This is the last of the two calls (total worth ~16 million EUR) foreseen in the frame of the OSCARS project to support research communities from any scientific domain to take up open science and foster the involvement of scientists in EOSC. The 1st OSCARS Open Call concluded in July resulting in a total of 58 projects being selected for funding (read more). Some of them will be presented during the event.

Researchers from all scientific disciplines are welcome to apply to the 2nd OSCARS Open Call before January 15th, 2025, with proposals for the development of Open Science projects or services, that together will drive the uptake of FAIR-data-intensive research throughout the European Research Area (ERA).

We are delighted to share a new commentary published in The Plant Phenome Journal (Vol 8, No 1, 2025)— “The future role of regional research infrastructures and networks toward the global plant phenotyping community” (DOI: 10.1002/ppj2.70048). The article is co-authored by Dr Susie Robinson, incoming Interim Director General of EMPHASIS, Dr Stijn Dhondt, outgoing Interim Director, and other leaders of major regional and international phenotyping organisations.

The paper brings together perspectives from global research infrastructures to explore how the plant phenotyping community can move beyond regional initiatives to a truly connected global collaborative space. It highlights how established infrastructures — including EMPHASIS (Europe), APPN (Australia), NAPPN (North America), and IPPN (international) — already deliver vital services in access, expertise, and training, yet face challenges aligning strategies, data, and resources globally.

The authors propose further developing shared frameworks for data standards, researcher mobility, training, and governance, enabling regional networks to work more seamlessly together. This vision aims to enhance collaboration, increase visibility for phenotyping science, and strengthen its role in addressing global challenges such as climate change and food security.

For EMPHASIS, this publication reinforces our commitment to fostering collaboration across borders and advancing plant phenotyping as a cornerstone of sustainable, data-driven agriculture. We look forward to working with partners worldwide to help realise the vision it outlines. Read the full article here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ppj2.70048

EMPHASIS Welcomes Dr Susie Robinson as Interim Director General, Effective January 2026

EMPHASIS appoints Dr Susie Robinson as its Interim Director General, effective January 2026, following an international search.…

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SusCrop / FoPD video contest on sustainable crop production

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IPPS Research Topic in frontiers

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Call for contributions to a special Issue: Phenotyping functional traits in plants

Plant phenotyping has seen rapid development in methods and technologies over recent decade leading to the establishment of…

European research and innovation programmes 2014-2027

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Phenet

Europe urgently needs to find pathways towards agroecological transition of agroecosystems in support to food security, climate…

New book: Advances in plant phenotyping for more sustainable crop production

The book reviews the wealth of research on advances in plant phenotyping to meet this challenge, including new technologies…

EMPHASIS contributes to European project AI4Life on Artificial Intelligence

Machine learning (ML) has enabled and accelerated frontier research in the life sciences, but democratised access to such…

EMPHASIS contributes to European project AgroServ on Agroecology

The Horizon Europe project AgroServ, led by AnaEE and CNRS, gathers more than 70 partners and has recently been granted of 15M€…

EOSC-Life: Workflowhub

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The authors call for international action and propose a pan-European research and innovation initiative, the CropBooster…

MLCAS2021 launches Crop Yield Prediction Challenge

In this competition, you will utilize a dataset consisting of 103,365 performance records over 13 years and 150 locations with…

New Special Issue in Plant Phenomics

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Greece: Intelligent system to monitor health of olive groves

Verticillium wilt is a major problem for olive growth and very difficult to detect at early stages of infestation. The project…

Austria: New high-throughput phenotyping platform at Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities (VBCF)

The PHENOPlant phenotyping platform is designed for non-invasive, morphometric and physiological high-throughput phenotyping of…

Sweden: A virtual tour of the Biotron at SLU Alnarp

On 27 May 2021, NordPlant organized a virtual tour of the Biotron at SLU Alnarp. The Biotron is a facility for modern plant…

Italy: Successful first Phen-Italy call for access to plant phenotyping infrastructures

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The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, the Hellenic Agricultural Organization Dimitra and QCELL, the inventor of…

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RI-VIS publishes three white papers on international cooperation between research infrastructures

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Belgium: VIB and ILVO jointly obtain regional funding to establish the ‘EMPHASIS-Belgium’ consortium as national node of EMPHASIS

With the ambition of “phenotyping future crops”, a new consortium - EMPHASIS-Belgium - has been established as the Belgian node…

Plant Phenotyping for a Sustainable Future

Contributions to the special issue are welcome and may include research papers as well as review articles. Authors should…

RI-VIS Publishes White Paper on African-European Research Infrastructure Cooperation

A team of European research infrastructures, led by EMPHASIS, has published a White Paper entitled "Recommendations towards…

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Your input is needed: the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure de.NBI would really appreciate if you could take a…

Special Issue: “From Phenotyping to Phenomics—Techniques for Exploring Plant Traits and Diversity”

This Special Issue aims to bring together a range of research papers that cover plant phenotyping at large-scale from hundreds…

Belgium: VIB acquires CropDesign site from BASF and launches its first agricultural biotechnology incubator

VIB, a leading life sciences institute in Flanders, has signed an agreement with BASF to acquire its CropDesign site in Nevele,…

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