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The GenRes Bridge project welcomes the launch of the Genetic Resources Gateway, a crowd-sourced platform serving as an entry point to the landscape of forest, plant and animal genetic resources in Europe. The Gateway has been officially online since May 2021: https://www.genres.eu/.

The Gateway was an important milestone of the project, aiming at generating tools and user-oriented services to ease navigation through the digital genetic resources landscape.

“A large variety of actors, stakeholders and institutions contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources in agriculture and forestry. The Gateway has a clear added value to connect all relevant actors, within and across the domains of AnGR, PGR and FGR, and to facilitate access to data, information and knowledge on genetic resources conservation and use” said Sipke Joost Hiemstra from ERFP.

“This could be especially useful for researchers, educators and policymakers who would find relevant material all in one place,” added Sandra Goritschnig from ECPGR.

A team of selected publishers from EUFORGEN, ECPGR and ERFP secretariats monitors the content to ensure the relevance of the information in the Gateway.

Interested users can benefit from the Gateway’s dual functionality: readers can find and access relevant material on genetic resources in the front office, while editors can share relevant material, including the URL and a description from a user-friendly back office. Currently, 74 editors from 83 organisations have registered on the Gateway and information on 54 pieces of content has been added.

The types of content that can be shared through the Gateway include multimedia, success stories, guidelines, maps, projects and databases.

“The selected categories provide the type of information that is often generated in an uncoordinated way by various actors and that would otherwise not be captured by the existing networks. These packages of information are thought to offer a comprehensive picture of what’s going on in genetic resources in Europe with the widest possible angle.” said Lorenzo Maggioni from ECPGR.

Innovative tools improve the search experience and ensure that the material included on the Gateway is easily findable in web searches. Users sharing their work through the Gateway will increase the visibility and accessibility of their organisation’s work on genetic resources.

The Gateway will be online for at least five years after the end of the GenRes Bridge project. The long life of the platform will allow a broad range of stakeholders to enrich the Gateway and allow it to reach its full functionality.

“Feedback from the wider stakeholder community will be important to decide on the need for the long-term maintenance of the Gateway” stressed Michele Bozzano.

“As this is a participatory effort, its success will depend on how it will be received by the target audience. The expected demand for well-structured information should hopefully stimulate the voluntary data providers to offer a sustainable long-term service,” said Lorenzo Maggioni

The Gateway looks forward to new editors joining and receiving content from them to share online!