Life Science research faces the constant challenge of how to effectively handle an ever-growing body of bioinformatics software and online resources. The users and developers of bioinformatics resources have a diverse set of competing demands on how these resources need to be developed and organised. Unfortunately, there does not exist an adequate community-wide framework to integrate such competing demands. The problems that arise from this include unstructured standards development, the

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... nce of tools that do not meet specific needs of researchers, and often times a communications gap between those who use the tools and those who supply them. This paper presents an overview of the different functions and needs of bioinformatics stakeholders to determine what may be required in a community-wide framework. A Bioinformatics Reference Model is proposed as a basis for such a framework. The reference model outlines the functional relationship between research usage and technical aspects of bioinformatics resources. It separates important functions into multiple structured layers, clarifies how they relate to each other, and highlights the gaps that need to be addressed for progress towards a diverse, manageable, and sustainable body of resources. The relevance of this reference model to the bioscience research community, and its implications in progress for organising our bioinformatics resources, are discussed.