NEWS

The EPSO 6^th Workshop on Plants and Microbiomes: Original plan Utrecht (8-9 April 2025) is cancelled; Will be held Malaga / Spain on 3 November 2025 – Draft programme – submit a tentative talk title

10.02.2025 | EPSO | MiBi WG

The EPSO Working Group on Plants and Microbiomes has the pleasure to announce its sixth workshop to take place on 3 November 2025 as a Satellite Workshop preceding the 6th Plant Microbiome Symposium in Malaga/Antequera, Spain, 3-7.11.2025.

This sixth workshop has four main themes:

1. Microbiomes of plants / crops – new projects, initiatives and scientific highlights
2. Development of best practices and recommendations – Minimum metadata requirements and pre-analytic parameters
3. New microbiome technologies
4. Coordination of plant microbiome research

The meeting intends to increase collaborations between the working group members. Recommendations from the workshop will be provided to the scientific community, the European Commission and national agencies.

To develop the programme further, we kindly ask you to contribute by submitting a very short outline and indicate to which programme theme / topic this refers, to [email protected]  until 31.7.2025.

For details on the workshop and registration see the attached Draft programme. For specific questions about the EPSO Workshop, please contact Corné Pieterse ([email protected]).

We look forward to meeting you in November.

Angela Sessitsch, Paul Schulze-Lefert, Corné Pieterse and Karin Metzlaff

Click here to read: The workshop Draft Programme 10.02.2025

Contacts:

Corné Pieterse, Angela Sessitsch, Paul Schulze-Lefert and Karin Metzlaff

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

The EPSO Working Group on Plants and Microbiomes has the pleasure to announce its sixth workshop to take place in Utrecht on 8-9.4.2025.

This sixth workshop has four main themes:

• Microbiomes of plants / crops – new projects, initiatives and scientific highlights:
  • Cereals
  • Legumes
  • Potato
  • Trees
  • Fruits & vegetables
• Development of best practices and recommendations – Minimum metadata requirements and pre-analytic parameters
• New microbiome technologies
• Coordination of plant microbiome research.

The meeting intends to increase collaboration between the working group members. Recommendations from the workshop will be provided to the scientific community, the European Commission and national agencies.

To develop the programme further, we kindly ask you to contribute by submitting a very short outline and indicate to which programme theme / topic this refers, to [email protected]  until 13 December 2024.

We look forward to meeting you in April

Angela Sessitsch, Paul Schulze-Lefert, Corné Pieterse and Karin Metzlaff

Click here to read: The workshop Draft Programme 23.9.2024

Contacts:

Corné Pieterse, Angela Sessitsch, Paul Schulze-Lefert and Karin Metzlaff

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

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

National funders in the European Research Area Network on Sustainable Crop Production (SusCrop ERA-net) together with experts from science and stakeholders developed (supported by 2 workshops)  the white paper on ‘Future Research Needs in Sustainable Agriculture’. 

The four main research needs are:

• Topic 1: Knowledge generation in relation to nutritional value and health benefits of protein / niche crops;
• Topic 2: Knowledge generation and transfer on multi-stress resistance for stable yield;
• Topic 3: Innovation pipeline: Protein / niche crops for food and feed value chains: How to build a value chain for uncultivated protein / niche crops;
• Topic 4: Impact assessment and trade-offs.

The white paper is available both on the SusCrop website and to download here.

Please disseminate this widely for consideration at European as well as national levels.

Contacts:

Heather McKhann, INRAE & SusCrop ERA-Net (prepared synthesis as white paper)

Christian Breuer, PTJ & SusCrop ERA-Net co-ordinator

Karin Metzlaff, EPSO & official observer SusCrop ERA-Net