HMP

HMP is an acronym used to refer to several distinct concepts in different domains. In the United Kingdom, HMP stands for Her Majesty's Prison and is the prefix used in the official names of many correctional facilities. The term denotes the state-run prison system and is encountered on signage, administrative documents, and in media coverage about prisons. The naming convention reflects the monarch’s constitutional status and can vary with changes in government structure and terminology.

In biomedical research, HMP refers to the Human Microbiome Project, a major initiative funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to identify and characterize the microbial communities living in and on the human body. Launched in the 2000s, the project produced large-scale reference datasets and yielded foundational insights into the diversity and roles of the human microbiome, with data releases and follow-up studies shaping subsequent microbiome research.

Across other fields, HMP can have additional, less-common meanings depending on context, including organizations, programs, or products that adopt the same acronym. Because HMP is not unique to a single domain, it is important to use contextual clues such as accompanying terms, field, or geographic reference to determine the intended meaning. If encountered in a document, noting whether the discussion is about law and prisons or about biology and health is typically enough to disambiguate the term.