Shaping the Future of Experimental Metadata in GHGA

Group picture of participants at the GHGA Metadata workshop

From 8–10 July 2026, GHGA hosted a Metadata Workshop at the Rahel Hirsch Center for Translational Medicine at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). The event brought together around 25 participants from all GHGA Data Hubs and Sequencing Core Facilities at associated institutions to discuss the future of metadata management and data submission within GHGA.

Experimental metadata plays a key role in making genomic research data FAIR—findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. As GHGA continues to grow, ensuring consistent metadata standards and efficient submission processes is essential for enabling high-quality data sharing and supporting researchers across the network.

During the workshop, participants reviewed the current Experimental Metadata Ingress Model (EMIM), shared experiences from the GHGA Data Hubs, and discussed future improvements to metadata standards, submission workflows, interoperability, and metadata governance.

The workshop laid the foundation for the roadmap of the GHGA Metadata model that will further improve the FAIRness, discoverability, and reuse of genomic research data within GHGA.

We thank all participants for their valuable contributions and the Berlin Data Hub team at CUBI for hosting the workshop.