The European Reference Genome Atlas: piloting a decentralised approach to equitable biodiversity genomics
Ann M. Mc Cartney, Giulio Formenti, Alice Mouton, Diego De Panis, Luísa S. Marins, Henrique G. Leitão, Genevieve Diedericks, Joseph Kirangwa, Marco Morselli, Judit Salces-Ortiz, Nuria Escudero, Alessio Iannucci, Chiara Natali, Hannes Svardal, Rosa Fernández, Tim De Pooter, Geert Joris, Mojca Stražišar, Jonathan Wood, Katie E Herron, Ole Seehausen, Phillip C. Watts, Felix Shaw, Robert Davey, Alice Minotto, José M. Fernández, Astrid Böhne, Carla Alegria, Tyler Alioto, Paulo C. Alves, Isabel R. Amorim, Jean‐Marc Aury, Niclas Backström, Petr Baldrián, Laima Baltrūnaitė, Endre Barta, Bertrand Bed’Hom, Caroline Belser, Johannes Bergsten, Laurie Bertrand, Helena Bilandija, Mahesh Panchal, Iliana Bista, Mark Blaxter, Paulo A. V. Borges, Guilherme Borges Dias, Mirte Bosse, Tom Brown, Rémy Bruggmann, Elena Buena‐Atienza, Josephine Burgin, Elena Bužan, Alessia Cariani, Nicolas Casadei, Matteo Chiara, Sérgio Chozas, Fedor Čiampor, Angelica Crottini, Corinne Cruaud, Fernando Cruz, Love Dalén, Alessio De Biase, Javier del Campo, Teo Delić, Alice B. Dennis, Martijn F. L. Derks, Maria Angela Diroma, Mihajla Djan, Simone Duprat, Klara Eleftheriadi, Philine G. D. Feulner, Jean‐François Flot, Giobbe Forni, Bruno Fosso, Pascal Fournier, Christine Fournier‐Chambrillon, Toni Gabaldon, Shilpa Garg, Carmela Gissi, Luca Giupponi, Jèssica Gómez‐Garrido, Josefa González, Miguel L. Grilo, Björn Grüning, Thomas Guérin, Nadège Guiglielmoni, Marta Gut, Marcel P. Haesler, Christoph Hahn, Bálint Halpern, Peter W. Harrison, Julia Heintz, Maris Hindrikson, Jacob Höglund, Kerstin Howe, Graham M. Hughes, Benjamin Istace, J. Mark Cock, Franc Janžekovič, Zophonı́as O. Jónsson
Abstract
A genomic database of all Earth's eukaryotic species could contribute to many scientific discoveries; however, only a tiny fraction of species have genomic information available. In 2018, scientists across the world united under the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), aiming to produce a database of high-quality reference genomes containing all ~1.5 million recognized eukaryotic species. As the European node of the EBP, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) sought to implement a new decentralised, equitable and inclusive model for producing reference genomes. For this, ERGA launched a Pilot Project establishing the first distributed reference genome production infrastructure and testing it on 98 eukaryotic species from 33 European countries. Here we outline the infrastructure and explore its effectiveness for scaling high-quality reference genome production, whilst considering equity and inclusion. The outcomes and lessons learned provide a solid foundation for ERGA while offering key learnings to other transnational, national genomic resource projects and the EBP.