Here, we describe the systematic mouse phenotyping approach of the German Mouse Clinic (GMC), that works as an open-access phenotyping platform, and of the European Mouse Disease Clinic, which is an EU-funded multi-centre project characterising mutants generated by the large-scale mouse mutagenesis project European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Program. We explain the aims and the general framework of these large-scale projects and the resulting consequences for the phenotyping strategies. Then, we focus on the description of the behavioural tests used in the GMC to detect motor and nonmotor symptoms in mouse mutants that are genetic models of human movement disorders or neurodegenerative diseases.