About ABS Support Team for Academia

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted at the 10^th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP10) held in Japan, 2010.  The Nagoya Protocol, which thereafter came into force on Oct 12, 2014, aims at ensuring Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) for genetic resources in a fair and equitable way, where users of genetic resources are required to comply with domestic laws and rules of countries providing genetic resources.  Compliance with such laws and rules are required not only for enterprises but also for universities and research institutions.

Japan became a Party to the Nagoya Protocol on Aug 20, 2017, when the ABS Guideline issued by the government of Japan on May 18 2017 as domestic ABS measures for the Nagoya Protocol, became effective.

ABS Support Team for Academia, under the National BioResource Project by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), helps researchers who would like to use genetic resources for their research.

Our support activities include:
1) Support for access to genetic resources;
2) Support for establishment of systems in universities to deal with ABS matters;
3) Support for the NBRP project; and
4) International activities relevant to overseas genetic resources.

Please feel free to contact us at abs@nig.ac.jp or +81-55-981-5831.