ETRIKS · Delivering European Translational Information & Knowledge Management Services

Since its inception the IMI has funded over 30 public-private partnership projects. Many of these projects are centered upon data intensive translational research and are employing integrative analysis approaches to achieve their goals. Although a common KM platform for IMI projects was envisioned in the original IMI Strategic Research Agenda it has not yet been implemented. The lack of a common platform has resulted in projects sourcing redundant KM solutions, introducing unnecessary overheads and a substantial risk to the legacy of datasets. The end result is a less than full realization of the potential of IMI to diminish bottlenecks in drug and diagnostic development. ’Delivering eTRIKS’ will address this gap by providing a sustainable, open IMI translational research informatics/KM platform – eTRIKS, and delivering associated support, expertise and services. Development will begin with transMART, an open source KM platform successfully deployed in IMI U-BIOPRED. However, eTRIKS will not end with transMART. The intent is to build a combined KM/analytics platform that can serve as a basis for continued development and ignite the formation of a cohesive informatics/KM community. Support will be provided throughout the life cycle of a translational research project, including business analysis, platform development, hosting support, data curation, and help desk. The process will be overseen by a support, governance and prioritization board. In addition, ‘Delivering eTRIKS’ will curate selected historic data sets and host in the context of active project data to aid data interpretation. A key legacy of the project will be the provision of a long-term data archive on project closure. An active community will be built to incorporate all stakeholders in ongoing and future developments. The intent is to develop a business model that enables the eTRIKS platform to persist long after the 5 years of initial IMI funding.