During the first year of the project, considerable progress was made towards the achievement of the main project objectives.
- A project public website was set up (www.grace-ri.eu)
- An inventory of the state of quality management and the use of standards in European ex situ genebanks has been compiled, based on the data of 60 contributing genebanks. Based on the results of the inventory, and on discussions with various partners and other stakeholders, a complete overview of the available standards for genebank operations could be produced, including their level of adoption in European genebanks, the need for new standards and ways of formulating those.
- A complete overview of the available standards for collecting and displaying genetic and phenotypic data and images was produced, setting the stage for generating a unified standards system for incorporating missing information into EURISCO.
- A list of the possible scientific services, stakeholders, promoters, and utilizers of the proposed RI and a list of genomic, metabolomic, bioinformatic and phytosanitary methodologies on which these services will be based was produced.
- A compilation of existing standards, protocols and descriptors for the evaluation of the phenotypes and agronomic characteristics of PGR was produced, setting the stage for the generation of a unified, crop-specific system incorporating the ECPGR, MIAPPE, Crop Ontology, EMPHASIS and final user recommendations and methodologies.
During the second reporting period, the project progressed from preparatory and mapping activities to the consolidation, validation and demonstration of its technical and scientific outputs:
- Frameworks and standards for the documentation, management and sharing of PGR data were finalised, including minimum information requirements, harmonised descriptors and modular approaches enabling progressive adoption by genebanks and related institutions with different capacities.
- Targeted cross-work-package alignment and validation activities were undertaken to ensure consistency between data standards, quality management frameworks, information system architectures and the envisaged scientific service portfolio, strengthening the internal coherence of project outputs and their readiness for implementation within a distributed European Research Infrastructure.
- Significant advances were achieved in the development and testing of crop-specific methodologies for the characterisation and evaluation of PGR, including unified recommendations, protocols and metadata templates explicitly addressing interoperability, data reuse and FAIR principles.
- Proof-of-concept interconnections between external phenotypic databases and EURISCO demonstrated the technical feasibility of a federated data architecture based on standardised interfaces and persistent unique identifiers.
- A comprehensive framework for the integration of in situ conserved PGR into existing ex situ-oriented infrastructures was developed, operationalising the principle of complementary conservation and defining concrete mechanisms for linking in situ and ex situ data and access pathways through EURISCO.
- The definition of the scientific service portfolio envisaged for GRACE-RI was completed, identifying priority service areas, potential providers and user communities, and complemented by the development of governance models and a preliminary financial plan, laying the foundation for the transition of GRACE-RI from concept to future implementation.
