Objectives

AGENT aims to unlock the full potential of the biological material stored in genebanks around the globe by using FAIR international data standards and an open digital infrastructure for the management of plant genetic resources.

To this end, AGENT aims to:

  1. establish an actively cooperating genebank network, collecting new data and working on agreed standards and protocols for the use of passively stored GenRes information
  2. implement the FAIR (“Findable l Accessible l Interoperable l Reusable”) principles to improve management and impact of new and existing GenRes data for breeding and conservation
  3. generate new genotypic information for European barley and wheat collections in order to establish a roadmap and pave the way for a complete global wheat and barley biodiversity atlas
  4. use this extensive genotypic information to evaluate the quality and redundancy of existing GenRes collections as a basis for new quality control and management pathways
  5. establish coordinated GenRes training populations for phenotyping of independent collections as a foundation for a pan-European, genome-wide prediction
  6. mine new and historic genotypic and phenotypic information to drive the discovery of genes, traits and knowledge for future missions
  7. establish a stakeholder network of breeders, farmers and NGOs to work on the phenotypic evaluation of AGENT GenRes, increase data density on collections and disseminate the societal impact of GenRes
  8. provide the community with a new database and novel data-mining tools to facilitate a well-informed selection of GenRes for different purposes
  9. use and complement existing information for wheat and barley and the new data standards and infrastructure to foster an improved management of GenRes for other crop species across European genebanks