SciLifeLab welcomes International Advisory Board

On October 19–22, SciLifeLab welcomes the International Advisory Board (IAB) to a digital four-day forum focusing on future strategies and development of SciLifeLab. The constructive feedback from the biannual meeting of the International Advisory Board provides important guidance on SciLifeLab’s future research focus, operations, governance, and development.

Historically, input from the International Advisory Board has been instrumental in forming the SciLifeLab strategy Roadmap 2020–2030 and has been a guiding voice in establishing the expanded role of SciLifeLab in the Swedish life science ecosystem.

Since the last IAB visit in 2019, important developments have taken place. Based on the input from the IAB, the SciLifeLab community, and other national stakeholders, a 10-year Roadmap for SciLifeLab has been formulated and launched. The Roadmap is based on three pillars: Infrastructure, Research, and Data-driven life science. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SciLifeLab received extra funding from the KAW Foundation enabling SciLifeLab to play an active role in supporting research across Sweden on COVID-19.

Having celebrated SciLifeLab’s tenth anniversary in 2020, SciLifeLab today has an impact not only on the life science sector, but on society at large, demonstrated for instance by strengthened support from the government to the national infrastructure and programs such as Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness, and the SciLifeLab and Wallenberg National Program on Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS), with major funding from the KAW Foundation.

The International Advisory Board is chaired by Jan Ellenberg, EMBL Heidelberg. A full overview of the IAB members as well as other steering organs of SciLifeLab is found here.

The SciLifeLab International Advisory Board report about actions taken up until today in response to the previous IAB recommendations will be published after the IAB meeting on October 19–22.