Data Innovation

The VIB Data Core is closely connected to ELIXIR Belgium, the Belgian node of the European life sciences data infrastructure.

This connection links VIB to national and European developments in research data infrastructure. It helps us bring relevant expertise back to VIB researchers, while also contributing VIB experience to the wider community.

Good data management only works if it fits real research practice. The VIB Data Core develops approaches that make it easier to plan, describe, register, and preserve research data throughout a project.

This includes work on the VIB Data Management Plan Platform, metadata, dataset registration, and deposition workflows. The goal is to make research data easier to understand and reuse when appropriate.

FAIR and open science requirements can feel abstract until they become part of a concrete research workflow.

The VIB Data Core helps researchers make practical decisions about documentation, repositories, access conditions, and long-term preservation. This makes it easier to apply FAIR principles without turning them into an additional layer of complexity.

Together with ELIXIR Belgium, the VIB Data Core supports useGalaxy.be, a web-based platform for accessible, reproducible, and transparent computational research.

Galaxy is useful for researchers who want to run established workflows without setting up a custom analysis environment. The Data Core also helps researchers decide when Galaxy is the right fit, and when another route such as the VIB Compute Cluster, notebooks, or custom pipelines makes more sense.

Sensitive data projects need workflows that are secure from the start. The VIB Data Core works on infrastructure and applications that help researchers analyse restricted data in a controlled way. This work connects technical development with legal, ethical, and policy requirements, so sensitive data can be used responsibly and effectively.