NEWS
Stay updated on the latest developments in plant science policy and EPSO activities!
EPSO welcomes the European Commission’s consultation and provides input on the importance of the next Framework Programme (FP) for EU competitiveness.
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 todays and future challenges and to help building a strong, competitive and resilient, inclusive and democratic European society and improving life on earth.
All scientists and entrepreneurs would benefit from a stronger stand-alone R&I FP with a ringfenced budget as a crucial factor to increase EU competitiveness.
They would benefit from
- a stronger ERC and reinforced MSCA.
- Reinforcing the collaboration pillar and adding Research Actions (RAs) to create an upwards research and innovation spiral.
- Policymakers defining the goals but leaving the pathways to reach them open to beneficiaries to truly enable innovation.
- Consulting European academic associations and European industry associations to identify funding priorities.
- Simplifying implementation procedures: Increase trust in and flexibility for
Plant scientists took an active role in the EU FPs from the start and want to contribute to the future.
They are active in pillar 1, mainly in the ERC and the MSCA, both working very well.
They could contribute more to the collaboration pillar (in Horizon Europe pillar 2), particularly on the theme on Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment. To this end, we suggest the following improvements:
- Address Food and Nutritional Security, environmental sustainability, biodiversity, human health and bioeconomy in parallel
- 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 how to achieve these open to the stakeholders.
- Create a new heading ‘Enabling sustainable crop improvement’ in the Work Programme and / or partnership ‘Plant biology and breeding’.
- Better link the health theme with the food, agriculture, biotechnology theme.
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 & Contribution ID: f614256c-75e8-4ad6-a771-a4a70b94c0be.pdf, submitted 2.5.2025 to the MFF / EU funding for competitiveness consultation.
Contact:
Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director, BE
The 38th European-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 December 2024 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Adaptation to climate change associated stress”
Prof. Jonathan Jones, The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK 
“Why we need to understand plant immunity to cope with climate change’
Dr. Hilde Nelissen, VIB University of Gent, Belgium
“Plant growth under mild drought – cellular and molecular mechanisms.”
Assoc Prof. Ebe Merilo , Institute of Technology, University of Tartu, Estonia
“Stomatal regulation: from Arabidopsis to barley
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:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rde-prz0iGN2c4dsb4XaEG3glvR3Xdv2A
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 spring 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 38th EPSO seminar on the 19th December 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
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 Plant Health Working Group is inviting registrations and talks for its online workshop on 15th October 2024.
The Working Group aims to discuss the contribution of gene editing to improve disease and pest resistance and provide solutions for sustainable agricultural production and reduction of pesticide use. This online workshop will discuss current success stories and future directions of gene editing for sustainable crop protection. The workshop will also include a general scientific discussion on the advances and challenges ahead.
Registration deadline is 9th October 2024:
Confirm your participation by sending an email with your registration (name, institution, research field) to: Maria J. Pozo ([email protected]) and Andreas Voloudakis ([email protected]).
We look forward to meeting you on the 15th October 2024.
Beat, Maria, Andreas, Mariana and Karin
Beat Keller, Maria Pozo, Andreas Voloudakis and Mariana Schuster (Plant Health WG chairs)
Karin Metzlaff (EPSO Executive Director)
Click here to read: The Programme and current list of participants of the 2nd workshop on Plant Health
Contacts:
Maria J. Pozo, CSIC, ES & EPSO Plant Health WG chair
Andreas Voloudakis, AUA, GR & EPSO Plant Health WG chair
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 2024 Joint International Green ERA-Hub Call is developed by the partners of the ERA-Hub Call in collaboration with the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) and the Wheat initiative. The overall objective of this Call is to advance the climate smart farming for climate change adaptation, resilience to stresses, and crop and livestock health, in a context of the economic sustainability of farming.
Call topics:
- Topic 1: Improved resilience and health of crops The scope includes projects focused on temperate, rain-fed and irrigated cropping environments. These farming systems are often characterised by cereal production, particularly wheat and barley, grown in rotation with brassica, grain legumes or other crops. Rotational grassland and perennial crops are also included in the scope.
- Topic 2: Livestock production and climate change This topic focusses on livestock, GHGs and climate change, addressing both, (a) solutions for climate change adaptation and (b) measurement systems for GHG emissions. The scope includes the major terrestrial livestock types (beef and dairy cattle, pigs, poultry and small ruminants).
Timeline:
- The deadline for pre-registration of proposals is July 31, 12:00h CEST (noon).
- The deadline for full proposal submission is September 5, 12:00h CEST (noon).
Note: A webinar for applicants was held on 21st of June 2024, 9:30 CEST. You can access the slides from this meeting using the following link: https://bit.ly/4eS0liX
Call documents and submission platform: Green Era Hub: Call2 (submission-greenerahub.eu)
Success with your proposals!
Karin
Contacts:
GEH call 2 – see https://www.submission-greenerahub.eu/call2
Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director (member GEH External Expert Group)