The final report of the ‘Reinforcement of the AEGIS Quality System and EURISCO data coverage’ project (also known as New AEGIS, for short) is now available. Implemented between September 2024 and May 2025 and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Food Sovereignty with a budget of €153,649, the project set out to strengthen the quality, transparency and data accessibility of European genebank operations under the AEGIS initiative.
The project aimed to tackle long-standing differences in operational capacity and documentation standards among AEGIS Associate Member genebanks. A kick-off meeting in October 2024 drew over 60 participants and established formal agreements with 12 genebanks to develop operational manuals, with further institutions contributing voluntarily. In total, 22 genebank manuals were produced, and an independent expert review of 30 manuals, including existing ones, provided recommendations to improve clarity, completeness and standardization across the network.
Three Associate Members shared their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), encouraging greater transparency and shared learning in genebank management practice across the network.
Crop-specific genebank standards were finalized for berries and maize, with standards for Malus/Pyrus still in progress. Six reciprocal peer reviews were carried out by nine genebanks participating in trio visits, with all reports published online to support peer learning. A newly developed Genebank Metrics Tool was piloted by more than 15 institutions; findings from the pilot have been published in Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization (DOI: 10.1017/S147926212510021X).
On the data side, phenotypic and evaluation data for accessions of maize, wheat, Brassica, tomato, grapevine, hop, and other crops – contributed by Albania, France, Italy, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia – were integrated into EURISCO, improving accessibility for research and plant breeding.
A final in-person meeting in Prague brought together partners to discuss manual templates, SOP publication, data management, safety duplication, and future priorities for the network.
The project revitalized collaboration within AEGIS, laying a foundation for a more unified, quality-assured European genebank system. Future work will focus on expanding peer review, broadening SOP transparency, increasing safety duplication, and further enriching EURISCO with characterization data.