EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LABORATORY

Their core work

EMBL is Europe's flagship intergovernmental research laboratory for molecular biology and life sciences, headquartered in Heidelberg. They build and operate large-scale bioinformatics infrastructure (databases, analysis platforms, compute resources) that thousands of researchers across Europe depend on daily. Beyond infrastructure, EMBL conducts fundamental research in genomics, structural biology, developmental biology, and metabolomics, while training the next generation of life scientists. They are a central node in Europe's research infrastructure ecosystem, connecting data, tools, and communities across the life sciences.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early H2020 period (2014-2018), EMBL focused heavily on translational medicine, molecular biology fundamentals, brain simulation (Human Brain Project connections), and building first-generation data management infrastructure. By the later period (2019-2022), the focus shifted decisively toward FAIR data principles, open science, microbiome research, multi-omics integration, and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The evolution shows a clear arc from doing science to building the infrastructure and standards that enable science at continental scale.

EMBL is positioning itself as the backbone of Europe's open life science data ecosystem, making them an essential partner for any project requiring FAIR-compliant data infrastructure or multi-omics integration.

How they like to work

EMBL operates as both a consortium leader (66 projects as coordinator, 36% of portfolio) and a sought-after partner (115 as participant), showing they can drive large initiatives and contribute specialized expertise to others' projects. With 1,113 unique consortium partners across 68 countries, they function as a massive hub — one of the most connected organizations in H2020. This means partnering with EMBL gives you access to an extraordinary network, but also means they are selective and accustomed to working at scale.

EMBL has collaborated with 1,113 unique partners across 68 countries, making them one of the most networked research organizations in all of Horizon 2020. Their reach is truly global, spanning all EU member states plus associated countries and international partners.

What sets them apart

EMBL is not a university or national lab — it is an intergovernmental organization with member states across Europe, giving it a unique mandate and stability that most research partners cannot offer. They combine world-class in-house research with continent-scale infrastructure operation (ELIXIR, EOSC), meaning they bring both scientific depth and the technical backbone to manage data across large consortia. For any consortium needing bioinformatics, data management, or life science infrastructure, EMBL is often the first name on the list — and with EUR 150M+ in H2020 funding, the track record to back it up.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ELIXIR-EXCELERATE
  EUR 5.2M coordinated by EMBL — the flagship project for building Europe's life science data infrastructure, connecting bioinformatics resources across 23 countries.
• CORBEL
  EUR 3.2M as coordinator — unified access point across 13 biological and medical research infrastructures, exemplifying EMBL's role as a cross-infrastructure integrator.
• PhenoMeNal
  EUR 1.8M as coordinator — built a cloud-based e-infrastructure for medical metabolic phenotyping, bridging bioinformatics with clinical applications.