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What it means to be a Genesys Data Provider

Becoming a Genesys Data Provider means sharing your genebank's accession records through a single, global portal. The practical commitments are straightforward: publish your data once, let Genesys reduce duplicate reporting to other international systems, and understand how others are allowed to re-use your data.

How Genesys reduces duplicate reporting​

One of the strongest practical reasons to join Genesys is that it is already integrated with the other major systems that genebanks are expected to report to. A well-maintained Genesys record can do a lot of work for you.

Genesys is currently connected with:

  • FAO WIEWS: aligned country-level reporting of the status of conservation and use of PGRFA.
  • The GLIS DOI Registration Service: assigning accession DOIs with GLIS, the ITPGRFA's Information System.
  • ITPGRFA Easy-SMTA: connected at the request-handling level (covered in Requests, Use, and Impact).
  • FAO's SDG reporting: data used for updating SDG indicator 2.5.1.

In practical terms, this means that the data you publish once in Genesys can feed multiple international processes without you having to re-enter or duplicate it.

For a detailed explanation of how these integrations work, see What is Genesys?.

Who can be a Genesys Data Provider​

A Data Provider is any institution or network of institutions that has signed the Genesys Data Provider Agreement (DPA) and publishes accession data through the portal.

There are two types of Data Providers.

Individual genebanks publish their own collections directly. Examples include CGIAR genebanks (e.g., IRRI, CIMMYT, ICARDA, ILRI, ICRISAT etc.), national genebanks like the USDA National Plant Germplasm System and Embrapa in Brazil, and various university, research-institute, and NGO collections.

Aggregating networks publish data on behalf of multiple genebanks. For example, European genebanks participating in ECPGR and EURISCO aggregate passport data from the national inventories of more than 40 European countries and publish a consolidated catalog through Genesys. In this model, individual national genebanks do not deal with Genesys directly. Other regional networks operate similarly. If your genebank is part of such a network, check with your network coordinator to determine if you want to publish on Genesys through them or directly.

In both cases, the Data Provider retains full ownership of the records. Genesys is the channel; you remain the source.

What you commit to​

If you join Genesys, you will need to:

What you get back​

In return, joining Genesys gives your genebank:

  • An online presence alongside other global genebanks, available in multiple languages
  • Reach a global audience of policymakers, breeders, researchers, and conservation organizations
  • Hands-on data support, including help with organizing, validating, and cleaning data before publication, tools for validating scientific names and geographic coordinates, and guidance on acquiring DOIs
  • Embedded Genesys, a feature that integrates Genesys data and search directly into your institutional website, providing a simpler alternative to hosting a separate public database
  • A landing page on Genesys for your genebank, maintained by the Genesys team but managed by you

The relationship is not financial. You pay no fee to publish data on Genesys, you receive no royalties for the use of the data, and no licensing payments are made.

Understanding data re-use​

The Genesys Terms and Conditions of Use define what users can and cannot do with the data you publish.

Three points protect your interests.

Users have a broad but limited license. Anyone using Genesys is granted a perpetual, revocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the data for any lawful purpose. Because the license is non-transferable, users cannot pass the data to a third party under the same license and must refer new users back to Genesys.

Acknowledgement of the source is required. Users must acknowledge the data source in any publication, derivative work, or analysis that draws on Genesys data. The portal provides citation and attribution guidance for this purpose, ensuring the scholarly community can trace data back to your genebank.

Redistribution is not permitted. Users cannot copy your dataset, host it on their own server, or redistribute it as their own. They must direct interested parties back to Genesys. This protects your attribution and ensures users see the most current version of your data, including any corrections or status updates.

How your data is used in practice​

Three examples illustrate the range of re-use enabled by Genesys:

  • Global conservation status assessment. Ramirez-Villegas, Khoury, Achicanoy, et al. (2022) used Genesys passport data to assess the state of ex situ conservation of landrace groups across 25 major crops, identifying gaps in collection coverage with implications for global food security planning. Nature Plants 8, 491–499. DOI: 10.1038/s41477-022-01144-8
  • Crop-specific conservation strategy. Solberg, van Zonneveld, Rakha, et al. (2022) used Genesys data to inform the Global Strategy for the Conservation and Use of Eggplants, published by the Crop Trust. These strategies are available at croptrust.org/pgrfa-hub/ex-situ-conservation-strategies.
  • Pre-breeding for climate resilience. Humphries, Ovalle, Hughes, et al. (2021) used Genesys to identify alfalfa wild relatives collected from drought-stressed environments to pre-breed for climate-resilient varieties. Crop Science 61, 69–88. DOI: 10.1002/csc2.20274

In each case, the cited accession records credit the holding institution. If your records are used, you get the credit.