NEWS
Stay updated on the latest developments in plant science policy and EPSO activities!
EPSO wishes to encourage the development of ideas and imaginative thinking in plant science and is therefore offering two awards to young scientists to attend the Science Day (12.6.2024) of the EPSO General Meeting to be held in Oeiras, Portugal and present their research to EPSO’s representatives from across Europe.
The awards will cover registration and travel and the awardee can present a lecture on her / his research during a plenary session of the Science Day and will receive an honorarium of 200 €. Applications are invited from PhD students working on either fundamental or applied aspects of research on plants. One award will be offered in each category.
Awards will be chosen based on submitted abstracts. The selection criteria will be:
- The novelty of the idea or approach being taken
- The potential of the research to improve understanding or outcomes in the selected field of plant science
- The clarity with which the problem or research topic is conveyed to a non-specialist plant scientist.
PhD students wishing to apply should submit the completed Application Form including their abstract and a short Curriculum Vitae. Two EPSO jury will select two winners, one from the fundamental research category, the other from the applied research category.
Applicants can be nominated by others, and to be eligible they must be a PhD student on 31.1.2024 and work in an institute/university that has EPSO institutional membership (check online). Please send your entry to [email protected] with the subject “EPSO Young Plant Scientist Award 2024” until 31.1.2024.
For details, please refer to the Call text.
Contact: Karin Metzlaff
The 26th 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 October 2023 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Plants and Nutritional Security”.
Dr Angelo Santino, Institute of Sciences of Food Production, CNR, Lecce, Italy: “NGTs for nutritional improvement of Solanaceae”
Dr Ian Dawson, SRUC, UK and CIFOR-ICRAF, Kenya: “Considering climate change when diversifying future food systems with healthful ‘forgotten crops’: sub-Saharan Africa as a case study for wider application”
Assoc Prof Katia Petroni, Department of Biosciences, University of Milan, Italy: “Unlocking the health benefits of anthocyanin-enhanced diets”
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 autumn 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 26th EPSO seminar on the 19th October 2023.
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
The statement describes the scientific breakthroughs that need to be achieved during the next decade to foster an improved, and more directly applicable, knowledge on how trees and forests react to environmental changes – with climate and global change obviously looming large in the landscape.
Forest science actions for the next decade we have identified are:
- Analysing resilience of forests to climate and global change
- Including social sciences in forestry
- Fostering analysis on biotic interactions
- Monitoring and managing biodiversity
- Investigating the pro and cons of assisted migration (AM) and assisted gene flow (AGF)
- Fostering adaptation through breeding for the new world
- Forests as a source of climate change mitigation
- Understanding genetic diversity at multiple spatial scales.
With this statement we wish to contribute to the debate on the steering of science in the European as well as larger research community on tree biology and forestry.
This requires a joint effort and engagement of academia with industry, foresters, citizens, non-governmental organisations and policy makers.
The next meeting of the Tree and Forest Working Group will build on this statement and will be announced by the WG chairs.
Looking forward to further collaborating with you in the Tree and Forest Biology and Biotechnology WG,
Ivan, Elina, Berthold and Karin
Tree and Forest WG co-chairs: Ivan Scotti, Elina Oksanen, Berthold Heinze
EPSO Executive Director: Karin Metzlaff
Click here to read: Full ‘EPSO Tree and Forest Biology and Biotechnology statement’
Contacts:
EPSO Tree and Forestry WG chairs:
Ivan Scotti, URFM, INRAE, FR
Elina Oksanen, University of Eastern Finland
Berthold Heinze, BFW Austrian Research Centre for Forests
EPSO: Karin Metzlaff, EPSO Executive Director
EPSO has published a new briefing for plant scientists: on the Life Programme Call 2023.
In addition, we updated our Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-24 Briefing to take into account the latest information on the UK and New Zealand’s association to the programme, the publication of the European Research Council Work Programme 2024 and New partnership candidate: ‘Forests & Forestry for a Sustainable Future’.
EPSO encourages its members to apply to these programmes. The briefings contain all information for plant scientists in one place. They also provide additional researched information, useful tips and available final call texts published by the European Commission for 2023/24.
*Access to the Members’ only Website is restricted to EPSO active Members (not sleeping members or external Personal Members) – please contact Sofia Ciravegna for access.
Wishing you success with your proposals
Karin Metzlaff, John Fitzgibbon and Odd Arne Rognli
Contact: Karin Metzlaff
The 25th Europe-wide seminar of the series 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 September 2023 at 15:00 (CET) we will present three talks exploring “Epigenetic regulation in plants”
Maria-Estefania Lopez Ortiz, University of Geneva, Switzerland: “Heritability of stress memory in woodland strawberry”
Dario Galanti, University of Tübingen, Germany (now Kew Gardens, UK): “Genome-epigenome dynamics in natural populations of Thlaspi arvense”
Iva Mozgová, Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), Czech Republic: “To green or not to green: how PRC2 repression contributes to seedling establishment”
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 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 autumn 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 25th EPSO seminar on the 21st September 2023
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 EPSO Board
Marie-Theres Hauser BOKU / AT & EPSO Board
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