EPSO initiated the YPSA awards to encourage the development of ideas and imaginative thinking in the plant sciences.

 EPSO is happy to announce the two winners of the fourth EPSO Young Plant Scientist Award: Priyanka Chopra was selected for her fundamental plant research and Benjamin Kogelmann for his applied plant research.

 Priyanka and Benjamin will have the opportunity to present their research during the Science Day of the EPSO General Meeting to be held in Oeiras, Portugal on 12.06.2024. In addition, each awardee will receive 200 € and EPSO will cover their travel to the meeting.

We would like to thank the distinguished jury members Alan Schulman (Chair), Marie-Theres Hauser, Angelo Santino, Timothy George and Odd Arne Rognli. The two winners were selected from among 23 PhD students who submitted 16 different entries to the EPSO YPSA call from 13 countries across Europe.

Click here to read the full announcement about the winners.

Contact: Karin Metzlaff, EPSO

 

The two co-funded European Partnerships “Agroecology” and “Animal Health and Welfare” have recently started and held a joint launch event together with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture on 28.2.2024.

The Agroecology Partnership (coordinated by Projektträger Jülich) published its first public call for proposals under the title “Fostering agroecology at farm and landscape levels“.

The call is a two-stage process, with a deadline for submitting pre-applications until 26 April 2024.

An information webinar on the call will be held on 5 March 2024.

 Links:

Source: KoWi newsletter 1.3.2024

EPSO will make a briefing for members to be available in the members only website in March.

Contact:

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO

The 31st Europe-wide seminar of the series supported by the European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO) and aimed at the Plant Science community and its stakeholders.

TTT: The seminar will be held online each third Thursday of the month at three (CET).

 On 21st March 2024 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Participatory Approaches in Plant Biology”

Dr Alison Karley, The James Hutton Institute, Dundee, UK: New insights from collaborative research with farmers to test the practicalities and benefits of mixed species cropping

 

 

 

Assoc Prof Lammert Bastiaans, Wageningen University, The Netherlands: Parasitic weeds in rainfed rice systems of Africa: learning with farmers 

 

 

 

The third speaker will be announced shortly.

The seminars will be hosted on Zoom and last approximately 1.5 hours. Numbers will be limited to 300 attendees and therefore please register early if you would like to join. There will be ample opportunities to ask questions and join the debate. So please join us to support this new and exciting initiative for European Plant Science by following this link just prior to the start of the seminar.

EPSO members register in advance for this meeting via this Zoom link

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

In the coming months we will be on the lookout for talented plant scientists among the EPSO membership to present their findings and perspectives to the EPSO seminar series. If we approach you to talk, we hope you will be happy to support the initiative. This is a fantastic opportunity for both eminent world leaders and talented up-and-coming early career researchers to present their research to an international audience and to network with potential collaborators. If you wish to suggest a theme for one of the upcoming seminars and / or nominate yourself or one of your colleagues to give a seminar, we most welcome your suggestions. Please contact Tim George ([email protected]) to provide your name and potential talk title.

We look forward to seeing you all for the 31st EPSO seminar on the 21st March 2024

 Tim George, Alan Schulman and Marie-Theres Hauser

EPSO Plant Science Seminar Series Organising Committee

 Click here to read: Full EPSO news item 

Contacts:

Tim George, Hutton / UK & EPSO Board

Alan Schulman, LUKE / FI & Advisor EPSO Board

Marie-Theres Hauser BOKU / AT & EPSO Board

 

The Bayer Foundation is seeking exceptional young scientists who see collaboration as an opportunity to increase the impact of their research and are seeking to build a global scientific network.

Master & PhD students from all fields of the natural sciences or data science whose research has fundamental or applied relevance to the crop science industry are eligible for up to 10,000 € in funding for an international placement or research projects of up to six months that are complementary to current or future scientific studies.

People studying in Germany must undertake placements in a second country & those studying outside Germany must undertake their fellowships at a German research institution.

The application portal opened 12.2.2024. The foundation also has fellowships available in Drug Discovery Sciences & Medical Sciences.

For any questions, please contact [email protected].

EPSO collaborates with the Bayer Foundation on the 7th international Fascination of Plants Day (FoPD) around 18th May 2024.  

Click here to read: Full ‘Jeff Schell Fellowships announcement’

 Contacts:

Bayer Foundation

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director

EPSO welcomes the position adopted by a plenary vote of the European Parliament on New Genomic Techniques (NGT). The vote was held on the proposal by the European Commission, presented on July 5th 2023, to adopt new legislation regarding plants bred using certain NGTs such as CRISPR/Cas9. According to the proposal, NGT plants will be exempted from European GMO legislation, provided that the induced changes can also be obtained using conventional breeding methods.

The position adopted by the European Parliament raises some uncertainties that should be amended in the upcoming trialogue between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission:

  • We strongly suggest legislators not to require specific labelling of NGT-1 plants since these will be essentially identical to plants bred using conventional breeding methods.
  • Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) should not be included in the NGT legislation because IPR issues are handled in separate legislation.
  • EPSO welcomes that the parliament accounts for the genome size and structure of polyploid plants and other plants with large genomes addressing such complexities in a scientific correct manner and meet EPSO’s concern about the limit of 20 genome modifications specified in Annex I of the draft provided by the EC.
  • The complete rewording of Annex I according to the Amendments from the Parliament contains several points that would at least distort scientific findings and the actual breeding process. We therefore strongly recommend essentially retaining the structure and references of Annex I developed by the EC.

With these conditions, EPSO believes the proposed legislation allows a balanced compromise, enabling the development of climate-resilient crops and increased productivity for European farmers. EPSO, therefore, urges the EU member states to promptly come together in support of a scientifically sound and timely NGT legislation.

EPSO identified key components in the legal proposal that should be protected in the Annex Must-protect components of the NGT legislation proposed by the European Commission , 19.01.2024 to the EPSO statement:

  • The criteria for determining NGT1 status should be based on similarity to what can be obtained using conventional breeding methods.
  • Products derived from NGT1 plants should not be labelled.
  • Text on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) should not be included in the NGT legislation.

EPSO provided detailed comments and suggested a few improvements to the legal proposal in the EPSO statement on the European Commission’s legal proposal …, 06.11.2023. For example:

  • The criteria for determining NGT1 should be counted per a basic set of chromosomes.
  • Legislation should further enable field trials for scientific purposes.
  • NGT1 plants should not be excluded from organic farming practices.

EPSO looks forward to engaging as a major stakeholder with Member States, the European Parliament and the European Commission to achieve a well-balanced regulation. EPSO will continue providing scientific input in the course of the discussions with policy makers and other stakeholders.

 Read the full EPSO Comment to the EP vote, 14.2.2024

Read the full EPSO Annex must protect to the statement, 19.1.2024

Read the full EPSO statement to the EC’s legal proposal for a Regulation …on plants obtained by certain NGTs and their food and feed”, 5.11.2023.

EC legal proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques and their food and feed & Annexes, 5.7.2023

Contacts:

Jens Sundström, SLU Uppsala, EPSO Chair WG Agricultural Technologies

Alan Schulman, LUKE / FI, EPSO Chair WG Agricultural Technologies

Odd Arne Rognli, NMBU / NO, EPSO President

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO, Executive Director

The 30th Europe-wide seminar of the series supported by the European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO) and aimed at the Plant Science community and its stakeholders.

TTT: The seminar will be held online each third Thursday of the month at three (CET).

On 15th February 2024 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Harnessing Photobiology for Future Plants”

 

Dr Gabriela Toledo-Ortiz, The James Hutton Institute, Dundee, UK: “Tomatoes for tomorrow”

Andreas Weber, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany: “Natural variation and synthetic improvement of photosynthetic carbon assimilation in land plants”

Roman Ulm, University of Geneva, Switzerland: “Seeing the invisible – UV-B perception and signalling in plants”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The seminars will be hosted on Zoom and last approximately 1.5 hours. Numbers will be limited to 300 attendees and therefore please register early if you would like to join. There will be ample opportunities to ask questions and join the debate. So please join us to support this new and exciting initiative for European Plant Science by following this link just prior to the start of the seminar.

EPSO members register in advance for this meeting: registration link

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

In the coming months we will be on the lookout for talented plant scientists among the EPSO membership to present their findings and perspectives to the EPSO seminar series. If we approach you to talk, we hope you will be happy to support the initiative. This is a fantastic opportunity for both eminent world leaders and talented up-and-coming early career researchers to present their research to an international audience and to network with potential collaborators. If you wish to suggest a theme for one of the upcoming seminars and / or nominate yourself or one of your colleagues to give a seminar, we most welcome your suggestions. Please contact Tim George ([email protected]) to provide your name and potential talk title.

We look forward to seeing you all for the 30th EPSO seminar on the 15th February 2024.

 Tim George, Alan Schulman and Marie-Theres Hauser

EPSO Plant Science Seminar Series Organising Committee

 Click here to read: Full EPSO news item

 

Contacts:

Tim George, Hutton / UK & EPSO Board

Alan Schulman, LUKE / FI & Adviser to the EPSO Board

Marie-Theres Hauser BOKU / AT & EPSO Board