RARe / RARe INRAE

RARe (Agronomic Resources for Research) is a distributed and multi-organizational infrastructure listed on the national roadmap since 2016. Its goal is to preserve and characterize the biological and genetic resources of animal, plant, microbial species, and the environment, contributing to the evolution of agricultural systems in response to global changes.

RARe is coordinated by INRAE in partnership with CIRAD and IRD and unites 33 biological resource centers (CRBs) tasked with collecting, characterizing, preserving, and distributing biological resources. RARe focuses on improving resource management, facilitating their use for research in life and environmental sciences at the national and European levels, and exploring biodiversity for research and innovation.

The 33 CRBs, including 29 led by INRAE, are grouped into five pillars defined by the research goals they support:

• Animal pillar: covering domesticated animal species for research on animal breeding and biomedical models.
• Plant pillar: focusing on genetic plant resources, aiming to develop new varieties adaptable to changing environmental conditions.
• Forest pillar: dedicated to organized tree collections for the study of both hardwoods and conifers.
• Microorganism pillar: encompassing bacteria, yeasts, and fungi of agricultural or agri-food interest.
• Environment pillar: addressing environmental biological and genomic resources from ecosystems for environmental research.

RARe ensures long-term, secure conservation of samples from long-term protocols, facilitating their reuse by providing well-documented, valuable phenotypic data. These samples, stored in CRBs, contribute to a reference for future studies and promote resource sharing among researchers.