The ChEMBL Database in 2023: a drug discovery platform spanning multiple bioactivity data types and time periods is a dataset published in Nucleic Acids Research (2023). On theSindex it has a DataRank of 5.5, placing it in the top 3.8% of the data-sharing corpus. It has been cited 1,252 times, with 100 citing works in its 1-hop citation network. Its calibrated FAIR score is 79/100.
Ranks in the top 4% for downstream scientific impact
Linked data & code
DataRank reads this dataset's downstream impact straight off the citation graph — no black box, no proprietary weighting. How is this computed?
FAIR checklist signals are shown for context only and do not affect DataRank scoring.
Full FAIR picture · advisory
The headline score is computed from the scored criteria — the fact-shaped checks (a repository, an accession, a licence) that two independent models agree on. The advisory criteria below are real FAIR guidance but rest on judgment calls that models read differently, so they inform without moving the number.
“https://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/chembl/ChEMBLdb/releases/chembl_33/”
The paper gives a URL (FTP path) for the data, not a persistent identifier scheme.
RDA-F1-01D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a persistent identifier' (priorit · RDA-F1-02D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a globally unique identifier' · FsF-F1-02D — F-UJI/FAIRsFAIR: 'Data is assigned a persistent identifier'
“The ChEMBL database is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license”
The holder named is the ChEMBL database itself, which is a recognised repository (ELIXIR core data resource). [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F4-01M — FAIR Data Maturity Model: metadata is offered so it can be harvested and indexed ( · NIH DMS Policy Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — name the repository where data will be archived · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Long-Term Sustainability', 'Reten
“ChEMBL ( https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/ )”
The dataset identifier appears only in the body text, not as a reference-list entry. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles (2014) — data should be cited as a first- · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes · FsF-F3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes the identifier of the data it describes'
Advisory · not in the published score
“The ChEMBL database is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 )”
The statement points to a license, not a repository record with an accession.
Colavizza, Hrynaszkiewicz, Staden, Whitaker & McGillivray (2020), 'The citation advantage of li · Springer Nature research data policy — Data Availability Statements: standard statement templat · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes
“In total, release 33 of the ChEMBL database (prepared on 31/05/2023) contains information extracted from > 88000 publications and patents (of which 2564 are patents), 420 deposited datasets, and two books for a grand total of >20.3 Million bioactivity measurements and 2.4 Million unique compounds.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The dataset size and content are described in running prose, not in an itemized inventory. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (2/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F2-01M — 'Rich metadata is provided to allow discovery' (priority Essential) · FsF-F2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes descriptive core elements to support data findability' · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data'
“The ChEMBL database is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 )”
The data are stated to be available under an open license with no stated precondition.
RDA-A1.1-01D — 'Data is accessible through a free access protocol' · FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Free and Easy Access'
Advisory · not in the published score
“ChEMBL ( https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/ ) is a manually curated, high-quality, large-scale, open, FAIR and Global Core Biodata Resource”
The abstract explicitly labels the resource as 'open', which is a standard access-level label.
FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · RDA-A1-01M — metadata contains information to enable the user to get access to the data · COAR Controlled Vocabularies — Access Rights v1.0 (open / embargoed / restricted / metadata-onl
The data are not sensitive human-subject data; no gatekeeper is named.
NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy (NOT-OD-14-124) — controlled-access via a Data Access Committee · RDA-A1.2-01D — 'Data is accessible through an access protocol that supports authentication and · NIH DMS Policy Element 5 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Access, Distribution, or Reuse Considerations (conse
“The ChEMBL database is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license”
The paper states the data are available now but does not specify a retention period or persistence commitment. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
NIH DMS Plan Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Data Preservation, Access, and Associated Timelines · NSTC Desirable Characteristics (2022), Organizational Infrastructure: 'Retention Policy' · RDA-A2-01M — 'Metadata is guaranteed to remain available after data is no longer available'
No open file format token is explicitly named for the released data. [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
FsF-R1.3-02D — F-UJI: 'Data is available in a file format recommended by the target research co · RDA-R1.3-02D — data is expressed in a machine-understandable community standard · RDA-I1-01D — data uses a knowledge representation expressed in a standardised format
Advisory · not in the published score
“Each withdrawn drug includes a citation to a regulatory document or similar; the specific (granular) withdrawn reason is mapped to EFO”
The paper uses EFO, a community standard ontology, to map withdrawn drug reasons.
RDA-R1.3-01M — 'Metadata complies with a community standard' (priority Essential) · RDA-R1.3-01D — 'Data complies with a community standard' · RDA-I2-01M — '(Meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles'
“The FPSim2 Python package (10.5281/zenodo.7781320) was developed and open-sourced”
The paper gives a DOI for the FPSim2 software, a resource other than the own dataset. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-I3-01M — '(meta)data include references to other (meta)data' · RDA-I3-03M — 'metadata includes qualified references to other metadata' · FsF-I3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes links between the data and its related entities'
“The ChEMBL database is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license”
The license is an open standard Creative Commons license.
RDA-R1.1-01M — 'Metadata includes information about the licence under which the data can be reu · RDA-R1.1-02M — 'Metadata refers to a standard reuse licence' · RDA-R1.1-03M — 'Metadata refers to a machine-understandable reuse licence'
“In total, release 33 of the ChEMBL database (prepared on 31/05/2023) contains information”
A version token ('release 33') and a date are provided. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — the 'Version' property · RDA-R1.2-01M — provenance information (which version was used is provenance) · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Provenance', 'Retention Policy'
“The curation pipeline is publicly available via GitHub ( https://github.com/chembl/ChEMBL_Structure_Pipeline ) as both conda and PyPl repositories”
A machine-resolvable URL for the study's own code is given.
NIH DMS Policy Element 2 (NOT-OD-21-014) — 'Related Tools, Software and/or Code' · FAIR4RS Principles v1.0 (Chue Hong et al., 2022; RDA/FORCE11/ReSA) — FAIR Principles for Resear · FORCE11 Software Citation Principles (Smith, Katz & Niemeyer, 2016, PeerJ CS 2:e86)
“Wellcome Trust [104104/A/14/Z, 218244/Z/19/Z]”
The paper includes award/grant numbers for the funding.
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — 'FundingReference' property (funderName, funderIdentifier, award · Crossref Funder Registry — canonical funder identifiers for funding metadata · RDA-F2-01M — rich metadata provided to allow discovery (funding is part of the descriptive reco
Advisory · not in the published score
“The FPSim2 Python package (10.5281/zenodo.7781320) was developed and open-sourced ( https://github.com/chembl/FPSim2 ) with the intention of replacing RDKit's PostgreSQL cartridge”
The paper names specific software tools (RDKit, FPSim2) used to produce the data. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1.2-01M — 'Metadata includes provenance information according to community- specific standa · FsF-R1.2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes provenance information about data creation or generati · W3C PROV-O (W3C Recommendation, 2013) — the entity/activity/agent model of provenance
“A comprehensive list of all current datasets incorporated into ChEMBL 33 including some statistics can be found in the latest release notes: https://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/chembl/ChEMBLdb/releases/chembl_33/chembl_33_release_notes.txt”
The release notes are a documentation object that ships with the data. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1-01M — '(Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attribu · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data' · NIH DMS Policy Element 3 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Standards (documentation and metadata to accompany t
Calibrated FAIR score — a parallel quality metric, independent of the DataRank citation score. See the full evaluation →
Base Score Contribution
1.1
From this paper's citation signal
Citation Network Contribution
4.4
From 100 citing papers with measurable signal
Ranked by each citer's contribution to N(p) — log1p(Cq) divided by its reference count — out of 100 citers.
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 104104/A/14/Z
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 218244/Z/19/Z
US National Institutes of Health
Grant: U54 CA189205
US National Institutes of Health
Grant: U24 224370
Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking
Grant: eTRANSAFE (777365)
Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking
Grant: TransQST (116030)
Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking
Grant: EUbOPEN (875510)
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 218244
The ChEMBL database
European Commission
Grant: 777365
Enhacing TRANslational SAFEty Assessment through Integrative Knowledge Management
European Commission
Grant: 116030
Translational quantitative systems toxicology to improve the understanding of the safety of medicines - Sofia: 116030
European Commission
Grant: 875510
EUbOPEN: Enabling and Unlocking biology in the OPEN
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 104104
The ChEMBL Database An Open Resource for Drug Discovery
National Institutes of Health
Grant: 5U24CA224370-06
Knowledge Management Center for Illuminating the Druggable Genome
National Institutes of Health
Grant: 3U54CA189205-02S1
Illuminating the Druggable Genome Knowledge Management Center (IDG KMC)
University of Miami
Wellcome Trust
University of New Mexico
Member States of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
European Bioinformatics Institute
FWCI
183.84
Citation Percentile
1.0%
Citation Trend
Fields of Study
MeSH Terms
Keywords