BGRS’2004: INTAS/ FP6 Event 'EU-NIS Partnering in Bio- Informatics‘ Mikhail S. Gelfand
Jan 15, 2016
BGRS’2004: INTAS/ FP6 Event 'EU-NIS Partnering in Bio-Informatics‘
Mikhail S. Gelfand
INTAS project 99-1476 (2000-2002) Methods, algorithms and software for functional and
structural annotation of complete genomes
• Four INTAS teams – EMBL– France– Germany– Austria
• Established history of collaboration• Diverse, but common interests in bionformatics:
– functional annotation of genes– comparative analysis of regulation– protein structure and folding
• Algorithm development and biological applications
• Four Russian teams– Moscow
– Pushchino
Publications
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1999 2000 2001 2002 2003year
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Russian – all journals
Russian – internatio-nal journals
Joint publications (Russian+INTAS)
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1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006
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+ “in press”
Observation
Increased productivity:
• of single groups (immediately)
• of collaborative projects (with some delay)
An attempt to extend and re-apply
Outcome
Score 84 with threshold 87
Sour grapes:Personal impressions about the procedure
• Electronic system too formal and rigid, the structure of the proposal too detailed and not flexible
• Formal insistence on collaboration and diversity => the need to filter out “token” groups=> many purely “management” evaluation points
• Obscure requirements for “dissemination”, “application”, “impact” etc. Is not scientific novelty and importance of the project and competence of the groups sufficient in an academic (as opposed to industry-oriented) competition?
• Too many evaluation points, some duplicating each other, without clear distinction between them => confused referees.
E.g. what is the difference between– is the project adequately focused in terms of research objectives
– how well targeted is the research programme
or between– how realistic it is that the research objectives can be achieved
– how realistic and feasible is the proposed research programme
One more story: collaboration from scratch
E. chrysanthemi
Y. pestis
K. pneumoniae
New oligogalacturonate transporter
Prediction …
… and (independent) confirmation
What happened then: July 2002 – July 2004• Dmitry Rodionov went to an International Summer School
“From Genome to Life” on Corsica instead of BGRS’2002,• and met there Nicole Hugouvieux-Cotte-Pattat,
• and they’ve established a collaboration, first by e-mail,
• but then in 2003 applied for a travel grant from the ESF programme on Integrated Approaches to the Functional Genomics and got it,
• and in October-December of 2003 >10 genes from this regulon have been identified and confirmed (D.R., M.G., N.H.-K.-P., Microbiology , in press)
• although the application to the INTAS Young Research award in 2004 was unsuccessful. We will try again.
Problems with FP6
• Two main problems:– it is difficult to understand, what initiatives are relevant
to one’s group/research/collaboration– even if it seems that a call/initiative is relevant, it is not
clear what are the next steps: what/when/how should be done
• Reasons:– Structure of the FP6 site
• difficult to find relevant information
– Merging of political issues and technical descriptions• a lot of unnecessary “motivational” stuff• insufficiently clear instructions for project preparation
Successful programs• International Science Foundation (the Soros Fund)• Eastern Europe / CIS program of the Howard Hughes
Medical InstituteFeatures:• Calls with clearly defined eligibility criteria and well-
described submission procedure• One group per project (not applicable here)• Minimum formalities• Simple structure of the proposal • No need for planning far ahead on the timescale of months• Funding decisions independent from Russian
authorities
Some suggestions
• The submitting procedure, starting with the announcement, needs to be simplified, made more clear and transparent
• The evaluation criteria should be more merit-oriented and less formal:– simpler criteria:
importance, novelty, feasibility, competence– detailed plans do not necessarily mean good projects:
the entire management / cost description / overall planning sections may have only two possible grades, clearly inadequate or adequate (everything else)
suggestions cont’d• Decision-making should be independent from Russian
agencies – opening programs and establishing objectives– distribution of individual awards
• Preference to – established collaborations with good recordor – new collaborations among clearly complementary groups
• Less emphasis on “networking”– huge collaborative projects, “networks of excellence” , etc.: are not
they somewhat artificial?
• Allow projects with small number of participants – One Russian and one INTAS lab might suffice for a strong project:
larger projects need to be justified
and more suggestions
• Three ways to start a successful project: – had a long history of collaboration– started from direct communication via e-mail– knew about each other and met at a conference
=> The need to support conferences,especially international conferences in Russia (e.g. BGRS in Novosibirsk in even years, MCCMB in Moscow in odd years):
• that’s where real contacts form and collaborations start• important for students and young scientists (who cannot en masse go to
conferences abroad)• for young scientists and senior scientists with good record: support
presentation at international conferences, if strong results. Matching funds?
• Creation of a traditional natural environment is more productive than establishing partnerships by formal “matchmaking”
Disclaimer
• of course, all this does not mean that INTAS is not doing an important job and doing it well: it does.