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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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.