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annotation@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back Annotation Committee annotation@erga-biodiversity.eu Annotations transform genomes into larger sources of knowledge and offer critical added value to genome assemblies. They serve as a direct link between the genome sequence and function and facilitate comparisons across taxa, both on a large and small scale. The ERGA Annotation Committee is composed of researchers and bioinformaticians who have experience in using computational methods to predict the structural and functional composition of whole genomes. We strive to understand and use the most advanced analytical methods for annotating genomes, to develop new methods for annotation and its evaluation, and to align with the standards set by the EBP. We are committed to promoting the best possible annotation pipelines are available to and used by the annotation community and new researchers entering this field. The committee meets regularly to review the progress of the annotation in ERGA-genomes, discuss current issues and challenges, and propose changes to improve the annotation process. (V.1.0 16.05.2023) Chair Alice Dennis Coordinator Christian de Guttry Steering Committee Aureliano Bombarely Hugues Roest Crollius Henrik Lantz Fergal Martin Florian Maumus Committee Resources Structural Annotation Guide Pre-trained AUGUSTUS models 💡ERGA Knowledge Hub Pipelines BRAKER3 Protein-Coding Annotation Pipeline Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

analysis@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back DAC - Data Analysis Committee analysis@erga-biodiversity.eu The Data Analysis Committee (DAC) aims at fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing in genomic data analysis among ERGA members, and enhancing the development of applications in genomics. DAC has the goal to develop and implement standard protocols for downstream data analysis, providing high standard frameworks and pipelines to tackle research questions with different groups of organisms. Additionally, together with the Training and Transfer of Knowledge committee (TKT), DAC is responsible for providing training opportunities to the ERGA and general scientific communities through the organization of workshops and conferences. Finally, DAC aspires to improve translational communication with stakeholders and citizen scientists by actively engaging with the Citizen Science committee (CS committee) activities, to influence species management and protect earth’s biodiversity (V.1.0 02.05.2023) Chair Tereza Manousaki Coordinator João Pimenta Leader of the Population Genomics Subcommittee Mari Jose Ruiz Leader of the Phylogenomics Subcommittee Pascalia Kapli Iker Irisarri Leader of the Comparative Genomics Subcommittee Toni Gabaldón Leader of the Functional Genomics Subcommittee Steven Van Belleghem Steering Committee José Melo-Ferreira Elena Buzan (CS committee representative) Alice Mouton (TKT committee representative) Joan Pons Committee Resources 💡ERGA Knowledge Hub ERGA BioGenome Analysis and Applications seminars DAC Playlist: Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

citizenscience@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back CS - Citizen Science citizenscience@erga-biodiversity.eu The Citizen Science and Outreach Committee aims to facilitate collaboration and communication between scientists, stakeholders and citizens to increase trust in the scientific process and ensure that genomics research reflects the needs and perspectives of the broader community. By engaging a broad range of stakeholders, including policy makers, non-governmental organisations, industry representatives and citizens, the Committee seeks to foster a fruitful multi-stakeholder dialogue and support the traditional community knowledge through the use of citizen science and stakeholder perspectives. To achieve its goals, the Committee works to engage citizens and stakeholders in the research process and to promote public understanding of genomics through various public events and other activities. In addition, the Committee supports policies that support genomics research and its translation into practical applications for the benefit of society. (V.1.0 02.05.2023) Chair Elena Buzan Coordinators Christian de Guttry Luísa Marins Steering Committee Jacob Höglund Lino Ometto Svein-Ole Mikalsen Chiara Bortoluzzi Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

socialjustice@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back Social Justice Committee socialjustice@erga-biodiversity.eu Co-chairs Fabrizio Ghiselli James Fleming Head to the committee page >> Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

media@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back Media & Communications media@erga-biodiversity.eu The Media & Communications Committee is responsible for communicating ERGA's goals, actions, and accomplishments internally and externally. Our committee produces newsletters, press releases, blog-posts, manages the website, and maintains social media accounts. We are responsible for developing communication strategies, implementing plans for publicising ERGA events and activities, and ensuring that all relevant information is disseminated in a timely and accurate manner. It is our responsibility to raise awareness about ERGA both inside and outside the scientific community, in order to encourage more people to support and join our community and contribute to our mission. Coordinators Christian de Guttry Luísa Marins Steering Committee Alice Mouton Jan Zwilling Follow #ERGA ! Stay connected! Follow us on social media for updates and insights. 🌍 https://linktr.ee/erga_biodiversity #Genomes for #Biodiversity Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

itinfra@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back ITIC - IT & Infrastructure Committee itinfra@erga-biodiversity.eu In the IT and Infrastructure committee, we aim to facilitate robust and reproducible science in all steps of creating an ERGA genome. The IT Committee oversees the use of various platforms to keep all other committees up to date, secure and compliant with EU laws and regulations. The IT Committee is central to ensuring that data and metadata are accessible to the public and in line with our Open Access Policies. Our main tasks revolve around providing material for the ERGA community to facilitate the management and publication of (meta)data consistent with the goals of ERGA and the wider Earth BioGenome Project community. Please send us an email if you would like to be involved in our work. (V.2.0 15.05.2025) Coordinators Tom Brown Christian de Guttry Resources 🔗 How-to-guide: Submitting data to ENA Gustafsson, O.J.R., Wilkinson, S.R., Bacall, F., Pireddu, L., Soiland-Reyes, S., Leo, S., Owen, S., Juty, N., Fernández, J.M., Grüning, B. and Brown, T., 2024. WorkflowHub: a registry for computational workflows. arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.06941 . https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.06941 Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

assembly@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back SAC - Sequencing and Assembly Committee assembly@erga-biodiversity.eu The Sequencing and Assembly Committee (SAC) aims to foster collaboration within the ERGA community by organising, coordinating efforts, and providing a platform for exchanging ideas in topics regarding genome assembly methods. SAC actively engages with other ERGA committees, genome projects, and consortia to maintain updated workflows and develop standardised pipelines aligned with ERGA's mission and quality requirements. Furthermore, the committee is establishing a framework for assembly evaluation to ensure high-quality standards are met and addresses complex cases by seeking feedback from the community. ERGA-SAC is also committed to producing guidelines, materials, SOPs, and best practices to facilitate ongoing improvement and knowledge sharing. ( V.1.0 02.05.2023) Chair Tyler Alioto Coordinator Diego de Panis Steering Committee Camila Mazzoni Henrik Lantz Jean-Marc Aury Kerstin Howe Nadège Guiglielmoni Looking for assistance and guidance with how to assemble a genome? The Sequencing and Assembly Committee can help! Join our Slack Channel! Here you can post your questions and start conversations with the Sequencing and Assembly community from the ERGA consortium. Use our resources! Here we have a collection of Genome Assembly Workshops collected and curated by the members of the ERGA SAC. Join our mailing list! Send an email to assembly@erga-biodiversity.eu to join the ERGA Sequencing and Assembly mailing list and get regular updates about the activities of the SAC. Present at our meetings! Send and email to assembly@erga-biodiversity.eu to request a slot to present at a SAC meeting if you would like feedback on your project. We can advise on steps to improve an assembly or potential pipelines that you may find useful. Resources 💡 ERGA Knowledge Hub ▶️ ERGA SAC Youtube Playlist 🔗 Galaxy workflow for de-novo genome assembly using PacBio HiFi and HiC data 🔗 Galaxy workflow for de-novo genome assembly using ONT, Illumina WGS and HiC data Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

training@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back TKT - Training and Knowledge Transfer training@erga-biodiversity.eu The Training and Knowledge Transfer (TKT) committee aims to support the design and implementation of learning and skill-sharing activities in the field of biodiversity genomics research. Our committee actively engages with all ERGA committees to collect, promote, and develop training materials, including webinars, workshops and activities, and make them available to the ERGA community. We work with the ERGA community to connect experts interested with members wishing to learn new skills and improve their knowledge of the chain of steps required for reference genome generation. We also connect and support members to collaboratively develop funding proposals for financing TKT-related activities, and we coordinate the programme for the monthly ERGA Plenary meetings. V.1.0 02.05.2023 Chair Camilla Reginatto De Pierri Coordinator Christian de Guttry Steering Committee Alice Mouton Lino Ometto Nadège Guiglielmon Robert Waterhouse Spiros Papakostas Jean-François Flot Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

elsi@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back ELSI - Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues elsi@erga-biodiversity.eu The Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) Committee is committed to assisting ERGA in understanding international guidelines and standards for genomics research, including those established by the Nagoya Protocol and Digital Sequence Information (DSI) frameworks. Monitoring ethical and legal issues, the committee plays a role in developing best practices for access and benefit sharing, data governance, and wider policy discussions. In practice, ELSI’s efforts include establishing governance frameworks for genomic data collection, management, and sharing. By doing so, ERGA can confirm that its efforts are consistent with continually changing regulations and ethical standards. In addition to ensuring compliance, the committee provides practical assistance to ERGA researchers by offering resources, conducting training sessions, and sharing policy insights. Central to this is the committee's dedication to transparency, building trust, and encouraging ethical research in biodiversity genomics. (V.2.0 17.02.2025) Chair Jennifer Leonard Coordinator Christian de Guttry Steering Committee Rebekah Oomen Robert Waterhouse Elena Buzan Amber Hartman Scholz Camila Mazzoni Resources ▶️ Webinar: A Primer on Science Policy for Biodiversity Research Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

samples@erga-biodiversity.eu < Back SSP - Sampling & Sample Processing samples@erga-biodiversity.eu The Sampling and Sample Processing Committee (SSP) gathers and gives information on all steps from choosing which species to generate sequences for, to sending correctly prepared samples to sequencing centers. This also includes vouchering, biobanking and standardized metadata collection, as well as exchange on best practices for sampling and lab protocols for the whole variety of organisms that ERGA aims to include. This committee is thus often the first port of call for new sequencing projects within ERGA, and closely collaborates with scientific collections and sequencing centers, as well as several other ERGA committees, on issues such as collection permits and equal opportunities for projects from all over Europe. To accomplish these diverse tasks, we depend upon input from taxonomic experts on the whole eukaryotic tree of life. ( V.1.0 02.05.2023) Co-Chairs Katja Reichel Jaakko Pohjoismäki Coordinator Rita Monteiro Steering Committee Astrid Böhne Jennifer Leonard Olga Vinnere Pettersson Torsten Hugo Struck Committee Resources 💡 ERGA Knowledge Hub ▶️ ERGA SSP Youtube Playlist Böhne, A., Fernández, R., Leonard, J.A. et al. Contextualising samples: supporting reference genomes of European biodiversity through sample and associated metadata collection. npj biodivers 3 , 26 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-024-00053-7 Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them Press Releases ERGA at ESEB 2025 Events Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play Press Releases

The European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) initiative is a pan-European scientific response to current threats to biodiversity. Reference genomes provide the most complete insight into the genetic basis that forms each species and represent a powerful resource in understanding how biodiversity functions. With approxima HOME A GENOME ATLAS OF EUROPEAN BIODIVERSITY The European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) initiative is a pan-European scientific response to current threats to biodiversity. Reference genomes provide the most complete insight into the genetic basis that forms each species and represent a powerful resource in understanding how biodiversity functions. With approximately one fifth of the ~200,000 European species at risk of extinction, we need to act fast and together to generate high-quality complete genome resources in large scale. Science needs genomes to understand biodiversity, biodiversity needs to be understood to be protected. HIGHLIGHTS Connection #6 - Biodiversity Hotspots & how to study them ERGA at ESEB 2025 Genomic Connections #3 - DNA Metadata and FAIR Play EVENTS ERGA at ESEB 2025 Target capture sequencing approaches to the study of plant evolution Genomic erosion and biodiversity conservation Open to Collaborate ERGA is committed to the development of new modes of collaboration, engagement, and partnership with Indigenous peoples for the care and stewardship of past and future heritage collections. Calls OUR MISSION 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3 WHAT WE DO Establishing high-quality reference genomes requires an interdisciplinary workflow From species to genomes … and beyond. From species selection to data analysis, the process of creating reference genomes for the entire biodiversity will involve a deep synergy among museums, research institutes, universities, sequencing centres, bioinformatics and computational groups. Citizens will also play an important role supporting the inclusion of all types of species. WHAT WE AIM FOR Creating and consolidating a collaborative and interdisciplinary network of scientists across Europe and associated countries Connecting relevant infrastructure across Europe following a distributed model that can dynamically increase Propagating guidelines for state-of-the-art genome establishment through training and knowledge transfer Next La comunidad ERGA tiene como objetivo optimizar la producción de genomas de referencia mediante el desarrollo y el intercambio de protocolos y flujos de trabajo, brindando acceso a recursos y apoyando el desarrollo de capacidades a través de la transferencia de conocimientos - para mejorar y ampliar el uso de datos genómicos para la protección y restauración de la biodiversidad Next OUR PROJECTS ERGA Pilot The Pilot Project was launched to demonstrate the feasibility of continent-wide collaboration. It was established, funded, and driven entirely by its members. Read more >> Biodiversity Genomics Europe ERGA has recently been funded as part of the Biodiversity Genomics Europe project through the European Union's Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action. Read more ERGA Community Genomes Are you planning or developing a reference genome project of a European species? Join the growing family of ERGA Community G enomes! Read mo re “Species conservation is urgent and demands deep knowledge of the genetic features of their populations. A coordinated effort to generate complete reference genomes for all European biodiversity, such as what we are proposing with ERGA, can give us the whole picture about the adaptive differences and extent of a need for genetic rescue among populations and species.” Dr. Camila Mazzoni, Founding Chair, ERGA. Research Group Leader Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin, Germany

Executive Board Council of Countries Committees Our Partners Pilot Project Former Contributors top OUR COMMUNITY ERGA is an bottom-up initiative based on people, consisting of hundreds of scientists across the entire European continent and beyond. Research institutions, infrastructure facilities as well as partner genome projects will play an important role within ERGA. Finally, ERGA will have a focus on societal needs particularly related to Biodiversity conservation. For that purpose, ERGA will work engaging governmental and non-governmental entities and will closely involve citizens in different actions. Executive Board Executive Board executive-board@erga-biodiversity.eu Robert Waterhouse Chair Ann Mc Cartney Vice Chair Olga Vinnere Pettersson Vice Chair Rosa Fernández Scientific Officer Elena Bužan Partnership Officer Chiara Bortoluzzi Dissemination Officer Lada Lukić Bilela Social Integration Officer Camila Mazzoni Funding Opportunities Officer Jaakko Pohjoismäki Genomic Outreach Officer List of Former Executive Board Members > Council of Country Representatives Contact the national representatives for more information on the ERGA community in your country! Andorra Andorra@erga-biodiversity.eu Manel Niell List of Former Council Members > Council of Countries Committees SSP - Sampling & Sample Processing samples@erga-biodiversity.eu More > DAC - Data Analysis Committee analysis@erga-biodiversity.eu More > Media & Communications media@erga-biodiversity.eu More > Social Justice Committee socialjustice@erga-biodiversity.eu More > SAC - Sequencing and Assembly Committee assembly@erga-biodiversity.eu More > ITIC - IT & Infrastructure Committee itinfra@erga-biodiversity.eu More > CS - Citizen Science citizenscience@erga-biodiversity.eu More > Annotation Committee annotation@erga-biodiversity.eu More > ELSI - Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues elsi@erga-biodiversity.eu More > TKT - Training and Knowledge Transfer training@erga-biodiversity.eu More > Committees Our Partners Our Partners ERGA is the pan-European partner of the Earth Biogenome Project (EBP) Affiliated Initiatives Associated Partners Squalomix Pilot Project Pilot Project Committee Coordinators pilot@erga-biodiversity.eu Giulio Formenti Alice Mouton Ann Mc Cartney Learn more about the Pilot Project Former Contributors SSP - Sampling & Sample Processing Committee Filter by Type Astrid Böhne (Former Committee Chair) Former Contributors