The terms we use, the terms we don’t and the spelling and capitalisation choices we’ve made so everyone writes them the same way.
How to use this page
When you’re drafting and you’re unsure (“is it ‘open source’ or ‘open-source’? Is it ‘data set’ or ‘dataset’?”), this is the page. If the term isn’t here and the answer mattered, add it after you decide.
Naming ourselves and the wider ELIXIR family
| Term | Use it for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ELIXIR-UK | The standard short form for us | Always with the hyphen. Never “ELIXIR UK”. |
| ELIXIR | The whole infrastructure | Used alone when context is unambiguous. |
| ELIXIR Europe | The parent organisation, when context needs disambiguation | No hyphen. |
| ELIXIR Hub | The central coordination office of ELIXIR Europe | Hosted at EMBL-EBI in Hinxton, UK – not part of ELIXIR-UK. |
| Node | One of the 23 national nodes; ELIXIR-UK is one | Capitalised when it’s the formal entity (“the UK Node”, “our Node”). |
| Head of Node | The role | Capitalised. ELIXIR-UK has joint Heads of Node. |
| Steering Committee / Management Committee | Governance groups | Capitalised. |
| Coordination Office | The team running ELIXIR-UK day-to-day | Capitalised. |
| All Hands | The annual community meeting | Capitalised. Full form: “All Hands meeting”. |
Naming our community and audiences
Picking the specific noun is usually clearer than reaching for the catch-all. None of the “consider instead” terms below are banned – use them when they’re genuinely the right word – but most of the time a more specific noun does more work.
| Prefer when you can | Consider instead of | Why |
|---|---|---|
| member / community member | “stakeholder” | Members belong to the community; “stakeholder” is a useful catch-all in formal governance contexts but rarely clearer in editorial copy. |
| researcher / data steward / trainer | “user” (in most contexts) | Use the specific role unless you’re literally talking about service usage statistics. |
| partner | “stakeholder” | When referring to a collaborating organisation. |
| funder | “stakeholder” | When referring to UKRI, BBSRC, MRC etc. |
| service | “tool” or “platform” (when imprecise) | An ELIXIR-UK Service is a formal designation. Don’t dilute the term. |
| an ELIXIR-UK service, a service endorsed by ELIXIR-UK | “ELIXIR-UK’s [service]”, “our service” | We endorse services; we don’t own them. Avoid possessive constructions that imply ownership. |
FAIR and data terms
| Term | Form | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FAIR | Always all-caps | Stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable. Spell out on first use in formal documents. |
| FAIRification | One word, capital F | The process of making data FAIR. |
| FAIR-aligned | Hyphenated as adjective | “a FAIR-aligned policy”, “data that is FAIR-aligned”. |
| FAIR data | No hyphen | “FAIR data management”, not “FAIR-data management”. |
| dataset | One word | Not “data set”. |
| open source | Two words as a noun phrase | “the project is open source”. |
| open-source | Hyphenated as adjective before a noun | “open-source software”. |
| research data management | Lowercase | Acronym RDM is fine after first use. |
Spelling and capitalisation
- British English. Organise, colour, programme, behaviour, centre, recognise. Exception: “program” when it refers to software/code.
- Sentence case for headings. “Community insights on AI”, not “Community Insights On AI”. Proper nouns and ELIXIR services keep their own capitalisation.
- Sentence case for page titles, navigation items, section names. Same rule.
Numbers, dates, currency, time
| Element | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Numbers under 10 | Spell out | “three projects”, “seven services” |
| 10 and over | Numerals | “12 projects” |
| Large numbers | Commas as thousands separator | “£100,000”, “10,000 records” |
| Currency | Pound sign, no space, no decimal unless needed | “£3,000”, “£10,000” |
| Date (single) | DD Month YYYY | “30 July 2026” |
| Date range, same month | Day-day Month YYYY (hyphen, no spaces) | “14-21 January 2026” |
| Date range, across months | DD Month - DD Month YYYY | “30 October - 4 November 2026” |
| Day of week, when relevant | Weekday DD Month | Time | “Tuesday 2 June | 11 am - 12 pm” |
| Time | 12-hour, lowercase am/pm, space before | “11 am”, “2.30 pm” |
| Time range | hyphen, spaces around | “10 am - 4 pm” |
Punctuation
- No Oxford comma. “standards, databases and policy metadata” – not “standards, databases, and policy metadata”.
- Hyphen (-) for ranges: dates and times. “14-21 January”, “11 am - 12 pm”.
- En-dash (–) for parenthetical asides – like this – with spaces around it. Not em-dashes.
- Double quotation marks for direct speech, titles and verbatim quoted phrases. Single quotation marks for scare quotes or a quote nested inside doubles.
- Sentence-ending punctuation goes inside the closing quote only if it’s part of the original quote.
Acronyms and initialisms
- First use: spell out + acronym in brackets. “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR)”.
- Subsequent uses: acronym alone.
- Exception: very widely-known acronyms (DNA, UK, EU, AI) – don’t spell out.
Acronyms that come up often:
| Acronym | Full form | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FAIR | Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable | |
| RDM | Research data management | Lowercase when spelled out. |
| TRE | Trusted Research Environment | |
| SDE | Secure Data Environment | |
| HDR UK | Health Data Research UK | Always written with a space, never hyphenated. |
| UKRI | UK Research and Innovation | |
| BBSRC | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council | |
| MRC | Medical Research Council | |
| EOSC | European Open Science Cloud | |
| LLM | Large language model | Lowercase when spelled out. |
Word forms
- Training is uncountable. “Training courses”, “training materials” – never “trainings”.
Words to pause on
See the words to pause on table on the Do & don’t page. The short version: words like leverage, ecosystem, stakeholder, cutting-edge aren’t banned – they have legitimate uses – but they’re often defaults reached for out of habit. When you find one in your draft, check whether a plainer word would carry the meaning better.
Add what’s missing
If you hit a term that isn’t here and you had to make a decision, add it. This page is only useful when it’s the answer to the next person’s question.