Our European Projects

In addition to the core activities, Instruct-ERIC is actively working in partnership with others across the Life Sciences field to share expertise and work together on European projects which will benefit the Life Science community more generally. Horizon 2020 (H2020) and Horizon Europe are the EU Research and Innovation Programmes which provide funding in key research areas. Details of our projects are given below, many of which relate to improving research infrastructure, data and training.

Fragment-Screen

From fragments to high affinity binders interfacing integrated structural biology, medicinal chemistry and artificial intelligence

Coordinated by Instruct-ERIC, the Fragment-Screen project aims to develop innovative instrumentation, workflows and experimental and computational methodologies to accelerate the development of new pharmaceuticals using the approach of fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD). It will improve current bottlenecks in signal-to-noise (NMR), automation of data analysis (X-ray), and general applicability of cryo-EM for high-throughput. It will also help make data analysis coherent over different methodological approaches.

Project Period: February 2023 to January 2027

Total grant: €10 266 290

canSERV

Providing cutting edge cancer research services across Europe

canSERV's mission is to make cutting-edge and customised research services available to the cancer research community EU wide, enable innovative R&D projects and foster precision medicine for patients benefit across Europe. Structural biology is a key field in the pipeline of oncology, so Instruct will be offering its services to the canSERV community. Additionally, the ARIA submission system will be utilised as the central access management software for access provision in canSERV.

Project Period: September 2022 to August 2026

Total grant: €14 999 939

IMAGINE

Next generation imaging for biology across scales

The EU-funded IMAGINE project focuses on developing and integrating major microscopy technologies to enable scale-crossing structural and functional investigation of biological specimens in their natural context. IMAGINE aims at making its new imaging technologies service ready and having them validated as future services by Europe’s Imaging Research Infrastructures, including Instruct-ERIC.

Project Period: May 2023 to April 2028

Total grant: €9 569 677

ERIC Forum 2

Second implementation project for the ERIC Forum

This ERIC Forum continuation project aims to structure the cooperation between ERICs, support the implementation of the ERIC Regulation and ERICs services, and consolidate the integration of the ERICs in the European Research Area by deepening the ERIC Forum’s contribution to research policies. In this new Horizon Europe project Instruct-ERIC will provide leadership in areas of Internationalisation and Communications as well as actively participating in matters of governance, legal framework and administration.

Project Period: September 2023 to August 2027

Total grant: €2 999 464

FHERITALE

The effect of artificial materials on health (direct or through interactions with food and environment) poses several research questions of high impact. FHERITALE aims at providing the European research community with a comprehensive overview of technologies and services, and their readiness and adaptability to address these questions. Instruct will offer experience and expertise on providing services for food and health research, and coordinate results with the wider life science community.

Project Period: January 2024 to December 2026

Total grant: €2 002 189

EOSC Beyond

The EOSC Beyond overall objective is to advance Open Science and innovation in research in the context of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) - providing new EOSC Core capabilities to allow scientific applications to find, compose and access multiple Open Science resources and offer them as integrated capabilities to researchers. Instruct aims to provide an automatic synchronisation between ARIA and the EOSC catalogue of services, allowing further promotion of ARIA hosted services.

Project Period: April 2024 to March 2027

Total grant: €10,000,000

MALDIBANK

Multi-domain Open MALDI Spectra Archive for Identification of Microorganisms

Microbes are essential to life, yet their vast diversity remains underappreciated despite their critical role in health, ecosystems, and industries like agriculture and food safety. Accurate microbial identification is key to addressing global challenges such as climate change, epidemics and food security. The EU-funded MALDIBANK project aims to advance a homonymous global, cloud-based database designed to expand the application of MALDI-TOF technology. By compiling 100 000 reference spectra and leveraging deep learning, it offers a comprehensive tool for microbial identification, surveillance and research, empowering scientists to tackle antimicrobial resistance, environmental monitoring and more.

Project Period: May 2025 to April 2029

Total grant: €9 767 243

EOSC United

Coordination and Support Action for the Future engagement model for the EOSC Federation

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) aims to establish a FAIR research system in Europe through the EOSC Federation, enabling researchers to share and analyse data across disciplines and borders. It aims to promote multidisciplinary research by leveraging FAIR data and services across Europe and beyond. EOSC United's work is essential in realising the vision of open, accessible, and reusable scientific data across Europe.

Project Period: September 2025 to August 2028

Total grant: €1 223 188

ISIDORE II

Integrated Services for Infectious Disease Outbreak Research II

ISIDORe II (Integrated Services for Infectious Disease Outbreak Research II) represents the strategic continuation of ISIDORe. Building on its proven capacity to mobilise Europe’s research infrastructures (RIs) for pandemic preparedness and response (PP&R) research, ISIDORe II consolidates the model into a leaner, strategically aligned consortium that enhances agility, coherence, and sustainability. Infectious disease–focused RIs form the operational backbone, ensuring depth in epidemic- and pandemic-relevant science, while transversal RIs provide enabling technologies such as imaging, omics, and structural biology.

Project Period: June 2026 to May 2029

Total grant: €10 456 496.25

ACCESS2ACCESS

Shape the future of transnational access in Europe

ACCESS2ACCESS aims to ensure that the future of transnational access reflects the needs of Europe’s highly diverse research infrastructure landscape, and first and foremost, the researchers and developers from academia and industry alike. The project will engage communities across the full breadth of science and technology. This includes life sciences, biomedical and health research, social sciences and humanities, environmental and Earth sciences, photon and neutron sciences, physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, energy research, digital infrastructures, and high-performance computing. The project will also involve a wide range of user communities and research infrastructure models, including both distributed and single-site infrastructures.

Project Period: May 2026 to December 2027

Total Grant: €1 392 255.50

SIRENE

A New Global Framework for Advancing Exposome Research and Environmental Health

The SIRENE project (Services for envIRonmental Exposure and health assessmeNt in Europe) represents a major step forward in Europe’s ability to understand how environmental factors influence human health across the life course. As a newly funded Horizon Europe Research Infrastructure Action, SIRENE connects an unprecedented network of research infrastructures, cohorts, biobanks, laboratories, and data services to operationalise the exposome—the totality of environmental exposures and their biological effects.

Project Period: October 2026 to September 2031

Total Grant: €9 951 380

MD4SB

Molecular Dynamics for Structure-based Biology

MD4SB is an ambitious, multidisciplinary project designed to enable the integration of Molecular Dynamics (MD)-derived data and associated analysis tools into three major European Research Infrastructures: Instruct-ERIC, ELIXIR, and EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC. Building upon the technological groundwork laid by the MDDB project (HORIZON-INFRA-2022-DEV-01-01), MD4SB seeks to bridge the gap between molecular simulation and a range of complementary disciplines, including structural biology, pharmaceutical sciences, computational sciences, and omics-based research.

Project Period: September 2026 to August 2030

Total Grant: €9 998 145

Past EC Projects

Take a look at our previous Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 projects here.