The goal of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project is to build a comprehensive catalog of candidate functional elements in the genome. The catalog includes genes (protein-coding and non-protein coding), transcribed regions, and regulatory elements, as well as information about the tissues, cell types and conditions where they are found to be active. The current phase of ENCODE (2012-2016) greatly expands the number of cell types, data types and assays and includes the study of both the human and mouse genomes.

Like the Human Genome Project, the ENCODE Project seeks rapid data dissemination and use by the entire scientific community. Accordingly, to encourage the widest possible use of the datasets, all data produced will be available for unrestricted use immediately upon release to public databases, eliminating the nine-month moratorium previously used by ENCODE.

External data users may freely download, analyze and publish results based on any ENCODE data without restrictions as soon as they are released. This applies to all datasets, regardless of type or size, and includes no grace period for ENCODE data producers, either as individual members or as part of the Consortium. Researchers using unpublished ENCODE data are encouraged to contact the data producers to discuss possible coordinated publications; however, this is optional. The Consortium will continue to publish the results of its own analysis efforts in independent publications.

We request that researchers who use ENCODE datasets (published or unpublished) in publications and talks cite the ENCODE Consortium in all of the following ways:

(1) Cite the Consortium's most recent integrative publication (PMID: 22955616; PMC: PMC3439153);

(2) Reference the ENCODE Data Coordination Center (DCC) or GEO accession numbers of the datasets;

(3) And acknowledge the ENCODE Consortium and the ENCODE production laboratory(s) generating the particular dataset(s).

Updated 24 March 2014