About EURISCO

What is it?

Welcome to the EURISCO web site and Catalogue.
For an introduction to the capabilities of the Catalogue, see the on-line tutorial (to be added later)

EURISCO is a web-based catalogue that provides information about ex situ plant collections maintained in Europe.

EURISCO is based on a European network of ex situ National Inventories (NIs) that makes the European biodiversity data available everywhere in the world.

The central infrastructure of EURISCO has been developed with open-source software. This strategic choice is intended to allow EURISCO National Focal Points (NFPs) to benefit from the development of EURISCO for their national implementation.

The EURISCO Web Catalogue automatically receives data from the NIs through country NFPs.

The EURISCO Catalogue currently contains passport data on more than 1 million samples of crop diversity representing 5383 genera and 34823 species from 41 countries.

These samples of crop diversity represent more than half of the ex situ accessions maintained in Europe and roughly 19% of total worldwide holdings.

EURISCO is a one-stop shop window using international standards for information on ex situ plant collections that enables users to search and access information on crops, forages, wild-and-weedy species, farmers′ varieties, breeding lines and other criteria.

EURISCO is hosted at and maintained by Bioversity International on behalf of the Secretariat of the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR).

EURISCO is working with NFPs to improve the search mechanisms, data and metadata standards, web services and other necessary components of an Internet-based information infrastructure for ex situ biodiversity.
EURISCO makes data from the NIs available to users around the world. These data are made available according to the existing data policy - legal notice and terms of use.  

Citing data: Users of EURISCO data shall always give credit to the Catalogue.
Use the following format to cite data retrieved from the EURISCO Catalogue:"EURISCO Catalogue, http://eurisco.ecpgr.org, date of data consultation (YYYY-MM-DD)"

How it works and who participates

EURISCO has several key elements. The first is the adoption of common data standards. Genetic resources information specialists from participating countries have contributed to the development and refinement of a standard set of descriptors for germplasm: the FAO/IPGRI Multicrop Passport Descriptors (MCPD). Adopting and adhering to data standards is a prerequisite for sharing and searching for data across information systems.

The second key element is the development of National Inventories (NIs) of genetic resources in participating countries, thereby their commitements to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Each country has the full responsibility and sovereign rights to decide on the data availability, accuracy and uploads of its NIs.

The third key element is the network of National Focal Points (NFPs), who provide the links between the NIs and the EURISCO Catalogue. They ensure that information in their NIs is uploaded to EURISCO.

The final element is the technical infrastructure of EURISCO itself, which reflects what has already been achieved with SINGER, the CGIAR System-Wide Information Network for Genetic Resources - a network of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research.

Bioversity International's Responsibilities

Bioversity International accepts the following responsibilities regarding the data provided by the NFPs:

1. It will compile the data uploaded from the NIs into one database. It will not modify data in any way, but has the right to withhold data from EURISCO if quality standards are not met.
2. It will provide public access to the EURISCO database via a web site and maintain this site and its user interfaces in consultation with and on behalf of the NFPs.
3. It will, if appropriate, facilitate access to the NIs as the source of data via hyperlinks to NI web sites and will provide contact details of the NFPs.
4. It will manage the tools and means to facilitate data upload from NIs to EURISCO and provide access to these tools to the NFPs.
5. It will manage the legal basis for access to EURISCO and use of data (disclaimers, copyright notifications, terms of use, etc.) and manage responses to any abuses of the collective information of EURISCO.
6. It will incorporate appropriate notices on the EURISCO web site concerning the terms of use of the data presented on the site.

The origins of EURISCO

Biodiversity is increasingly recognized as a vital resource for economic, social and environmental development. Several international conventions and agreements in recent years have called for better conservation and sustainable use of this diversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) calls on countries to facilitate the exchange of information on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and the Global Plan of Action (GPA) for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture highlight the need for information systems to manage and make accessible information about the genetic diversity of crops on which the world′s food supply depends. Many initiatives, such as the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy, require access to such information if they are to succeed. In 2000, the European Union approved funding for the European Plant Genetic Resources Information Infra-Structure (EPGRIS), for the development of national inventories of plant genetic resources (PGR) and for the creation of a searchable catalogue of ex situ collections in Europe - EURISCO. The EURISCO Catalogue was publicly launched in September 2003, at the end of the EPGRIS project. To date the information availabe in EURISCO has increased to more than 1.1 million accessions and the network is continually being developed and expanded.