Calls for projects

France Génomique has a mission to serve the scientific community in the field of genomics. This mission involves, in particular, the determination of reference sequences of genomes presenting with a particular interest for basic or applied research, and the use of high-throughput sequencing methods required in approaches that may be, in particular, comparative or functional in the fields of human or environmental genomics or metagenomics.

In the context of that mission, France Génomique devotes a large share of its sequencing capacity and associated expert skills to the implementation of a few ambitious large-scale projects. The projects are submitted by public research laboratories (CNRS, INSERM, INRA, CEA, CIRAD, IRD, university laboratories, foundations, etc.) and are implemented on the CEA Institute of Genomics' platform (Genoscope and CNG). The projects may also involve foreign, particularly European, partner laboratories. The operating costs for the projects may be assumed in whole or in part by France Génomique.

The projects are to be developed in cooperation with the IG in the context of a written convention. Depending on the technologies available (Sanger, Ion Torrents, Illumina HiSeq and Miseq, Oxford Nanopore), IG proposes to the collaborators the strategy that IG considers the most appropriate for project implementation. The partners (collaborators and IG) define together the practical conditions for implementation of the experimental work. The data generated by the collaboration are held jointly by the two partners who agree on the modalities for circulation and potential intellectual property measures in accordance with the guardian authorities and current usage in the scientific community. In particular, the data are to be placed in the public domain:  the assembled sequences are, as a general rule, submitted to public databanks 180 days after having been supplied to the collaborators by IG in compliance with international rules and practices.

The projects are to address the de novo sequencing of large complete genomes, sequencing of a high number of individuals from species whose reference genome is known, and, more generally, DNA collections necessitating a very large-scale sequencing approach (for example about ten or more Illumina Hiseq flow cells) derived from organisms presenting a major interest at scientific, medical or economic level. Projects involving organism populations (metagenome, biological diversity), environmental genomic projects and population genomic projects are encouraged.