ECRcentral

Funding opportunities, travel grants, and resources for early career researchers.

ECRcentral is a community-maintained, open-source database of funding opportunities, travel grants, and scientific resources for early career researchers (ECRs) worldwide. The site is fully static, hosted on GitHub Pages, and free to maintain — every entry is a YAML file that anyone can contribute to via a GitHub Pull Request.

Live site: https://ecrcentral.org GitHub: https://github.com/ecrcentral/ecrcentral.github.io

Tech stack:

• Frontend: Astro + TypeScript + CSS
• Search: MiniSearch (client-side)
• Content: YAML (one file per record)
• Hosting: GitHub Pages (free)
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions

Local Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Python 3.11+
• pip install pyyaml jsonschema

Setup

git clone https://github.com/ecrcentral/ecrcentral.github.io
cd ecrcentral

# Install frontend dependencies
cd apps/web && npm install && cd ../..

# Build JSON artifacts from YAML content
make build

# Start development server
make dev

Visit http://localhost:4321

Content Workflow

Editing an existing entry

1. Find the YAML file in data/entries/{type}/{slug}.yaml
2. Edit the file
3. Run make validate to check for errors
4. Run make build to regenerate JSON artifacts
5. Open a Pull Request

Adding a new entry

1. Create a new YAML file following the schema in data/schema/
2. Use the existing entries as examples
3. Run make validate and make build
4. Open a Pull Request

Contributing without GitHub knowledge

Use our GitHub Issue Forms:

• Add a funding opportunity
• Add a travel grant
• Add a resource
• Report an outdated entry

Build System

Build

Generates JSON artifacts from YAML content:

make build
# Runs: build_records.py, build_facets.py, build_search_index.py, build_homepage_featured.py

Validate

make validate
# Runs: validate_yaml.py, validate_taxonomies.py, validate_duplicates.py

Build Site

make build-site
# Equivalent to: make build && cd apps/web && npm run build

Data Model

See docs/data-model.md for full field reference.

Entry types

Type	Directory	Count	Schema
Funders	data/entries/funders/	~656	data/schema/funder.schema.json
Fundings	data/entries/fundings/	~856	data/schema/funding.schema.json
Travel Grants	data/entries/travel-grants/	~179	data/schema/travel-grant.schema.json
Resources	data/entries/resources/	~178	data/schema/resource.schema.json

Key fields

• slug — unique identifier used in URLs (e.g., embo-scientific-exchange-grants)
• status — active, expired, archived, draft
• review_status — approved, pending, rejected
• featured — shown on homepage when true
• funders — array of funder slugs (references data/entries/funders/)

Deployment

The site deploys automatically to GitHub Pages when code is pushed to main.

GitHub Actions workflows:

1. validate.yml — runs on every push/PR: validates YAML, checks taxonomy references, detects duplicates
2. build.yml — builds JSON artifacts and Astro site
3. deploy-pages.yml — deploys to GitHub Pages on main

Manual deployment

make build-site
# Then upload apps/web/dist/ to any static host

Logo Assets

Funder logos should be placed in apps/web/public/logos/funders/ named as {funder-slug}.{ext}.

Contributing

See docs/contribution-guide.md for detailed contributing instructions.

All contributions are welcome! ECRcentral is community-maintained — the more contributors, the better the data quality.

License

MIT — see LICENSE

ECRcentral content (YAML files in data/entries/) is shared under CC BY 4.0.