NEWS

Calls for proposals for Horizon Europe 2022 are open. EPSO encourages its members to apply, especially to calls under the European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Slodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Pillar I (Excellent Science), and Cluster 6 ‘Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment’ of Pillar II (Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness).

EPSO published its updated EPSO briefing on Horizon Europe Work Programmes 2021-2022 on the Members’ only Website* 29.9.2021.  It contains all information for plant scientists already available in one document. It provides you as well additional researched information and final call texts published by the European Commission since 15 June 2021.

 

 *Access to the Members’ only Website is restricted to EPSO active Members (not sleeping members, not external Personal Members) – please contact Sofia to get access.

 

Work Programmes covered in the briefing and still open for submission are:

 

Excellent Science

• ERC – European Research Council Work Programme 2021 & European Research Council Work Programme 2022
  • ERC-2022-StG: opened 23.09.2021, closing 13.1.2022
  • ERC-2022-CoG: opened on 19.10.2021, closing 17.3.2022
  • ERC-2022-SyG: opened 15.7.2021, closing on 10.11.2021
  • ERC-2022-PoC2: opening on 16.11.2021, closing 15.2., 19.5. and 29.9.2022
  • ERC-2022-PER: opened on 05.10.2021, closing 11.1.2022

 

• MSCA – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action 2021-2022
  • MSCA-SE-2021: opened on 7.10.2021, closing 9.3.2022
  • MSCA-SE-2022: opening on 6.10.2022, closing 8.3.2023
  • MSCA-COFUND-2021: opened on 12.10.2021, closing 10.2.2022
  • MSCA-COFUND-2022: opening on 11.10.2022, closing 9.2.2023
  • MSCA-PF-2022: opened on 13.4.2021, closing on 14.9.2022
  • MSCA-DN-2021: opened 22.6.2021, closing on 16.11.2021
  • MSCA-DN-2022: opening on 3.5.2022, closing on 15.11.2022

 

• INFRA – Research Infrastructures 2021-2022

 

Global Challenges & European Industrial Competitiveness – Thematic clusters

• Cluster 1: Health
• Cluster 4: Digital, Industry and Space
• Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility
• Cluster 6: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment 2021-2022
• Cluster 6 Opening date 28.10.2021;
• Cluster 6 Deadline single stage 15.2.2022; 2-stage: S1 15.2.2022, S2 1or 6.9.2022

Missions

• Missions

Innovative Europe

• EIC– European Innovation Council Work Programme 2021
• EIE – European Innovation Ecosystems
• EIT – European Institute of Innovation and Technology

 

Widening Participation and Strengthening the European research Area

 Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area 2021-2022

 

Further Work Programmes are available on the Funding & Tenders portal

 

Wishing you success with your proposals

Karin Metzlaff, Alexandra Barnoux and Alan Schulman

 

Contact: Karin Metzlaff

The 7th European-wide seminar of the new 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 18th November 2021 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Use of Diverse Species as Crops”

Assistant Prof Marta Vasconcelos, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal

                        “Biodiversity with underutilized crops in Europe: challenges, strategies and benefits”

 

 Dr Delphine Renard, CEFE CNRS, Montpellier, France

                         “Contributions of crop diversity to food security and resilience”

 

Prof Zerihun Tadele, University of Bern, Switzerland ,

                          “Promoting productivity of under-researched crop: the case of tef”

 

 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://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwscuqgpz0tEt36RSyQylnhhngEmc5JPET8

 

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 7^th EPSO seminar on the 18^th November 2021

 

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 & EPSO President
• Marie-Theres Hauser, BoKu / AT & EPSO Representative

EPSO welcomes the initiative taken by the European Commission to adjust the regulation on NGT and promote NGT for plant breeding in the European Union (EU). Taking into account recent and ongoing research activities, EPSO would like to provide the following feedback to the Inception Impact Assessment (IIA):

• Criteria for sustainability should refer to all techniques and approaches, and not only NGTs.
• Risk assessment for NGT products should be proportionate
• Labelling and requirements for detection methods should not be barriers in the approval process.

 

Read details in the full EPSO statement – the EPSO submission to the DG SANTE public consultation to the Roadmap (Inception Impact Assessment, IIA) regarding the legislation for plants produced by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs).

 

EPSO statement EC roadmap (IIA) on new genomic techniques, 25.10.2021

EPSO Annex 1 to the NGT roadmap statement, 25.10.2021

EC: Roadmap (inception impact assessment) on new genomic techniques, 24.9.2021

 

Contacts:

• Jens Sundström, Ralf Wilhelm & Frank Hartung, EPSO Chairs WG Agricultural Technologies
• Alan Schulman & Karin Metzlaff (EPSO President, Executive Director)

The European Commission is organizing info days on the Horizon Europe 2022 calls Cluster 6, the one most relevant to plant scientists, under which 77 topics will be open from 28.10.2021 on.

The programme will focus on:

• Raising awareness about the key aspects of HE proposal preparation and the evaluation process.
• Giving an insight about the HE Mission ‘Soil health and food’.
• Highlighting the HE horizontal novelties and the key success factors to proposal preparation.
• Offering networking and matchmaking opportunities to prospective applicants to support the building of proposals’ consortia in a dedicated brokerage day.

More detailed programme and registration: ow.ly/Y6GB50Gpczv

See as well the EPSO Briefing on Horizon Europe, updated 29.9.2021 

Source: EC

The 6th European-wide seminar of the new 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 21^st October 2021 at 15:00 (CET) we will present two talks exploring “Evolution of Plants for Life on Land”

 

Prof Liam Dolan, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria

                             “Evolution of land plant rooting systems”

 

Dr Pierre-Marc Delaux, CNRS, University of Toulouse, France

                            “Origin and diversification of plant symbioses”

 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://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lcOutqzojHNb6iXQnnP0HIT1dZB1eKkSG

 

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 6^th EPSO seminar on the 21^st October 2021

 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 & EPSO President
• Emily Breeze, Warwick University / UK & EPSO Representative

On 14 May 2021 EPSO member-scientists and policy makers from sixteen countries across Europe held the fourth open-minded, informal meeting to assess the situation for research and development on New Plant Breeding Technologies (NPBTs) after the ruling of the ECJ in July 2018.

They exchanged views on the current situation of genome editing (GE) in Europe and possible next steps to enable Europe to better address climate change, achieve food and nutritional security, and establish a sustainable agriculture in Europe and world-wide. Such steps should bring the discussion forward on the EU legislation and facilitating potential flagships. The meeting was held under Chatham House Rules.

 

The next meeting will be held in November 2021.

As explained in our statement of 19.2.2019, EPSO offers to collaborate with policy makers to develop an appropriate future-ready regulation to enable the European public sector, small- and medium-sized companies and farmers to contribute more comprehensively to food and nutritional security and to use all available tools to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. Notwithstanding the technical option retained, EPSO supports a science-based revision of the present European legislation establishing a more proportionate product-based risk assessment. EPSO is also willing to contribute to the societal debate on genome editing and to communicate in a fact-based and yet accessible manner about innovative plant science and its societal role.

 

Ralf Wilhelm, Jens Sundstrom, Alan Schulman, Ernst van den Ende and Karin Metzlaff

 

Read the 4^th meeting report 

 

Contacts:

• Ralf Wilhelm & Jens Sundstrom, EPSO Chairs WG Agricultural Technologies
• Alan Schulman, EPSO President
• Ernst van den Ende, EPSO Board
• Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director