News n°1

EPSO to help shape FP7 work programmes for 2008 and 2009

The European Commission has called on the European Technology Platforms, including our very own ‘Plants for the Future’, to provide input into the Seventh Framework Programme’s (FP7) work programmes 2008 and 2009.

Although the titles of the indicative topics for the 2008 work programme have already been published in this year’s version, changes and high priority new topics can still be proposed. In the case of the 2009 work programme, the platforms are free to propose new indicative topics. The Commission will also collect input from the Member States through their respective programme Committee members and from the Expert Advisory Group. We encourage EPSO members to provide input via their respective countries. This procedure will be repeated in the coming years for each of the future work programmes .

Launched in 2003, Plants for the Future is an EU-supported stakeholder forum, coordinated by EPSO and EuropaBio, on plant genomics and biotechnology. The main stakeholders are industry, academia and farmers. Together, they are currently finalising the Technology Platform’s Strategic Research Agenda which seeks to chart a course for European plant-based research over the next two decades.

EPSO Workshop “Feed Value Chain”, 26-27 June 2007, Copenhagen, Denmark

EPSO will hold its third workshop on 26-27 June 2007 on the theme of the feed value chain. The workshop will take place at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The aim of this workshop is to establish a European cross-disciplinary discussion by bringing together a small group of key scientists and industry representatives to exchange ideas on the current challenges faced by the feed-livestock value chain.

The chain encompasses plant breeding, feed crop production, feed formulation, as well as meat, dairy products and egg production. In 2005, more than 40 million tons of meat and more than 150 million tons of milk and eggs were produced in the EU, worth nearly €130 billion.

The workshop participants will compile a white paper describing the current state of play and defining prioritised objectives for European interdisciplinary research activities across the value chain. These priorities will be communicated to the European Commission and national policy markers to serve as a joint recommendation from industry and public research to help steer future calls for proposals under the FP7 ‘Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology’ priority and national programmes .

The workshop will follow the model of previous EPSO workshops, with the number of invited participants ranging between 30 and 40, including the speakers, from right across the value chain. The organisers are Claus H Andersen (Plant Biotech Denmark), Odd Arne Rognli (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) and Vincent Pétiard (Nestlé France). For more information .

A new benefit for members: EPSO’s online portal

EPSO’s online portal, launched at the end of April 2007, is a collection of useful links relevant to members of the plant science community. Links to research funding agencies, to scientific databases, to plant research institutes and many more will be easily accessible through this portal. The aim of this initiative is to facilitate the search for information by providing a one-stop shop for EPSO members.

This portal will be gradually build up in the course of the year and we invite you to send any useful links by clicking here.

Who’s doing what at the EPSO office in Brussels?

• Karin Metzlaff (from Germany), executive director, is responsible for strategy, policy, opportunities and activities. She oversees all EPSO’s activities and supervises the staff.
• Katrien Molders (from Belgium), executive assistant, organises the EPSO conferences and workshops. She is also in charge of the website and the database of expertise. She assists the executive director in policy work.
• Ivana Migliore (from Italy), secretary, takes care of the office management, accounts, databases, board and general meetings and assistance for EPSO members.
• Isabelle Caugant (from France), science writer, writes the newsletters, oversees the EPSO portal and writes press releases and other EPSO communications.
• Ralph van Berloo (from the Netherlands), webmaster, is the IT specialist managing the EPSO website. Ralph is based in Wageningen, NL.
• AnnaKarin Hedin (from Sweden), is the executive assistant for the Technology Platform “Plants for the Future”; her position is financed by an EU grant.

EPSO personal membership to open in July

Thus far, EPSO has offered membership to institutes, universities, departments or research units (Institutional membership). Starting on 1 July 2007, EPSO will offer membership to any individuals interested in plant science.

Read the next issue of EPSO News to learn more about this great opportunity.

Presqu’île de Giens, France to host EPSO conference in June 2008

The 2008 EPSO Conference will take place in Presqu’île de Giens (near Toulon), France, on 22-26 June 2008. We will keep you informed on this major event organised by EPSO in the upcoming issues of EPSO News.

Don’t forget to pencil this important date into your diary.

These contributions were submitted by EPSO members. The instructions for submitting contributions are here. Send us your articles.

Structuring European plant genomics research

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 level of welfare in the coming decades will 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 to develop sustainable production systems for water, fertiliser, herbicide and pesticide use.

Collaborative 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 investments in plant sciences.

To address these ambitions, the ERA-NET Plant Genomics (ERA-PG) was launched in 2004 with coordination funding of €2.2 million for 4 years from the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme. It was one of the first networks to receive funding under the ERA-NET scheme which seeks to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA).

ERA-PG is coordinated by NGI/NWO from the Netherlands, drawing its original partners from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the UK. Since then, the network has been enlarged to encompass Bulgaria, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Israel.

ERA-PG started with a large information gathering exercise which mapped out the landscape of research activities and the economic impact of plant genomics. Researchers and science policy-makers were brought together to build common ground for joint strategic and to perform a study leading to the development of common framework mechanisms and best practices. In February 2006, ERA-PG launched its first joint call for research with a budget of over €30 million, receiving more than 100 pre-proposals. This was one of the largest ERA-NET coordinated research programmes .

For more information: ERA-PG website
Contact person: Dr. Christine J Bunthof, ERA-PG managing office.

Good summer ahead for German plant science

The German research programme on plant genomics will start its next period – called GABI-FUTURE – in the summer of 2007. Through a process of international peer review and internal voting within the programme’s Scientific Advisory Committee, some 38 new projects were recommended to receive funding from the German Federal Ministry of Research (BMBF).

Most of the recommended projects put forward are joint public-private initiatives between academic and industrial partners, with an estimated €55 million coming from government and €11 million from industry over the next three years. Such partnerships will help further encourage the transfer of results, knowledge and techniques, as outlined in GABI’s bridging concept.

GABI-funded projects will focus mainly on boosting plant resistance against abiotic and biotic stress with optimised metabolism, harvest organs and morphologic architecture. Other projects will concentrate on the efficient use of water and nutrients, health promoting ingredients, low-input energy plants and further development of GABI’s future infrastructure. In addition to Arabidopsis as a model, the proposed plant species comprise cereals – including maize and rapeseed – sugar beet, potato and some minor crops.

The German plant science community and industry welcomed GABI-FUTURE, describing it as a clear signal of the government’s commitment to plant genomics.

For more information: GABI-FUTURE website (in German)
Contact person: Dr. Frank P Wolter, Director Patenting and Licensing Agency for GABI-FUTURE (PLA).

A taste of ChIP-on-chip technology

The John Innes Genome Laboratory is currently refining methodologies for ChIP-on-chip analysis exploiting the new Arabidopsis Tiling Path Array. They would like to establish collaborations with other laboratories across Europe which are interested in utilising these new arrays.

ChIP-on-chip, also known as genome-wide location analysis (LA), is a technique for isolating and identifying the DNA sequences occupied by specific DNA binding proteins in cells. ChIP-on-chip pairs chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) with glass slide microarrays (chip) to analyse how regulatory proteins interact with genomic DNA.

If you have experience in either ‘wet science’ or the development of optimal bioinformatics analytical tools and would be willing to contribute to a user group to exchange information, please contact Dr Jonathan Clarke at the Genome Laboratory, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.

If a sufficient level of interest is expressed, an EU-funded workshop to train people in this technique might be set up.

FP7 explained

This year marks the start of seven-year Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the EU’s main instrument for funding research and technology development in Europe, with a total budget of €50.5 billion.

Approved by the Council of Ministers on 19 December 2006, FP7 will run from 2007 to 2013. It consists of four programmes corresponding to four basic components of European research: Co-operation, Ideas, People and Capacities. The first two will fund research, while the last two will build up the EU's research capacity.

The Co-operation programme covers ten themes of which Theme 2 (Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnologies) and Theme 6 (Environment) are of highest interest to the plant sector. Over the duration of FP7, the budget of Theme 2 and Theme 6 are expected to reach €1.9 and €1.8 billion respectively. Three other themes are important to plant science: Theme 1 (Health), Theme 4 (Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and New Production Technologies) and Theme 5 (Energy).

The programme provides support to the whole range of research activities carried out transnationally, from collaborative projects and networks to the coordination of national research programmes .
More on the Co-operation programme.

The Ideas programme is completely new to the Framework Programme and, through it, a European Research Council (ERC) has been set up. The fundamental principle for all ERC activities is that of stimulating investigator-initiated frontier research across all fields of research, on the basis of scientific excellence. The total budget of the ERC is €7.5 billion.

Two types of grants are available through the ERC: the ERC Starting Grants and the ERC Advanced Grants. Excellence is the sole selection criterion for allocation of these grants and is applied to the principal investigator, but also to the research project and the research environment.

The first call for the ERC Starting Grants was published on 22 December 2006, with deadlines for the two-stage application procedure on 25 April 2007 and 17 September 2007 respectively. The next call is expected to be announced at the end of the year.

On 26 April 2007, the ERC announced that 9167 proposals had been submitted by young researchers to the call for ERC Starting Grants, qualifying it as an “impressive demand”. The names of the ERC Starting Grant panel members were also published, as well as the model grant agreement.

The first call for proposals for the ERC Advanced Grants should be published by mid-May, with a deadline at the end of 2007. From 2008 onwards, it is anticipated that both ERC grants will be the subject of annual calls.
More on the Ideas programme.

The People programme (€4.7 billion) is based on the Marie Curie actions and covers all stages of a researcher's professional life, from initial research training to career development, in the public and private sectors.
More on the People programme.

The Capacities programme (€4.1 billion) aims to enhance research and innovation capacities throughout Europe, and to ensure their optimal use. Six broad areas will be supported, with the highest part of the budget (€1.7 billion) being allocated to the Research Infrastructures activity.
More on the Capacities programme.

For more detailed information on FP7, read the FP7 broker on the EPSO website.
EPSO members whishing to receive a presentation/discussion on FP7 within their institution or country can contact us to arrange it.

Upcoming FP7 deadlines

31 May 2007
People – Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP)
Co-operation – Coordination and Cooperation in context of ERA (support for conferences, seminars and other support actions)

31 July 2007 – Co-operation - Calls for grants for action of a horizontal nature or not directly linked to a specific Co-operation theme will be available through support to ERA-NET actions.

14 August 2007 – People
Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development (IEF)
Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development (IOF)
Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships (IIF)

04 September 2007 – Capacities – Research for SMEs Call 1

17 September 2007 – Ideas – Stage 2 (full proposal only for proposals retained at stage 1) ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant

September 2007 – Co-operation – Calls for large collaborative projects under Theme 2 (the exact deadline is expected to be published in the coming weeks).

17 October 2007 – People
Marie Curie European Reintegration Grants (ERG)
Marie Curie International Reintegration Grants (IRG)

Panorama of Plant Research Funding Opportunities in Germany

In 2005, Germany’s investment in R&D totalled an estimated €56 billion, or 2.5% of gross domestic product, placing the country in third place, in terms of GDP, among EU Member States.

The research is performed at universities and at four large research organisations: the Max Planck Society, the Fraunhofer Society, the Helmholtz Association and the Leibniz Association.

Basic research projects are mainly funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Among the numerous programmes funded by the DFG, Priority programmes (PP) and International Research training Groups (IRTG) are of interest to non-German research scientists.

PPs, which run for six years, promote interdisciplinary networking and nationwide coordination of research projects. Although these programmes are mainly directed at German research groups, “it is also possible for foreign scientists to participate provided that their project is of paramount importance to the Priority programme as a whole”. Among the PPs most relevant to plant scientists are: ‘Heterosis in plants’, ‘Evolution of metabolic diversity’, ‘Microbial reprogramming of plant cell development’.

IRTGs are doctoral training programmes between German universities and universities abroad. The research and study programmes are jointly developed and supervised by the participatory groups. Workshops, seminars and sabbaticals are also funded.

Another major project funded by the DFG is the Arabidopsis Functional Genomics Network (AFGN).

Bi- or tri-lateral R&D co-operation is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Funding for plant research is available through the BMBF’s Biotechnology Framework Programme (no direct relation to the European Framework Programme). The main contact point and coordinator for this programme is the project management organisation in Jülich (Projektträger Jülich) which provides supervision and administrative support for the 25 different programmes in this field and in particular for the GABI programme (Genome Analysis of the Plant Biological System) which is targeted at plant genomics research.

Part of the budget for phase one (1999-2004) of the GABI programme was allocated to bilateral collaboration between GABI and Génoplante (the French plant genomics programme). Up to 25% of the phase two (2004-2007) budget was available for trilateral co-operation between GABI, Génoplante and the Spanish plant genomics programme. The third phase, GABI FUTURE will start in July 2007 (see Members’ News section).

Other funding opportunities open to foreign applicants from all disciplines

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) promotes exchanges of students and scientists. Its programmes are usually open to all disciplines, countries and nationalities. The DAAD maintains a scholarship database of all the DAAD funding opportunities open to foreign graduates, postdocs and faculties as well as funding offered by other selected organisations.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) promotes international research co-operation. Each year, they offer research fellowships and research awards to foreign scientists and scholars not resident in Germany to spend extended periods of research in Germany. There are no quotas with regard to country or discipline.

The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science promotes and supports basic research at its own institutes. Their Independent Junior Research Groups gives the opportunity to young scientists and researchers to take on leadership responsibilities in a five-year research programme.

The Helmholtz Association promotes international cooperation through worldwide exchange programmes and cooperation agreements such as the Young Investigators Groups (deadline for application is 4 May 2007, one further call for applications is planned for spring 2008) and the jointly funded Helmholtz-DAAD Fellowships (awarded once a year in December, the next call is expected to be published in September).

The Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz Association also promote international education for junior scientists through grants and fellowship in collaboration with the DAAD and other international organisations such as the EU.

More information on funding opportunities in Germany is available on the EPSO website. As the information provided in EPSO News and on the website can only supply a selection of opportunities, EPSO is happy to receive further and updated information for distribution.

Upcoming German calls open to transnational applicants

• 15 December 07: DAAD Research Grants for Doctoral Candidates and Young Academics and Scientists
• 15 December 07: DAAD Study Scholarships for Graduates of all Disciplines
• January 08: Independent junior research groups. Max Planck Society
• January 08: Sofja Kovalevskaja Award. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

• Humboldt Research Fellowships
• Humboldt Research Awards to Outstanding Scholars resident outside Germany
• Helmholtz Humboldt research awards
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Awards

• Practical Traineeships for Foreign Students of Natural and Technical Sciences, Agriculture and Forestry
• Re-invitation programme for Former Scholarship Holders
• Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists

• Heisenberg programme / Heisenberg Professorship
• Emmy Noether programme
• Research Fellowships

• EPSO Workshop: “The Feed Value Chain”
  26-27 June 2007 – Copenhagen, Denmark
  
  
• Vacuoles and Plastids: Development and Functions
  5-6 July 2007 – Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  
  
• 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society of Chemical Ecology (ISCE)
  22-26 July 2007 – Jena, Germany
  
  
• XIVth International Congress on Photosynthesis
  22-27 July 2007 – Glasgow, UK
  
  
• Imaging and Integrating Heterogeneity of Plant Functions: Functional Biodiversity from Cells to the Biosphere (Leopoldina Meeting)
  29-31 July 2007 – Jülich, Germany
  
  
• Plants for Human Health in Post-genomic Era
  26-29 August 2007 – Helsinki, Finland
  
  
• 4th Tri-National Arabidopsis Meeting
  12-15 September 2007 – Vienna, Austria
  
  
• International Symposium on Genetic Modifications - Challenges and Opportunities for Horticulture in the World (GMO2007)
  16–20 September 2007 – Ski, near Oslo, Norway
  
  
• PlantGEM6 - 6th Plant Genomics European Meeting
  3-6 October 2007 – Tenerife, Spain
  
  
• The 9th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance Microscopy
  3-7 November 2007 – Aachen, Germany

These meetings are only a selection; you can find a more complete list of meetings on the EPSO website.
Would you like to announce your meeting in EPSO News? Click here.

• Three Postdoctoral Fellows, Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University, Belgium, more info
• Technology Licensing Managers, Bayer BioScience, Ghent, Belgium, more info
• Postdoctoral Position, INRA, Avignon, France, more info
• PhD Position, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany, more info

Would you like to place your job advert in EPSO News? Click here.

Every effort has been made to present all information accurately, however no liability is accepted for any inclusions or advice given or for omissions from the publication. Hyperlinks are provided as a convenience to users. EPSO is not responsible for the contents of any information provided by outside sites through these links. As the information provided in EPSO News can only be a selection, EPSO is happy to receive further and updated information for distribution.

EPSO News is an online newsletter published five times a year. From the third newsletter on, access is restricted to individuals with an EPSO personal membership and to representatives and supporting scientists of EPSO institutional members. Published by EPSO, designed by ESN. © EPSO. Material may be cited provided full reference is given.

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