Policy in practice: How to "do" the Nagoya Protocol: common misconceptions, challenges and best practices for access and benefit-sharing compliance
Sustainable Microbiology 18 February 2026
https://doi.org/10.1093/sumbio/qvag007
The Nagoya Protocol: what is it and what scientists should know about compliance
EMBL-EBI and collaborators release a step-by-step guide to making research compliant with the Nagoya Protocol
If scientists discover something valuable in nature, who gets the thank you, and who gets financial compensation? These are some of the questions the Nagoya Protocol, an international framework for access and benefits sharing (ABS), aims to answer. Adopted in 2010, the legally binding instrument creates rules for using genetic resources fairly and legally.
As this complex legislation continues to grow and change, it can be challenging for scientists to keep track.
Together with colleagues from 17 research institutes, EMBL-EBI’s Section Head for Genome Assembly and Annotation, Rob Finn, has developed a step-by-step guide on compliance with the Nagoya Protocol and its far-reaching reputational and legal impacts. Below, Finn shares a few thoughts on the work, recently published in the journal Sustainable Microbiology.
Why is the Nagoya Protocol important to scientists, including microbiologists?
Before the Nagoya Protocol, researchers might have collected a plant, sequenced its genome, isolated a molecule, then published a paper on it, and moved on. The Nagoya Protocol introduced a series of general and country-specific rules that scientists need to understand and follow.
Failure to follow these rules can result in journals rejecting your publications or you not being allowed to patent discoveries. Despite the protocol being over 10 years old, there is still a lot of confusion and lack of awareness about it in the scientific community, so we have published a step-by-step guide on how to comply with the Nagoya Protocol, along with a policy briefing to untangle the international frameworks that govern microbial resources.
The Nagoya Protocol refers to genetic resources including any material of plant, animal, microbial origin containing functional units of heredity, which is of actual or potential value, or derivatives. The Nagoya Protocol does not cover human genetic resources.
What are some of the common misconceptions about the Nagoya Protocol?
One of the common misconceptions is that non-commercial academic research is exempt from the Nagoya Protocol. This is not true for all countries, so it is important to check specific provider country requirements.
Defining the provider country of a genetic resource is another source of confusion because of the different ways of accessing microbial data in practice. The provider country is the one where the material was originally collected, not where the microbial strain was cultivated in the lab, or the country of storage.
We list several other common misconceptions and challenges in applying the Nagoya Protocol in non-commercial research in our paper.
What is your advice for scientists who want to comply with the Nagoya Protocol?
This is a really complex topic, so it’s important to get it right when you’re planning your work. In our paper, we lay out five steps, with links to the relevant documentation. These are:
- Determine if and how the provider country regulates access.
- Verify whether the ABS rules in the provider country apply to your project.
- Understand each provider country’s specific ABS requirements and procedures.
- Request the necessary permits.
- Check for compliance obligations.
These steps are defined in more detail in our recent paper on the common misconceptions, challenges and best practices for complying with access and benefit-sharing under the Nagoya Protocol.
Source article(s)
Policy Briefing: from access to use—untangling the international legal frameworks that govern microbial resources
Sustainable Microbiology 18 February 2026
https://doi.org/10.1093/sumbio/qvag005
