Exclusive processes, in particular deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS), may be described in terms of generalized parton distributions (GPDs). In comparison to the traditional PDFs, GPDs carry additional information about the structure of hadrons.They allow for a better understanding of the nucleon spin structure and for its three-dimensional description. I will discuss the theoretical foundations of the description of exclusive processes in terms of GPDs, their basic properties, and existing and planned experiments aiming at GPDs extraction (HERA, JLab, Compass,EIC).
National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), Warsaw, Poland