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PLANT KBBE – Transnational projects
in the framework of plant genome research Duration of the initiative: 2008 - 2013 The acronym PLANT-KBBE stands for: "Transnational PLant Alliance for Novel Technologies – towards implementing the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy in Europe" (PLANT-KBBE) and represents the continuation of a mutual international funding activity between France, Spain and Germany, that was originally initiated as so-called "Trilateral Activity" in the framework of two Calls for Proposals in 2004 and 2006. National funding partners in this context are the Ministry for Research and Innovation (DGRI) in France – represented by a national funding agency (ANR), the Ministry for Science and Innovation (MICINN) in Spain and the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany. The group of partner countries has gradually expanded, at first with Portugal (Call for Proposals in 2009), represented by a national funding agency (FCT), and recently with Canada, represented by the funding organisation "Genome Prairie". The overriding scope of the PLANT-KBBE funding initiative is the establishment and accordingly continuation of transnational research projects between France, Spain, Portugal, Canada and Germany in order to further deepen the already existing cooperation between economy and academia in these countries. Furthermore, with this transnationally organised funding measure also research institutions and companies from other countries will be explicitly addressed in order to become associated partners at pre-existing transnational networks and provided that they have their own funding budget available.
Purpose of this all in all now 5th transnational Call for Proposals ("Scientific and Technological Cooperation in Plant Genome Research as basis of the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy") is to accelerate the practical application of research findings, accompanied by an immediate transfer of research results into new innovative processes, products and services. Based on the recently published PLANT-KBBE Call for Proposals (see column on the right hand side) it is intended to promote a predominantly industry-driven and clearly application-oriented research in Europe and beyond.
This kind of collaboration intends to strengthen the European but also global competitiveness of the companies as well as research institutions involved and aims to promote the transnational concentration of know-how and research performance. In the framework of the current Call for Proposals the transnational funding partners also aim for the support of such multidisciplinary R&D-activies in the context of cooperations between economy and science, that – apart from plant biotechnology – integrate diverse other research disciplines. With this PLANT-KBBE Call for Proposals companies – especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) – are invited to participate and, at the same time, are encouraged to act as coordinator for the elaboration of mutual project proposals. In the context of this Call for Proposals the transnational partners mentioned above announced to allocate approximately 16 m€ funding for joint projects.
The entire execution of the current Call for Proposals (publication of the call text, receipt of expressions-of-interest (EoIs), organisation of a virtual partnering, receipt of project proposals, organisation of the evaluation, communication to the applicants, etc) will be performed via a CENTRAL call secretariat in Germany, established at PtJ (see column on the right hand side).
Regarding enquiries about specific national characteristics the respective national call coordinators may be contacted as well: Canada: Dr Reno Pontarollo, E-mail: rpontarollo@genomeprairie.ca Portugal: Dr Catarina Resende, E-mail: catarina.resende@fct.mctes.pt Spain: Dr Julio Barbas, E-mail: julio.barbas@micinn.es France: Dr Dominique Laborde, E-mail: laborde@genoplante.com
Dr Philippe Feldmann, E-mail: philippe.feldmann@agencerecherche.fr |
