European Commission grants €57 million to critical open data resources
Horizon Europe funding will support GENCODE, UniProt, and Europe PMC
The European Commission has announced €57 million in funding to support GENCODE, UniProt, and Europe PMC. These life sciences data resources are delivered and managed by EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) alongside international partners. The financial support will be given in the shape of three grants through Horizon Europe.
GENCODE provides high-quality annotation of human and mouse genomes, helping researchers interpret genetic information with precision. It is run by EMBL-EBI in partnership with the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG).
UniProt is the world’s leading resource for comprehensive, high-quality, and freely accessible protein sequence and functional annotation data. It is managed through a long-standing partnership between EMBL-EBI, the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the Protein Information Resource.
Europe PMC is an open-access repository providing access to millions of biomedical abstracts and full-text articles, directly linking scientific literature with core biological data. It is managed by EMBL-EBI and supported by an international coalition of science funders.
“Open data resources are essential for modern biology and for accelerating AI innovation in biotechnology. GENCODE, UniProt and Europe PMC are part of a global ecosystem of open data resources that scientists rely on every day,” said EMBL Director General Anthony Hyman. “We are grateful to the European Commission for this critical investment. It will help ensure that reliable, openly available data continues to drive discovery and deliver practical benefits for science and society.”
Impact on life sciences with a global network of support
Open data resources are the backbone of modern life sciences and are essential for ongoing and future biological and biomedical research. Every day, they help scientists worldwide unravel the genetic code, understand protein function, accelerate drug discovery, advance artificial intelligence-enabled discovery, and support research on biodiversity and antimicrobial resistance.
While this €57 million package focuses on three critical data resources, EMBL-EBI’s broader mission includes over 30 open biological data resources that are essential to academic research and innovation in biotechnology. Maintaining these critical platforms relies on strong, continuous backing from a broad range of funders and partners.
“EMBL-EBI relies on support from EMBL member states and a broad range of international funders and collaborators,” said Jo McEntyre, Interim Director of EMBL-EBI. “We are very grateful to all our funders for helping us make the world’s biological data accessible to researchers worldwide. These data are critical for improving our understanding of human health and disease, and for developing robust AI tools that accelerate scientific discovery.”
