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What is the data provider agreement?

The Data Provider Agreement (DPA) is the legal instrument that lets the Crop Trust publish your genebank's accession data on Genesys. It is a one-time, standard agreement between your institute and the Crop Trust.

Until your institute has signed a DPA, we cannot publish any data from your collection on the live Genesys portal. You can still browse Genesys, register a user account, and even test data uploads in the Sandbox without one, but production publication requires the agreement to be in place.

What the DPA does (and does not) do​

The DPA accomplishes three things:

  • It authorizes the Crop Trust to publish your data. The agreement grants the Crop Trust a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use your accession data and metadata to build and operate Genesys. Without this license, the Crop Trust has no legal basis to display your records on the portal.
  • It confirms that you retain ownership. The DPA explicitly acknowledges that the Crop Trust will not claim any copyright or other intellectual property rights over your data. You remain the source and owner. The license to the Crop Trust is also revocable: you can withdraw it (see the key characteristics of the DPA section).
  • It defines what each party is responsible for. Both you and the Crop Trust commit to specific obligations regarding data quality, attribution, third-party use, and the broader operation of Genesys. These are covered in detail in the key characteristics of the DPA section.

What the DPA does not do is equally important:

  • It does not transfer ownership of your data to the Crop Trust.
  • It does not give the Crop Trust permission to alter, modify, or redistribute your data outside Genesys.
  • It does not involve any financial transaction: there are no licensing fees, royalties, subscriptions, or service charges in either direction.
  • It does not govern what end users of Genesys can do with the data. That is the role of the Terms and Conditions of Use, which apply to anyone accessing Genesys.
  • It does not handle the legal mechanics of material transfers. See the requests, use, and impact section for more.

Three legal documents together govern what happens on Genesys. As a data provider, you need to be aware of all three even though you only sign one.

DocumentWho is bound by itWhat it covers
Data Provider Agreement (PDF)You and the Crop TrustAuthorizes publication of your data; defines obligations of both parties
Terms and Conditions of UseAll end users of Genesys (registered and anonymous)Defines what users can and cannot do with the data they access
Citation and attribution policyAll end usersSets out attribution and citation requirements

Your DPA references the Terms and Conditions of Use, and one of the Crop Trust's obligations under the DPA is to display those terms to end users and enforce the citation requirements set out in the Copyright policy. In other words, the framework is designed so that by signing one agreement (the DPA), you benefit from the protections built into the other two, without needing to manage them yourself.

A standard template​

The DPA is a standard template that the Crop Trust uses with all data providers. It's not a per-institution negotiation, and substantive amendments are generally not accepted. This is partly because consistency across hundreds of agreements allows the Crop Trust to operate Genesys efficiently, and partly because the template has been refined over many iterations to balance the interests of data providers and users.

There are limited exceptions. Where a country's national law, institutional policy, or project-specific funding genuinely requires a deviation (for example, a fixed end date because the data was assembled under a time-bound research project), the Crop Trust will accommodate where possible. These cases are rare and handled by exception. If you think your institute has such a requirement, raise it with the helpdesk early in the process (procedure to join Genesys, Step 2) so the Crop Trust is aware before drafting your DPA.

The Pass or Fail Check

  1. Does the DPA mean the Crop Trust owns my data? No. You retain full ownership of your data. The DPA grants the Crop Trust a license to use the data specifically to operate Genesys, but it does not transfer any intellectual property rights.

  2. Is the DPA negotiable? Generally, no. It is a standard template used by all providers to ensure the portal can be managed efficiently. However, limited exceptions are made for genuine legal or funding constraints.

  3. Do I need a DPA to upload data for testing? No. You can upload data to the Sandbox for testing without an agreement. You only need a signed DPA when you are ready to publish your data on the live portal.