diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 2024944b..f1907f92 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -20,12 +20,14 @@ addons:
 before_install:
     - echo "TRAVIS_BRANCH=$TRAVIS_BRANCH"
     - export ENSEMBL_BRANCH=master
-    - if [[ $TRAVIS_BRANCH =~ ^release\/[0-9]+$ ]]; then export ENSEMBL_BRANCH=$TRAVIS_BRANCH; fi
+    - export METADATA_BRANCH=main
+    - if [[ $TRAVIS_BRANCH =~ ^release\/[0-9]+$ ]]; then export ENSEMBL_BRANCH=$TRAVIS_BRANCH; export METADATA_BRANCH=$TRAVIS_BRANCH fi
     - echo "ENSEMBL_BRANCH=$ENSEMBL_BRANCH"
+    - echo "METADATA_BRANCH=$METADATA_BRANCH"
     - git clone --branch $ENSEMBL_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl.git
     - git clone --branch $ENSEMBL_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-funcgen.git
     - git clone --branch version/2.5 --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-hive.git
-    - git clone --branch $ENSEMBL_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-metadata.git
+    - git clone --branch $METADATA_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-metadata.git
     - git clone --branch $ENSEMBL_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-test.git
     - git clone --branch $ENSEMBL_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-variation.git
     - git clone --branch $ENSEMBL_BRANCH --depth 1 https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-compara.git