News Published: 07 October 2024

Are you located in a biodiverse region and want to collect and conserve important plants? Do you want to gain skills in collecting DNA samples? Please consider GGI-Gardens!

The 2025 GGI-Gardens Partnership Award Program, a partnership between the United States Botanic Garden and the Global Genome Initiative for Gardens (GGI-Gardens), administered through BGCI’s Global Botanic Garden Fund, will provide up to $6,500 in 2025 to support sampling activities from living collections with unique families and genera of vascular plants not yet represented in GGBN biorepositories.

These partnership awards aim to facilitate collections-based research at botanic gardens by supporting the collection of herbarium and genome-quality tissue samples that are underrepresented in collections. Scientific vouchers collected through this awards program must be deposited into a recognized herbarium and a GGBN-partnered biobank. Past recipients have used their awards to fund interns, expand their collections through wild germplasm collection, and build capacity at their institutions by improving their supplies, facilities, and training.

Prospective applicants should use the GGI gap analysis tool to determine which taxa in their collection might qualify. BGCI membership is encouraged but not required.

Applications are due by 15 November 2024, and award notifications can be expected in December 2024.