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CORDIS is the European Commission’s public database of EU-funded research projects and their results. The name is an acronym for the Community Research and Development Information Service. This guide covers the research database run by the Publications Office of the European Union, not the hotels, the restaurant or the medical-device company that share the name. It also covers a side of CORDIS that most introductions skip: the open data behind it, and how its identifiers connect to the records in your own research information system.
What is CORDIS?
CORDIS is the Commission’s primary source for the results of projects funded by the EU’s framework programmes, from the first framework programme through Horizon Europe. According to its official About page, it is managed by the Publications Office of the European Union on behalf of the European Commission’s research and innovation Directorates-General, Executive Agencies and Joint Undertakings. The website is cordis.europa.eu.
- Official name: Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS).
- Operator: the Publications Office of the European Union, for the European Commission.
- Scope: projects funded under the EU framework programmes, with their results.
- Content: project information, news-style articles, publications, videos and a podcast.
Cordis hotels, the restaurant and the medical company
Searches for “cordis hong kong”, “cordis hotel kowloon”, “cordis hk” or “cordis italian restaurant brick nj” are looking for a hotel brand and a local restaurant, and “cordis” is also the name of a medical-device company. None of those is the EU research service, and this page does not cover them. If your interest is Horizon Europe or an earlier EU research programme, you are in the right place.
What is a CORDIS record?
A CORDIS record is the public page describing one EU-funded project. The About page says the project information includes a factsheet, the participants, reports, deliverables and links to open-access publications.
In medicine, “a cordis” can also mean a catheter introducer sheath sold under that brand. That is unrelated to this database; the word here refers to a project record in a research results database.
Who needs to register, and who does not
Researchers do not register with CORDIS to appear in it. It is a results database populated from Commission-funded projects, so a project’s entry comes from the funding programme, not from a user account. Anyone can read the public pages without logging in.
Registration matters only for the data tools. According to the CORDIS Data Lab page, the Widget Wizard requires a login, data extraction from a search results page is for registered users, and the API for automatic mass data recovery is for registered users only.
How to find a project in CORDIS
- Open cordis.europa.eu and use its search to look for a project by acronym, title or topic.
- Open the project page and read the factsheet, the participant list, and the reports and deliverables.
- Follow the links to open-access publications from the project page, and note each publication’s DOI.
- Record the grant agreement identifier from the project page, because it is the stable key you will use in your own systems.
The filters and exact field labels on the search page change as the site is updated, so follow the labels you see on the live site rather than any fixed list.
CORDIS as open data: EURIO, SPARQL and the API
This is the part most introductory pages leave out. The CORDIS Data Lab states that the database is also published as linked open data, called the EURIO Knowledge Graph, which can be queried with SPARQL. The SPARQL page explains that EURIO is a set of interlinked RDF triples built on the EURIO ontology of the Publications Office.
| Data Lab tool | What it does | Access |
|---|---|---|
| EURIO Knowledge Graph and SPARQL | Linked open data on projects and related entities, queryable with SPARQL | Open |
| Visualisations (Collaboration Network, Project Map, CORDIS DATAVIS) | Visual views of the data | Listed on the Data Lab page |
| Widget Wizard | Builds embeddable widgets | Login required |
| Data extraction from a search results page | Exports the records behind a search | Registered users |
| API | Automatic mass data recovery | Registered users only |
According to the SPARQL page, the entities in EURIO include projects, organisations, organisation roles, sites and addresses, countries, project results such as publications, grant payments and EuroSciVoc classifications. Identifiers named as examples there include the grant agreement ID, legal names, VAT numbers and publication DOIs.
How CORDIS data is used in evaluation and funding analysis
Because CORDIS holds project factsheets, participants and result links for every framework programme, it is a natural source when you need to report on an institution’s EU participation, find collaborators, or check what a funded project actually delivered. Our guide to research funding data places CORDIS alongside the funder databases that play the same role in other systems, and the guide to funding opportunity databases covers where to look for open calls rather than finished projects.
The practical value for a research office is the join: a CORDIS project can be matched to the grants, outputs and people already held in your own system through shared identifiers, which is the subject of the next section.
Connecting CORDIS records to other identifiers
The SPARQL page does not list ORCID iDs, ROR IDs or Scopus IDs among the identifiers EURIO carries, so CORDIS should not be treated as a source of researcher identifiers. Two identifiers it does carry are useful for linking:
- Grant agreement ID. Record it in your project record in the research information system. It is the key that ties your internal grant to the CORDIS project, and it is the same identifier used in the Horizon Europe grant agreement.
- Publication DOI. Each open-access publication linked from a CORDIS project can be matched by DOI to the output record in your repository or CRIS, and from the DOI to the authors’ ORCID iDs through the publisher or Crossref metadata (see Crossref DOI and persistent identifiers).
In other words, the route from CORDIS to a researcher’s ORCID or Scopus ID runs through the publication, not through a field in CORDIS itself. For how European research information systems model projects, people and outputs, see euroCRIS.
Common problems
- Searching the bare word. “cordis” alone returns hotels and medical products. Add “EU”, “Horizon Europe” or “research projects”.
- Expecting open calls. CORDIS is a results database. Open calls are found through the funder’s own funding opportunity pages.
- Expecting researcher IDs. Match through the grant agreement ID and DOIs instead (see above).
- Trying to use the API without an account. The API and data extraction are for registered users.
- Copying counts or amounts without checking the project page. Figures and dates are shown on the record itself; cite the record’s URL and the date you read it.
FAQ
What is CORDIS?
CORDIS is the European Commission’s database of EU-funded research projects and their results, run by the Publications Office of the European Union. The name stands for Community Research and Development Information Service.
What is a CORDIS?
In research, a CORDIS entry is a project record in that database. The same word is also a medical-device brand and the name of several hotels, which are different things.
Is CORDIS free to use?
The public pages and the linked open data are openly available. The Data Lab states that the Widget Wizard, data extraction and the API require registration or login.
Which programmes does it cover?
According to the About page, the framework programmes from the first to Horizon Europe.
Does CORDIS list ORCID iDs?
The identifiers documented for the EURIO knowledge graph are the grant agreement ID, legal names, VAT numbers and publication DOIs; ORCID is not among them.
Sources
- CORDIS, About: cordis.europa.eu/about/en (checked 2026-10-29)
- CORDIS Data Lab: cordis.europa.eu/datalab/en (checked 2026-10-29)
- CORDIS, SPARQL and the EURIO Knowledge Graph: cordis.europa.eu/about/sparql (checked 2026-10-29)
