GDI D2.7 Evaluation of sustainability models

The scope of this deliverable is to evaluate the existing funding models and business models in the context of establishing the Genome EDIC. 

This report relies almost entirely on the work previously done in the 2.1 report establishing a cost overview, the 2.2 report defining an initial cost contribution and central budget framework and the 2.6 report mapping existing funding and business models. As such this report is in particular an analysis of the findings presented in the 2.6 report, linking the legal, organizational and technical and governance attributes of the Genome-EDIC with the funding mechanisms in existence, and discussing the match between funding mechanisms/sources and the vision of the 1+MG. 

The starting point for that discussion is to focus on funding for database infrastructure and funding for computing infrastructure, considering that these are the key components of the Genome-EDIC which incur significant costs, and because it is critical to develop a long term funding model, in which those two critical components can be addressed within the same overall organizational framework. 

The key conclusions from this report are: 

• There is no clear long term funding mechanism for database infrastructure, apart from depending on membership fees and short term project funding. A key challenge is the cumulative nature of building database infrastructure. Existing database infrastructures within research depend heavily on strong community engagement in order to bridge funding cycles.

• There are to some extent more easy avenues to fund computer infrastructure - in part because of the fit between the short time funding cycles and the life cycle of computers. A key challenge is the match between the requirements of a life science compute resource and the usability of a generic compute resource towards those aims. Past experience suggests that life science computer systems are often operated independently of other HPC resources - because of the nature of the computer needs, and the need for long term planning and capacity building. 

• There are strong indications from the analysis, that there are key parameters that need to be addressed, in order to ensure enough agility for long term sustainability and for a business model to work for the EDIC: 

• National governance: A strong link to national stakeholders - ensuring buy-in and flexibility towards leveraging investments in the life science and health care domain and in order to create avenues for sourcing both genomic and clinical data from the clinical domain and to engage into EHDS. . 

• Technical interoperability between software components (composability) to ensure that the platform is agile, and can be changed over time in accordance with new or added requirements and needs, allowing for national flexibility in implementation and to ensure that there are clear separations of concerns and a clear division of roles - to ensure that there is a clear demarcation between what the core infrastructure does, and what it enables others to do with that resource.