A Workshop organised by The Biotechnology Information Strategic Forum, with support from DGXII of the Commission of the European Communities, and held at Hotel Val Monte, Berg en Dal, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, April 1994
The workshop - Strategic Issues in Biotechnology Information was held at Hotel Val Monte, Berg en Dal, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, April 1994. It was organised by The Biotechnology Information Strategic Forum, with support from DGXII of the Commission of the European Communities.
The workshop brought together some 40 representatives from biotechnology information producers and users, plus some representatives from funding and intergovernmental bodies, to discuss a series of strategic issues facing the biotechnology information community.
The meeting dealt specifically with problems, identified earlier through market research among users of this information.
The meeting examined three main subject areas: (European) Database Hosts, (European) Networks, and Databases.
The meeting agreed that efficient, stable, database hosts are key to the further development of the market. Europe lacks government supported database hosts and there is some concern that the present economic situation surrounding the European commercial database hosts is unhealthy. Too many hosts in the commercial sector are however offering duplicate files to a small and competitive market. This is pressurising many companies to a large degree and could lead to their being taken over by American based competitors. This would allow a scenario where all the relevant Biotechnology R&D related data is stored on American or international database hosts located outside Europe. This would be highly undesirable, especially for Europe's small and medium sized companies who are unable to use American "daughter" companies to access data in the USA.
The larger commercial database hosts are wary of offering small specialist data files. A market scenario where larger and smaller database hosts, each with a defined and well researched mission statement and market niche, interact through integrated networks, would be welcome. This combination could be achieved by combining academic and commercial database facilities.
Industrial users require high quality, validated, information. The unregulated growth in the number of services and files on offer is making this control as well as the locating of the correct information, extremely difficult. European database and information producers should therefore make every effort to use modern information tools, such as the World Wide Web, to improve the present dissemination of data and information but should also improve the services by developing tools which enable users to reach the data in a structured, authoritative, manner. Furthermore, producers of ancillary information, such as biotechnology resources databases, should also embrace these technologies to enable European users to obtain European products and resources.
The meeting concluded that the situation surrounding Networks in Europe required urgent action with the present European telecommunications infrastructure requiring urgent improvement. Many European producers, including the newly formed European Bioinformatics Institute, have to use the American networks to distribute their products, and major industrial clients also use American sources for their basic data (preferring the US network access over European services even when the information they require originated in Europe. Industrial users, looking for R&D information but also running clinical trial s and other health-related research activities feel that they must use leased-line systems rather than the publicly offered services.
The only long-term solution to Europe's network problems are better physical links. However, data compression has, until now, compensated largely for the growth in traffic. The next growth phase will increasingly involve the sending of graphic and image data which will overload the existing networks to such an extent that extra bandwidth will be essential.
Networking is of such fundamental importance that the Commission must be stimulated to do all it can to improve Europe's position.
Networks are also increasingly seen as a marketing and selling medium; best illustrated by the huge increase in size and use of the Internet which has opened new opportunities for the and producers of biotechnology information databases. These are evolving rapidly, in complexity and number and the present secondary products will probably expand their coverage to include specialist databases which might, on occasions, replace the primary journal as the repository for certain types of information.
This offers an opportunity for database producers. However, such specialist Due to their niche positions, and possibly due to the fact that they are used at a specific part of the R&D cycle, (i.e. they can only be used by a few users), many of these specialist products will never obtain sufficient commercial use to cover their production and exploitation costs.
With quality control so essential, and the need for good navigational tools to guide the user through the increasing number of files on offer, a central pointer database, identifying other databases identifying where records relevant to the full R&D story are located, would solve many of the problems facing both the specialised data collections and the larger databases.
The biotechnology information market is dependent upon the successful development of an environment where databases can be mounted on database hosts which can be reached on good secure networks. Quality control will determine the degree of use by industrial and academic users. The cost of adding value and the issue of copyright and fees are problems facing the publishers and regulations and standards will have to be handled if the correct climate for investment is to be produced.
The BTSF will work to ensure that the above points are brought together in as good a climate as possible. The BTSF will establish expert panels to examine the legal and copyright side of databases and electronic publishing, and will lobby the Commission of the European Union to continue to pressurise for fair market conditions in the electronic marketplace. The biotechnology R&D community, industrial and other, would benefit from better coordination between the hosts, the producers and the users, and between the academic and industrial users of biotechnology information. The BTSF will try to establish such links.