The RIS3CAT VEIS project brings together a consortium formed by the research centers that host the main bioinformatics groups that are promoting and leading projects aimed at designing, evaluating, and, ultimately, implementing the necessary infrastructure in clinical settings as a clear component of the personalized medicine in Catalonia. To achieve this objective, the consortium has 3 of the main hospital institutions in the environment.

The main objective is to create an open ecosystem of technologies (Barcelona Computational Biomedical Ecosystem, BCBE) that covers and adapts to the needs of analysis and interpretation of omics and clinical data in research and application environments in biomedicine, through the base of EGA data (European Genome Phenome-Archive). With this, the Value of the EGA for Industry and Society (VEIS) is intended. This consortium covers a wide spectrum of knowledge from the field of basic research to the most translational part of daily clinical activity.

The project is divided into several interconnected blocks that cover the design of the necessary functionalities for biomedical research included in the BCBE, their integration, and implementation in an EGA environment, to end with their evaluation in real cases of application. These functionalities are focused on the identification, interpretation, and management of omic data, as well as the associated clinical and molecular data.

This project will lay the foundations so that the proposed ecosystem can be used in other institutions of the environment, as well as to maintain and strengthen the leadership position that Barcelona has on the international scene in this area, thanks to the effort and investments made in the groups and institutions that are part of the project.

The VEIS project has been awarded within the “Massive Data for Life Sciences” area of the call for emerging communities of the research and innovation strategy for smart specialization in Catalonia (RIS3CAT). This strategy was born in response to the demand of the European Commission to the member states to develop research and innovation strategies for smart specialization (RIS3, Research, and Innovation Strategy).