NEWS

EPSO | 31.10.2024 | all WGs

 EPSO sees the move towards a stronger, transformative, less prescriptive and more bottom-up R&I FP with expanding European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), European Innovation Council (EIC) and boosting pan-European collaborative research across the R&I continuum as an important step into the future.

 EPSO welcomes the report ‘Align, Act Accelerate Research, Technology and Innovation to boost European competitiveness’ published by the Expert Group on the interim evaluation of Horizon Europe and guide on the evolution of the European Research and Innovation (R&I) Framework Programme (FP).

EPSO is pleased that the main recommendations it submitted to the Expert Group are reflected in the report, such as:

• Add Research Actions in the collaboration programme to create an upwards R&I spiral and a quantum change in the Framework Programme. Make collaborative basic research an intrinsic component (in recommendations 3, 6, 7).
• Preserve and strengthen the European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (in recommendation 5).
• Policy makers should define the goals but leave the pathways for how to achieve these open to the stakeholders to truly enable innovation (in recommendation 9).
• Increase trust in and flexibility for beneficiaries (in recommendation 9).
• Add funds from other programmes for actions transferred from these to the Framework programme.

EPSO urges to better engage and consult European academic associations and European industry associations on R&I strategies and policies.

Regarding the plant sector, this includes the suggestion to build, from 2025 on, a coherent set of topics enabling formation of a critical mass of effort towards crop improvement for Food and nutritional security and sustainability.

EPSO provided advice on this to the Expert Group, national ministries, and the European Commission and is looking forward to continuing this constructive collaboration with advice towards the development of the next R&I Framework Programme.

  Click here to read: Full EPSO first reaction to the Expert Group evaluation of Horizon Europe and guiding the evolution of the European R&I Framework, 31.10.2024

Contacts: 

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director, BE

Odd Arne Rognli, NMBU, NO & EPSO President

Alan Schulman, LUKE, Univ. Helsinki, & former EPSO President

EPSO was kindly invited by Manuel Heitor, chair of the High-level Expert Group on Horizon Europe and FP10, to answer four questions to provide input to the discussion of the HLG. 

EPSO highlights Food and Nutritional Security as a major challenge to be tackled together with Climate change, biodiversity, human health.

EPSO suggests strengthening the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).

Most important innovations which should be considered in FP10 are advised by EPSO as follows:

• Add Research Actions in pillar 2: To overcome the gap of collaborative basic research and complete the research and innovation cycle in pillar 2, we recommend making collaborative basic research an intrinsic component of R&I Actions and introducing Research Actions focussed on basic and applied research. In this way an upward spiral would be created that is adding new knowledge in each round, elevating the innovation to the next higher level – a step change in the Framework Programme.
• Strategic investment in crucial R&I areas – e.g. Critical mass support for Plant biology and crop improvement / adaptation to address the challenges above – include all approaches: comprehensive approaches from all branches of basic plant biology, ranging from molecular and genomic to cellular, developmental, physiological, and systems, to deliver novel crop varieties (crop improvement and plant breeding) adapted to climate change and contributing to Food and Nutritional Security, environmental sustainability, biodiversity (natural and cultivated) and human health. This will enable the shift from reliance on ‘elite varieties under optimal conditions’ to ‘nutritious and resilient varieties under a range of constraints’ (environment, climate, input, processing, consumer demands).
• Policy makers should define the goals, but not the pathways how to reach these to truly enable innovation.
• Add funds from other programmes for actions transferred from these – there is only one research programme.
• Increase trust in and flexibility for beneficiaries.
• Further simplify proposal / project / reporting to no longer need consultancies to succeed.

EPSO looks forward to further discuss and help implement these recommendations with colleagues from the High-Level Group, the Member State ministries and funders, the European Parliament and the European Commission.

Click here to read: Full EPSO – HE FP10 – Answers to questions by M Heitor – HLG, 17.7.2024

Contacts:

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director, BE

Odd Arne Rognli, NMBU, NO & EPSO President

Alan Schulman, LUKE, Univ. Helsinki, & former EPSO President

The 35th 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 19th September 2024 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Harnessing biosynthetic pathways in plants”: 

Suvi T. Häkkinen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Ltd: “Chicory as a potential source of bioactive ingredients”

Benjamin Kogelmann, BOKU, Austria: “Advanced glycan-modulation in Nicotiana benthamiana”

Shiqiang Gao, University of Würzburg, Germany: “Optogenetics for plant research”

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 35th EPSO seminar on the 19th September 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 EPSO Board

Marie-Theres Hauser BOKU / AT & EPSO Board

The 34th 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 20th June 2024 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “The latest in bio-pharming”

Audrey Teh, University of London, UK:  

“Killer to Cure: Tobacco plant-derived recombinant therapeutics for cancer and infectious disease”

Marc-André D’Aoust, Aramis Biotechnologies, Canada: 

“Successes and challenges of advancing plant products to commercialization”

Johannes Buyel, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria:  

“Modeling and scaling of downstream unit operations for plant molecular farming”

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 34th EPSO seminar on the 20th June 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 EPSO Board

Marie-Theres Hauser BOKU / AT & EPSO Board

EPSO welcomes the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Draft Orientations towards Work Programme 2025. For plant scientists, most relevant is cluster 6 on Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment and the Soil Mission.

In general, the draft orientations Work Programme 2025 are lagging behind the Strategic Plan 2025-27 and EPSO provided in its submission suggestions about how to address this.

For the Biodiversity destination, the “increase of agrobiodiversity – e.g. by supporting R&I on niche, underutilised and novel crops” are not yet considered as main expected outcomes. Cultivated biodiversity or agrobiodiversity is still underestimated in the draft orientations as a contributor to biodiversity.

Similarly, crop improvement and crop management can equally contribute to biodiversity and need to be supported at critical mass.

Regarding the Food Systems destination, the EC refers to ‘Ensuring healthy food and nutrition security …. In the Strategic Plan, crop improvement and adaptation is one path towards food and nutrition security, whereas this is not spelled out yet in the draft orientations.

Likewise, the agricultural primary sector should contribute comprehensively not only to sustainability, but at the same time to food and nutritional security via sufficient and nutritious food with macro-and micronutrients.

Contributions anticipated in the Strategic Plan should be included in the expected outcomes of the Orientations, such as “Key research areas for agriculture will include mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, fostering plant and animal breeding and conserving and improving the use of genetic resources (including the use of new technologies).”, “address crop diversification, improvement and adaptation”, “bolster plant health… leverage the potential of protein crops and underutilised crops.”

EPSO suggests major improvements to the Soil Mission: soils don’t exist without plants, or the ecosystems of which plants are the foundation organisms in both natural and agroecosystems. This interaction between plants and soils and soil health, should be added in the Orientations. Adding contributions from plant science and plant ecology towards soil health and sustainable soil resources will change the current mainly passive character into a balanced approach including interventions.

As explained in the EPSO position paper on Horizon Europe (Feb. 2023), EPSO suggests adding from 2025 on a critical mass effort on enabling crop improvement and adaptation for food and nutritional security, sustainability and bioeconomy.

To this end, EPSO suggests further implementation of four EPSO concepts (see statement).

EPSO looks forward to further discuss and help implement these recommendations with colleagues from the European Commission and the Member State ministries and funders.

 Click here to read: Full EPSO statement and find in the Annex the original submission.

EPSO submissions to the EC consultation are:

Biodiversity:                              Contribution ID: b0a23782-1474-45a8-8c83-3aa01b9a7a88

Food systems:                          Contribution ID: 57556a93-4537-4b65-a0a6-700f8e6cc90c

Circular economy & bioeconomy: Contribution ID: 6f30808d-3a24-4897-90f5-50345b7cabab

Innovative governance..:            Contribution ID: 2fa9392d-e837-4ff1-ae9c-97d8972378f7

Soil Mission:                             Contribution ID: edcd3f50-dd1b-4e78-a16b-8423b158fc59

 Contacts:

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director, BE

Timothy George, Hutton Institute, UK & EPSO Board

Odd Arne Rognli, NMBU, NO & EPSO President

Alan Schulman, LUKE, Univ. Helsinki, & former EPSO President

EPSO welcomes the European Commission consultation and provides input on the achievements and suggests where improve Horizon Europe and the next Framework Programme (FP) to have a higher impact. 

The European Research and Innovation FPs are crucial to enable scientists and innovators across Europe to collaborate to generate knowledge, to apply this knowledge to address today’s and future challenges and to help build a strong, competitive and resilient, inclusive and democratic European society and improve life on earth.

Plant scientists took an active role in the EU FPs from the start and want to contribute in the future.

They are active in pillar 1, mainly in the European Research Council and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, both working very well.

They could contribute more to pillar 2, particularly in cluster 6 on Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment. To this end, we suggest the following improvements:

• Further implement the following concepts:
  • Address Food and Nutritional Security, environmental sustainability, biodiversity (natural and cultivated) and human health in parallel as much as possible.
  • Improve / adapt crops towards ‘Diverse crops for diverse diets and human health and resilient production’.
  • ‘Combine approaches on crop improvement, crop management and crop processing’.
  • Policy makers should define the goals but leave the pathways to how to achieve these open to the stakeholders
• Create a new heading ‘Enabling sustainable crop improvement’ in the Work Programme and / or partnership ‘CropBooster-Quest’:
  • CropBooster-Quest – Plant (systems) biology, crop improvement and plant breeding to achieve a critical mass investment enabling the community to substantially help addressing the challenges mentioned above and interacting with partnerships on biodiversity, agroecology, food systems.
  • To bridge the gap until a new partnership can be active, add the heading ‘Enabling sustainable crop improvement’ in the Work Programme.
• Better link the health cluster (1) with the food, agriculture, biotechnology cluster (6) to truly enable plant biologists, breeders, processors, nutritional scientist and health experts to interdisciplinary research and innovation to improve nutritional compounds in plants for the human diet, which are then further protected during crop processing and human digestion. In addition, plant made pharmaceuticals can be co-developed for medical purposes.

 All scientists would benefit from more general improvements in pillar 2 across all disciplines and sectors:

• Types of action: Add Research Actions (RAs) in pillar 2 to overcome the gap of collaborative basic research and complete the research and innovation cycle.
• Identify funding priorities: Consult European academic associations. Define the goals, but not the pathways to how to reach these to truly enable innovation.
• Implementation procedures: Increase trust in and flexibility for beneficiaries.

In the EPSO position paper we briefly explain each of these recommendations.

EPSO looks forward to further discuss and help implement these recommendations with colleagues from the European Commission and the Member State ministries and funders.

Click here to read: Full EPSO position paper on Horizon Europe and beyond

EPSO submission to the EC consultation is available here

Contacts:

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director, BE

Odd Arne Rognli, NMBU, NO & EPSO President