Background

BioHackathon Europe is an annual event that brings together life scientists from around the world. It is organised by ELIXIR Europe, and offers an intense week of hacking, with over 160 participants working on diverse and exciting projects. The goal is to create code that addresses challenges in bioinformatics research. See the About page for more background.

ELIXIR logo

Attending the BioHackathon

This year we are holding the BioHackathon at Campus Belloch near Barcelona (see the Venue page), with remote access available for those that cannot attend the meeting in person.

Spaces are limited for face-to-face participation and the registration is based on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration for the 2023 BioHackathon will open later in the year.

Group discussion around a table
Two people working on their laptops
Playing table football

Scope

BioHackathon activities are driven by practical sessions where people gather, discuss, and implement ideas and projects during intensive and productive coding sessions. The topics will be aligned to challenges proposed by ELIXIR Platforms, ELIXIR Communities, and/or Focus Groups, and a set of common challenges proposed by the sister BioHackathon organised in Japan.

Goals

  • Advance the development of an open source infrastructure for data integration to accelerate scientific innovation. We will focus on technology implementations such as FAIR, identifiers, metadata standards, ontologies and metadata catalogues that support the operations across ELIXIR Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups.
  • Engage technical people in the bioinformatics community inside and outside ELIXIR to work together on topics of common interest aligned to ELIXIR activities
  • Strengthen the interactions with ELIXIR Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups to establish and reinforce collaborations through hands-on programming activities.

Expenses and funding

Registration for the BioHackathon is free, however you will have to pay your own travel, food and accommodation expenses. ELIXIR will pay expenses for a limited number of participants for accepted projects. More information will be published as it becomes available.

Please be aware that those who register as face-to-face participants must stay at the venue for the duration of the event. This is to optimise the value of on-site interaction and collaboration.

For more information about accommodation prices see the Venue page.

Benefits

New developments

  • Integrate prototypes, proof-of-concept proposals or drafts into production
  • Kickstart projects

Existing developments and resources

  • Test new versions
  • Gather information for new features
  • Reach out to new users
  • Improve documentation and awareness
  • Receive input from experts in different fields

Personal and community building

  • Lead projects in one of the biggest BioHackathon events in Europe with international participation
  • Learn collaboratively with peers
  • Share interests to organise or grow communities
  • Meet and make new contacts
  • Publish pre-prints

Industry engagement

People from diverse companies are encouraged to participate. If you have any questions, for example regarding the scope of the event, contact the ELIXIR Industry Officer:
Despoina Sousoni
despoina.sousoni@elixir-europe.org

Industry flyer

“It was an amazing experience...Two teams embraced our challenge to demonstrate the validity of edge computing. We reached our goal of connecting with the bioinformatics community and creating awareness for a new technology. No doubt we will participate in the future.”

- Natalia Jimenez
(Atos)

Code of Conduct

The ELIXIR Code of Conduct has been created so all participants at ELIXIR events organised and/or funded by the ELIXIR Hub can interact with each other in a respectful and safe environment, and have avenues to turn to in case they believe there has been a breach to this Code of Conduct.