ERA-NET

ERA-NET on Plant Genomics

Other ERA-NET projects

ERA-NET under FP7

ERA-NET under FP6

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Structuring European Research in Plant Genomics (ERA-PG)

Europe has a long tradition of innovation in food production leading to significant breakthroughs in yield increase and quality improvement in European crops.  

The expected growth of the human population and the increase of the average standards of living in the coming decades impose an increasing demand for food, feed and energy. At the same time there is a growing awareness of the potential impacts on the environment and the need for development of sustainable production systems with respect to water, fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide use.  

Close collaboration and synergy of research efforts and joint investments in large-scale technologies will create the critical mass that Europe needs in order to sustain its competitiveness in this area. This will facilitate a stepping up from national to multilateral coordination, thereby reducing redundancy and maximising the returns on investment in plant sciences. This sort of collaboration will also help to drive policy development in favour of plant sciences at national and European levels.  

ERA-NETs are networking and coordination activities between funding bodies, supported by the ERA-NET scheme under the EU’s sixth Framework Programme for strengthening the European Research Area (ERA). The ERA-NET Plant Genomics, one of the first ERA-NET coordination actions to receive funding, started in 2004 with a coordination budget of 2.2 M € for 4 years. ERA-PG is built on a strong foundation of existing collaborations. ERA-PG is coordinated by NGI/NWO from The Netherlands and the founding members further include ministries and funding agencies from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and UK. From the outset the network was committed to expanding its membership to new members engaged in launching national plant genomics initiatives and Portugal, Switzerland, Israel and Sweden have become contractual members within ERA-PG as from 1 January 2006. Bulgaria recently joined the network as the first new EC member state.   

ERA-PG has undertaken a large information gathering exercise leading to shared information resource on research activities and economic impact of plant genomics that has been valuable beyond the network itself. Researchers and science policy makers were brought together to build common ground for joint strategic activities at scientific and administrative levels, and to perform a study leading to development of common framework mechanisms and best practices. On 1 February 2006 ERA-PG launched its first joint call for research with a budget of over 30 M€, receiving more than 100 pre-propoals, making it one of the largest coordinated national research programmes in the ERA-NET scheme. The list of selected projects and further details on other ERA-PG activities are available on our website at www.erapg.org.

ERA-PG Managing Office, Netherlands Genomics Initiative, PO Box 930.5, 2509 AA The Hague, The Netherlands 

Contact
Christine Bunthof, e-mail bunthof<x>genomics.nl and Okker van Batenburg, e-mail batenburg<x>genomics.nl

Workshop Gent, 2003
Workshop Amsterdam, 2002