We use cookies on our website. Some are necessary for the operation of the website. You can also allow cookies for statistical purposes. You can adjust the data protection settings or agree to all cookies directly.
Activated GEnebank NeTwork (AGENT)
Project
Project code: 862613
Contract period: 01.05.2020
- 30.04.2025
Budget: 7,199,788 Euro
Purpose of research: Networks and research co-ordination
Keywords: Genetic resources, gene bank, plant breeding
AGENT aims to transform genebanks (GB) from living archives into bio-digital resources centres, equipped to meet the needs of a changing world. Fifteen GB and four genebank genomic centers will create a network to work exemplarily on barley and wheat for (i) establishing a European (global) crop genomic diversity atlas, (ii) activating currently inaccessible legacy phenotypic data, (iii) implementing a novel concept of concerted accumulation of phenologic and agronomic data for individual GenRes collections to establish training population datasets for the genome-wide prediction of untested GenRes accessions. Phenotyping will take into account diverse environmental conditions (climate, soil, geography, pathogens) provided by the diversity of eco-geographic locations of the participating GB and their partners. These activities will be supported by a bioinformatics network that will implement FAIR data principles, standards, protocols, and data formats enabling data storage, access, use, and re-use, extending the existing EURISCO GenRes portal for new data types. AGENT will use existing solutions established by ongoing European projects and international initiatives, but also develop new tools for novel functionality of data access, visualisation, and use, which will be connected and implemented via plugin or web-services, allowing their incorporation in EURISCO and other data portals, and their easy application to other crop GenRes, based on data already available at EURISCO or provided by AGENT partner GB. A coordinated testing network is another unique layer of AGENT, directly involving stakeholders (e.g. farmer cooperatives, breeding companies, NGOs) in monitoring, mentoring, capacity building and training in the development of workflows and tools. Thus, AGENT project results will be directly disseminated to GB, researchers, breeders, policy makers and the general public and raise awareness of the general as well as the specific societal importance of GenRes.
Section overview
Subjects
- Plant Breeding
- Genetic Resources
- Climate Change
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK)
Participating institutions
- University of Zurich (UZH)
- National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA)
- Agricultural Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- Tel-Aviv University (TAU)
- National Institute for Agricultural Research and Experimentation (INIA)
- Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (WBF)
- Crop Research Institute (VURV)