The European Search Catalogue for Plant Genetic Resources (EURISCO) provides a central entry point for searching for material conserved across Europe and beyond. In addition to passport data, the dataset also includes phenotypic observations. Currently, EURISCO documents more than two million accessions from about 400 collections. EURISCO is based on a network of 43 member countries.

Within the EURISCO network, regular training workshops are held for EURISCO's data providers – the National Focal Points (NFPs). A workshop was planned for 2020, to be held in cooperation with the Institute for Plant Genetic Resources ‘K. Malkov’ in May in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop first had to be postponed to autumn 2020 and then cancelled altogether. Unfortunately, it was also not possible to hold the workshop as planned in 2021. However, given the importance of providing regular training opportunities, it was decided to hold a training workshop as an online-only event on a trial basis.

The workshop was organized and hosted by the EURISCO developer, Pragna Kotni, and the EURISCO coordinator, Stephan Weise, and brought together 24 participants from 10 to 12 November 2021. Besides providing the basic training elements, the workshop focused on increasing the volume of phenotypic data records in EURISCO as well as on the data quality and the unique identification of plant genetic resources (PGR) accessions. Moreover, the prototype of the new public EURISCO web interface was presented. The participants mainly comprised newly appointed National Focal Points who did not participate in a EURISCO workshop before, and those who had phenotypic data to contribute.

The Report of the EURISCO Training Workshop 2021 is now available here 

Training slides are available on the workshop page