CCP volume EM OME-NGFF Hackathon 2026

Build the future of volume EM data – one chunk at a time!

Join us at EMBL-EBI in 2026 for the first CCP-volumeEM OME-NGFF Hackathon.

We would like to announce the inaugural CCP-volumeEM OME NGFF Hackathon 2026 at EMBL-EBI (near Cambridge, in the  UK). Volume EM is a set of methods to image cells and tissues through continuous depths. 3D biological image analysis is a rapidly changing field with major challenges due to a huge variety of modalities and big data as well as the push towards FAIR image data and processing workflows. In order to address some of these challenges the OME-NGFF open file format has been developed to help standardisation in bioimage analysis with the Zarr open standard implemented to efficiently deal with exceedingly large numbers of files and allow storage of chunked and compressed multidimensional data. It is further designed to be cloud-ready and efficient for parallel processing, making it the ideal choice for bioimaging data analysis. So far vEM data handling has been a volunteer effort limited to knowledge sharing and advocacy. Over the past 5 years the vEM community has rapidly increased and gained interest around the globe so that the time has come for building a Collaborative

Computational Project for Volume Electron Microscopy and to formalise collaboration in computational areas of vEM. With the support of UKRI we announce this hackathon to scope the remit of a CCP-volumeEM (within the broader vEM field), followed by the establishment of formal structures.  

This hackathon will run from 11^th of March to the 13^th of March 2026. Participants will spend 3 days working in small groups with a range of backgrounds on different aspects of how OME-NGFF can support volume EM analysis and data sharing. We would particularly like to focus on making OME-NGFF easier to use for a wide range of users, through better tools and training materials. The target audience will be scientists who mainly deal with data in the form of image analysis, data management, and development of analysis programs. Further you might be involved in making analysis programs available and accessible or you are involved in defining standards and validation methods for imaging analysis. A further advantage would be pre-knowledge of handling OME-Zarr or FAIR image data.

Registration and the call for project proposals is open now. Please register your interest in participation and submit suggested project themes under the following link: https://forms.gle/FfgGVcjSnuWodppj9. We expect to be able to accommodate everyone who is interested, but may need to select based on potential benefit to both participants and the UK OME-NGFF Volume EM community if numbers are high.

Event information and timeline

• Hackathon dates: 11th-13th March 2026.
• Location: EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton (Cambridgeshire), United Kingdom.
• Project proposal deadline: 23.01.2026. Form here: https://forms.gle/FfgGVcjSnuWodppj9
• Attendee registration closes: 23.01.2026.
• Funding: We have a number of travel & accommodation bursaries available for attendees from the UK that would be unable to attend the event without financial support. Please contact the organisers (mscb-admin@ebi.ac.uk).

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