BY-COVID

The BeYond-COVID(2021–2024) project aimed to make COVID-19 data accessible to scientists in laboratories but also to anyone who can use it, such as medical staff in hospitals or government officials.

Going beyond SARS-CoV-2 data, the project aimed to provide a framework for making data from other infectious diseases open and accessible to everyone.

Project outcomes are summarised in our Success Stories brochure.

The challenge

The world has generated vast amounts of data in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is still generating more. This data comes from many different sources, and identifying, connecting and integrating it for effective analysis remains a challenge.

Hospitals
Medical Centres
Public Health Laboratories
Research Infrastructures
Universities
Consortia
Research Centres

SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious disease data comes from many sources

What we are doing

1. Mobilising data

Ensuring data from around the world can easily be submitted to core data hubs.

2. Connecting data

Linking infectious disease data. For instance, clinical data with viral data.

3. Standardising data

Providing recommended data management best practices and standards for describing data.

4. Exposing and analysing data

Providing data analysis methods and protocols.

COVID-19 Portal

Making the data findable in the European COVID-19 Data Portal, which will connect existing virus data resources.

The Portal allows entry to open research data and access-controlled patient data.

Read more

The outcomes

The project will make data about SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses easier to access, aggregate and analyse. This will enable scientists to respond faster to new strains of SARS-CoV-2 or to new viruses. It will also help policy-makers assess the impact of the disease and take the most appropriate measures to protect people against new viral diseases.