result, they are not used, or even similar tools are redeveloped. Together with developers, experts and users, we develop a toolkit for finding suitable tools and services. This is applied to existing tools and those under development and can be used with new tools in the future. With examples, training, interactive work sessions and collaboration with established platforms and communities, tools and services become sustainably accessible to end users and (further) development cycles for developers.
Responsible institution(s) and department(s)
● Maastricht University (UM), Department of Bioinformatics - BiGCaT
● Prinses Máxima Centrum voor Kinderoncologie (PMC), Research Department
● Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), Department of Human Genetics
Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics
● University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), Department of Genetics
● Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), Department of Computer Science
● Amsterdam UMC (AUMC), Department of Research Data Management
● Netherlands eScience Center (NLeSC)
● SURF, Research Development
● Health-RI
● Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Bioinformatics Department
● Radboudumc, Department of Medical BioSciences
Title: LEARN-FAIR: Life Science & Health Educational Alignment for Research and Networking in FAIR Data Management
Project lead: Dr. M.G. (Martijn) Kersloot
Duration: 24 Months
Status: TDCC-LSH Programme board approved & submitted to NWO
Public Summary
The LEARN-FAIR project intends to foster cooperation and knowledge exchange among FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data) trainers by establishing a Dutch FAIR Trainers Community. Additionally, the project focuses on identifying training needs for researchers and data stewards, as well as existing educational materials, in order to develop new Open Educational Resources. To ensure that these materials meet the (future) needs of the community, the LEARN-FAIR project combines empirical research with active community engagement.
Responsible institution(s) and department(s)
● Amsterdam UMC (AUMC), Medical Informatics
● Health-RI
● Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), Department of Human Genetics
● Maastricht University (UM), DataHub
● Radboud UMC (RUMC), Department of Medical BioSciences
Title: Training the next generation of FAIR-aware and AI-savvy data scientists for the LSH domain
Project lead: Dr. ir. P. (Perry) Moerland
Duration: 24 Months
Status: TDCC-LSH Programme board approved & submitted to NWO
Public Summary
For professionals in life sciences and health (LSH), it's increasingly crucial to (i) efficiently link findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data with computational workflows that process the data (FAIR workflows); (ii) ensure that the data produced by FAIR workflows can be seamlessly utilized for artificial intelligence (AI) applications (AI-ready); (iii) construct AI models while integrating pertinent domain-specific knowledge (AI-savvy). The objective of this project is to create two new post-Master’s courses on FAIR workflows and advanced machine learning/modern AI technology for life sciences. These courses aim to address the existing gap in equipping researchers with these essential skills.
Responsible institution(s) and department(s)
● Amsterdam UMC (AUMC), Epidemiology and Data Science
● Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Bioinformatics
● Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Biomedical engineering
● Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), Computer science
● Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Systems and Synthetic Biology
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has opened the first TDCC project call from November 15, 2023 until November 15, 2024 at 14:00:00 CET. Applicants can apply for a minimum total of €50,000 and a maximum of €400,000 for project proposals with a maximum duration of 24 months. This TDCC call differs from other NWO open calls, due to the fact that a submission letter from the responsible TDCC domain is required before one can apply for project funding at the Dutch Research Council (NWO). More information on how to obtain the submission letter for TDCC-LSH can be found below.
The TDCC-LSH asks all members of the LSH research community to submit community-driven project ideas!
Once new project ideas are submitted to TDCC-LSH, the TDCC-LSH team will explore similar projects and provide matchmaking opportunities that hopefully result in stronger community-driven projects. As a first step, we ask interested applicants to share their project idea via a short Expression of Interest statement. The complete process is set-up in such a way that successful ideas will gradually require more time investment from the applicants, that proposals are co-developed from the start and are finalized at the end of the process and can be directly submitted to NWO.
The TDCC-LSH will conduct two project rounds in 2023-2024, each with their own project deadlines: The first deadline for submitting an expression of interest for Round one is 8th of Jan 2024; and the second deadline for Round 2 is 5th of Apr 2024.
For more information about the process itself, please click the button below.
Submit a new TDCC-LSH project idea