The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic has announced a call under the Czech–Swiss Research Infrastructure Initiative, part of the Swiss–Czech Cooperation Programme within the framework of the Second Swiss Contribution to selected EU member states.

The national biobank nodes BBMRI.cz and BBMRI.ch launched the joint project CS-BIQ, bringing together Czech and Swiss biobanks to improve the quality of processes related to biological samples. The project also supports biobanks in preparing for international ISO 20387 accreditation and promotes the harmonisation and accessibility of biobank data in line with FAIR principles.

As the Swiss partner, we contribute a well-established framework for assessing biobank quality, while the Czech partners provide extensive expertise in the FAIRification of sensitive data and in the standardisation and integration of biobank metadata into national and European catalogues. Together, we are also developing a legal and ethical framework to facilitate collaboration between researchers and biobanks in both countries.