On
invitation of the European Commission the
European Technology Platform (ETP) ‘Plants for
the Future’ provided and continues to provide
input to the European Commission for the Work
programmes of FP7.
The
ETP developed the Strategic Research Agenda for
the plant sector describing the major
strategically important steps to take in the
coming 20 years to reach the vision of a vibrant
and competitive plant sector in Europe. The ETP
then needed to identify the preparedness of the
scientific community in Europe to undertake
joint projects in each of these research
challenges.
To identify that, in May/June 2006, academic and industrial
scientists in Europe were invited to contribute to a survey of current
and possible future transnational collaborative research activities in
Europe relevant to plant science. The survey was conducted by EPSO for
the ETP 'Plants for the Future' from 24
May 2006 to 23 June 2006.
Over
280 submissions were received,
from 21 European countries, including potential partners from 42
nations.
Four
panels of distinguished scientists from academia and industry analysed
the submissions and prepared an
analytical report, published in October 2006. This report presents
potential research topics summarising the submitted ideas with reference
to the ETP’s Strategic Research Agenda.
The panel members were:
-
Food & Feed:
-
Vincent Petiard (Nestle, FR)
-
Dick Toet (Unilever, NL)
-
Peter Westhoff (Duesseldorf
University, DE)
-
Chris Bowler (ENS Paris, FR /
Stazione Zoologica, IT)
-
Sustainable Agriculture:
-
Jean-Claude Guillon (Copa-cogeca,
FR)
-
Michel Caboche (INRA, FR)
-
Uli Schurr (Phytosfere Juelich,
DE)
-
Maarten Koornneef (MPIZ Cologne,
DE)
-
Green Products:
-
Ralf-Michael Schmidt (BASF, DE)
-
Diana Bowles (York Univ, UK)
-
Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey (VTT
Espoo, FI)
-
Marc Cornelissen (Bayer, BE)
-
Basic Research:
-
Marc Zabeau (VIB, BE)
-
Chris Lamb / Mike Bevan (JIC,
UK)
-
Mark Stitt (MPIMP Golm, DE)
-
Francesco Salamini (IT)
The
coordinators
of the report were:
- Mike Bevan (JIC Norwich, UK)
- Karin Metzklaff (EPSO, BE)
The Steering Council of the ETP then decided
which of these topics needed most urgent
attention, proposed them for the
first Work programmes in FP7 and sent them
to the coordinators of the ERA-Net on Plant
Genomics. Accordingly, the other topics will
be proposed for later Work programmes .
In addition, the report identifies gaps
between the Strategic Research Agenda
and the preparedness of the scientific
community to undertake such research. As the
next steps forward EPSO and the ETP already
started to organise a series of
multidisciplinary workshops to address
such gaps and they will discuss the
recommendations from the survey report with
national agencies.
More information on the survey and its
stages is available
here.
