Open Innovation
One of the main aims of LIFES is to support the spread of FAIR Data Stations where data can be visited for equitable reuse. In the FAIR Data Train ecosystem, digital requests (Trains) and data access points (Stations) interact in a standardized, machine-actionable way — meaning they can understand each other without needing to be custom programmed or manually configured for each interaction.
To help achieve this, LIFES provides an open innovation environment where specifications and communication templates for FAIR Data 'Trains' and 'Stations' are jointly developed and implemented by organisations and ASPs that already provide distributed analytics platforms. This way we develop community-supported, practical specifications that can be adopted by providers to implement in their own infrastructures.
Specifications
One of the key activities in LIFES is to develop a set of specifications that define how Trains and Data Stations communicate using shared protocols, metadata formats, and semantic models. These agreements ensure seamless, machine-actionable interactions across systems—without the need for custom integrations.
The FAIR Data Train specifications will focus on interoperability without replacing existing systems. The approach combines clear architecture design, detailed component specifications, and rich documentation—enabling diverse applications to adopt or extend FAIR Data Train functionality. By iterating with real implementations, the process ensures that specifications remain flexible, scalable, and compatible across domains and updates.
StationTalk Library
The StationTalk Library focuses on the vocabulary to enable unambiguous communication between Stations and Trains. It provides the structured language that enables FAIR Data Trains and Data Stations to communicate in a fully machine-actionable way. StationTalk ensures that Trains and Stations can understand and process requests consistently, regardless of their technical setup.
The library will be built around five levels—from core ontology to real-world deployment—the library enables interoperability, transparency, and reuse across domains. It aims to support all aspects of communication from authentication and access control to data requests and response handling, allowing FAIR Data Stations to operate as part of a scalable, flexible ecosystem. Whether extending existing platforms or developing new ones, StationTalk ensures they can all “speak the same language.”
Driving use cases
Users and application & services providers in LIFES will provide a growing list of crucial ‘driving use cases’ that are difficult to conduct in the current, fragmented situation, and should be enabled by the converging FAIR and Equitable ecosystem collectively developed by the LIFES members. They can collectively submit proposals for funding these driving use cases and so contribute to the stepwise defragmentation of the current landscape of point solutions.