Åsmund Asdal is a Norwegian horticulturist and ecologist who, for the past 25 years, has been working with projects on conservation and use of plant genetic resources on a national and Nordic regional level. Before that he was working as researcher, project manager and through the 1990’s head of a research station in the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research. From 2000 to 2015, he was in charge of the Norwegian national program for conservation and use of plant genetic resources, from 2006 organized through the Norwegian Genetic Resource Center. Asdal has been involved in Nordic plant genetic resource activities from the mid-1990s. He has been a board member and conducted projects and working groups within the Nordic Gene Bank, from 2008 re-organized into the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen). From 2015 he has been employed at NordGen as Coordinator of Operation and Management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.