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Toolbox for drafting Mutually Agreed Terms

Agreement on Access and Benefit-sharing for Academic Research

The toolbox contains a set of model contractual clauses and easily understandable explanations for non-lawyers. The toolbox can be used to draft Mutually Agreed Terms adapted to the specific situation of publicly funded, academic research.

The suggested terms and clauses are intended to meet the needs of both, the providers of the genetic resources and the users (scientists, researcher institutions) seeking access, and to ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits resulting from the utilization of the genetic resources and/or associated traditional knowledge.

The toolbox consists of a basic set of clauses, optional clauses and comments that explain the clause content. Assembling the basic clauses will form a fully functional contract for simple, non-commercial research situations.

In more complex situations, users and providers can set up a bilateral contract by choosing among the proposed optional clauses, according to the specific needs of the parties engaged in the negotiations on the terms of access and benefit-sharing.


The tool-box serves as a template and could be applied to fill the gap where no national tools are available or in cases where agreements focus on commercial activities that are not applicable for non-commercial research.


The tool-box Agreement on Access and Benefit-sharing for Non-Commercial Research is made available free of charge as a text document. You may adapt it to your needs, reproduce or share the original or the adapted version, under the condition that there is no monetary advantage linked to the transfer, and that the recipient is bound to the same conditions (Creative Commons License 4.0 ).

The model ABS-Agreement cannot replace legal requirements in the country providing genetic resources and/or associated traditional knowledge nor in the country where such resources or such knowledge will be utilized. All users should be aware that any ABS contract has to respect the access and benefit-sharing legislation or regulatory requirements of both, the provider and the user country.