ERGA News #40 - August 2026
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
News
End of Term: Thank You to Our Chair and Vice Chairs!
As we approach the end of the current 3-year term, we want to thank our Chair Rob Waterhouse and Vice Chairs, Ann Mc Cartney and Olga Vinnere Pettersson, for their dedicated service to ERGA. In the coming weeks, we will be launching a call for participation in the ERGA Nominations Working Group, a great opportunity to get involved in ERGA governance and help ensure our election process remains robust and true to our principles of diversity and inclusion. The Working Group will identify candidates and organise the ERGA Council voting, with the goal of announcing the new Chair and Vice Chairs at the November Council meeting. Stay tuned for more details on how to get involved!
Biodiversity Genomics Europe plus (BGE+) Call for Project Proposals
The ERGA community is preparing proposals for the upcoming BGE+ Call for Project Proposals, offering EUR 30K to 60K for reference genome production and/or application. See the June Plenary slides for full context.
We're assessing country readiness and helping teams form ahead of the call. Council representatives play a supportive role — sharing information and connecting interested members, rather than coordinating a single national submission.
Note: terms, eligibility, and evaluation criteria are still being finalised by BGE+, so details may change. More updates will follow at ERGA Plenary Meetings throughout 2026.
Bulgaria at center stage of Lepidoptera Genomics 🦋
From 15–19 June 2026, Vlahi in Bulgaria's Kresna Gorge hosted a first-of-its-kind expedition: over 50 entomologists, genomics experts, and conservationists from 17 countries gathered to collect specimens for sequencing Europe's butterflies and moths. Led by the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the event brought together three collaborating initiatives — Project Psyche Project Psyche, COST Action CA23122 (10kLepGenomes), and LepEU.— with partners including Lund University, Stockholm University, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
The expedition's emblematic species was Janthinea forsterorum, a Balkan endemic moth described in 2025. The event marks an important step toward building a regional genomics hub in the Balkans. Check out some photos:
Photo by Stoyan Beshkov Photo by Stoyan Beshkov Photo by Julien Martinez Photo by Stoyan Beshkov Photo by Sara La Cava
CONSENSA – Consensus Standards for Applied Biodiversity Genomics
The new CONSENSA COST network funding offers ERGA Members a great opportunity to develop solutions to improve standards in biodiversity genomics research using reference genomes. Its aim is to establish consensus-based standards for generating, analysing, and applying genome-wide biodiversity data — making genomic evidence accurate, comparable, and usable for research, conservation, bioeconomy, and policy. You can apply to join one of the 5 CONSENSA Working Groups directly via the COST website — membership also makes you eligible for funded networking activities and small grants (e.g. conference registrations). We're also recruiting Management Committee members from ERGA countries; see the current list here. This is a separate role from ERGA Council country representative, though some may hold both.
More details will follow at ERGA Plenary Meetings, make sure to attend!
BGE+ European Historical DNA Capability Survey
As part of the Biodiversity Genomics Europe Plus (BGE+) project, we are developing methods to help the museum genomics community work more efficiently, cost-effectively, and at greater scale. This survey aims to identify the approach and capacity currently available in laboratories across Europe that deal with historical DNA. The information collected will help ensure that the methods we develop are as widely applicable and accessible as possible.
Events
Integrating Scales in Planetary Biology
Uppsala, 28–30 October 2026
From genomes to ecosystems: how does biology at every scale shape resilience on a changing planet? SciLifeLab's follow-up to the 2025 EMBO Lisbon workshop, with a dedicated Biodiversity Decline session and speakers including Anne Magurran, Arnau Sebé-Pedrós and Detlev Arendt. Abstracts by 7 September.
LRUA 2026 – Long-Read Sequencing Uppsala
Uppsala, 2–4 November 2026
The annual long-read sequencing meeting from NGI and Clinical Genomics Uppsala, this year with a Biodiversity workshop and speakers including Evan Eichler, Rosa Fernández and Linnea Smeds. The week after Planetary Biology – one trip, two meetings. Abstracts by 26 August.
21-25 September | Oslo, Norway / Hybrid
5 - 10 October | San Feliu, Spain
9-13 November | Barcelona, Spain
30 March - 01 April, 2027 | Cambridge, UK
Featured conferences with sessions organized by ERGA members:
Are you attending events or organizing sessions/workshops not listed here? Let us know here, we can help you reach more attendees from the biodiversity genomics community!
From the #ERGABlog
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