In 2025, FAO AGRIS delivered a comprehensive webinar series aimed at strengthening institutional capacity, improving metadata quality, and enhancing global access to agricultural research. Through twelve targeted webinars, the series engaged a diverse international audience and reinforced FAO AGRIS as a key platform for open and inclusive agricultural knowledge sharing.

A Global Webinar Programme

The FAO AGRIS 2025 webinar series consisted of 12 webinars, delivered between February and December 2025. Topics covered the full FAO AGRIS data lifecycle, including:

• Benefits of joining the FAO AGRIS Network
• Metadata standards and OAI-PMH compliance
• Optimising OAI-PMH sets for metadata ingestion
• Advancing FAO AGRIS services
• FAO AGRIS within the framework of Open Science
• Searching FAO AGRIS more effectively
• Using controlled vocabularies including FAO’s AGrovoc to create high-quality FAO AGRIS metadata

To support inclusivity and regional engagement, selected sessions were delivered in Swahili and Spanish, and several technical webinars were offered in morning and afternoon editions to accommodate different time zones.

Strong Participation and Engagement

The webinar series attracted a total of 1,555 participants, demonstrating strong global interest in FAO AGRIS and its services. Individual sessions drew between 20 and 258 participants, with particularly high attendance for webinars focused on:

• Joining the FAO AGRIS Network
• Advancing FAO AGRIS
• Metadata standards and OAI-PMH compliance

In addition to live participation, the webinar recordings were downloaded or viewed more than 450 times, extending the reach of the content beyond the live events and enabling continued learning.

Truly Global Reach

Participation in the FAO AGRIS 2025 webinars reflected the platform’s global scope:

• 117 countries were represented among participants
• 154 countries were represented through registrations

Participants came from all regions, including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, highlighting the widespread relevance of FAO AGRIS for institutions managing agricultural research information. The diversity of participating countries underscores FAO AGRIS’s role as a global public good, supporting institutions in both developed and developing contexts.

Building Capacity and Community

Beyond the numbers, the webinar series contributed to strengthening a global community of practice around FAO AGRIS. Participants included librarians, repository managers, data specialists, researchers, and policymakers, many of whom are responsible for managing and disseminating agricultural knowledge at institutional or national level. The webinars provided practical guidance, shared best practices, and encouraged dialogue, helping institutions improve metadata quality, align with international standards, and maximise the visibility and impact of their research outputs through FAO AGRIS.

Looking Ahead

The success of the FAO AGRIS 2025 webinar series demonstrates the growing demand for capacity development activities related to open science, metadata standards, and global research visibility. FAO AGRIS will continue to support institutions worldwide through training, technical guidance, and collaborative initiatives that strengthen the global agricultural knowledge ecosystem.

By connecting institutions, improving skills, and promoting open access to agricultural research, FAO AGRIS remains committed to turning local knowledge into global impact.