Dear colleagues,
Hopefully, 2022 has started well for you. May it bring you good health and more opportunities to meet freely with family, friends and colleagues.
Last year, the DTL team worked hard to realise our ambition to strengthen the Dutch digital life sciences infrastructure and expertise base. We have contributed to many initiatives and projects and have collaborated with health and life science experts in the Netherlands and across Europe. We have compiled an overview of our highlights in 2021, as well as an outlook of our projects and goals for 2022.
In 2021, cooperation with the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Research School BioSB was intensified to establish a strong collective platform for digital life sciences. The ELIXIR-NL team participated in many projects, contributing to Europe’s sustainable infrastructure for biological data. Moreover, NWO, the Dutch Research Council, asked DTL to co-lead the establishment of a Thematic Digital Competence Centre for the broader health and life sciences domain, which is planned to launch in spring 2022.
Crucially, the €68,5M Dutch government grant that was awarded to Health-RI in 2021 will allow the realisation of a national data infrastructure for health research and innovation. We are greatly looking forward to collaborating with our partners in achieving this goal. The DTL team has contributed significantly to the preparation of the Health-RI programme, and will play a key role in the coordination of part of its work processes. DTL has therefore strengthened its team with new colleagues in 2021, and will continue to grow in 2022.
We could not have achieved our ambitions and goals without you. Thank you very much for your continued support toward the accomplishment of a strong, collective, FAIR-based ecosystem for research & development in digital health and life sciences.
Ruben Kok, Director DTL
