BioProjects
When to create an NCBI BioProject
NCBI recommends organizing BioProjects in the most appropriate way for your research effort. For public health laboratories, funding frequently dictates which BioProject data should be submitted under. In the absence of guidance from a funding source, consider organizing your data into different BioProjects based on surveillance/research project, epidemiological investigation, or funding source. BioProjects can vary substantailly in scope and number of samples, from a single sample to hundreds of thousands or more samples. BioProjects can be tagged with a set of funding sources (NIH funding sources get special treatment & cross linking), sequencing goals, and organism scope.
The NCBI “BioProject Frequently Asked Questions” page contains answers to many common questions reguarding when to create a bioproject and what options to select during setup.
Umbrella BioProjects
Umbrella BioProjects are collections of primary submission BioProjects that are part of a shared initiative, collaboration or funding source (for example the CDC COVID-19 Outbreak BioProject). They are administrative in nature and are not used for primary data submission. Umbrella BioProjects can be created by designating the Project type as Umbrella project in the BioProject submission portal. To add a BioProject to an already established Umbrella project, email BioProjecthelp@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov with details about which project(s) you want to cluster and why.