Digital Sequence Information (DSI) underpins vast swathes of current research in the life sciences, and has contributed to significant advances in medicine, conservation, agriculture, and other fields. DSI is shared openly through a series of linked databases, which currently contain more than 228 million annotated sequences and serve many millions of unique users each year. A complex ecosystem of other databases and analysis tools depend on these core resources and are used by scientists around the world.

Ensuring fair and equitable sharing of the benefits that accrue from the use of DSI is important and is the subject of ongoing negotiations under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Similar negotiations are however taking place in parallel in other fora, notably the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the High Seas Treaty.

This reflects the importance of the issue to countries around the world, but it also presents significant risks that could undermine efforts to share benefits from DSI equitably and efficiently. The resulting systems that could be put in place under each of these international conventions will shape national policies and laws, and in turn affect how researchers access and share information, collaborate, and ultimately impact innovation in fields of crucial importance to sustainable development, from public health to marine conservation. 

For these systems to maximise the benefits sharing potential without creating unnecessary or counterproductive barriers to research, coherence between different ABS system is necessary. This side event will look at the different proposals currently being negotiated and discuss possible benefits and risks of different approaches, emphasizing the need for a harmonized system for benefit sharing from the use of DSI. 

Organisers:

• DSI Scientific Network
• Leibniz Institute DSMZ
• China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation
• EU Blue Remediomics project
• CGIAR Genebank Initiative
• Vale Institute of Technology

Chair – Kailash Bansal,  National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India

Speakers:

• Jessica da Silva, South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) – How can DSI help achieve the Global Biodiversity Framework?
• John Kress, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - What do we mean by open access and how does it matter for a benefit-sharing mechanism?
• Amber Scholtz, Leibniz Institute DSMZ - Understanding the user-provider relationship and implications for capacity building
• Kassahun Tesfaye, Ethiopian Bio and Emerging Technology Institute - Using DSI for food security: case studies from Ethiopia
• Marcel Jaspars, EU Blue Remediomics project -  Harnessing marine microbial resources for ecosystems services