The European Commission launched a European data platform on COVID-19 in collaboration with several partners on April 20^th to enable the rapid collection and sharing of available research data. Sharing and opening up this data will help accelerate research and provide effectives responses to the crisis caused by the pandemic. The Commission is thus continuing its ongoing commitment to open science.

The platform is the result of the joint efforts of the Commission, the European Bioinformatics Institute of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI), the Elixir infrastructure, the COMPARE project, European Union Member States and other partners.

It “will provide an open, trusted, and scalable European and global environment where researchers can store and share datasets, such as DNA sequences, protein structures, data from pre-clinical research and clinical trials, as well as epidemiological data.”

The platform is part of the ERAvsCorona action plan. In the context of this plan, during a videoconference on April 7^th EU research and innovation ministers expressed their support for the first ten priority actions of the first ERAvsCorona action plan.

It reinforces the Commission’s actions implemented since the beginning of the pandemic:

• direct support to the EU health care sector;
• coronavirus research projects;
• the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

The Commission’s press release provides more information.