NEWS

VIB, a leading life sciences institute in Flanders, has signed an agreement with BASF to acquire its CropDesign site in Nevele, Belgium. VIB and CropDesign have had a close scientific relationship for more than 15 years. CropDesign, currently part of BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division, was established in 1998 as a VIB spinoff and has grown into a biotech company specializing in plant phenotyping technology. The divesture includes site infrastructure and intellectual property. All former CropDesign employees found new jobs within or outside BASF.

The latest edition of the EMPHASIS Newsletter published on 14 December 2020 is now online.

EMPHASIS Newsletter December 2020 (PDF)

The SUSWHEAT project combines globally leading research expertise on wheat from complementary teams at Copenhagen and Aarhus University, China and the UK, creating a strong partnership to dissect the resilience mechanisms in response to future climate. The collaborative project has recently been granted funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

In early 2021, Phen-Italy (the Italian Network of Plant Phenotyping Infrastructures) will launch the first call for access to the national plant phenotyping infrastructures. The applicants are requested to submit a project proposal aiming at answering a clear scientific question and/or addressing a technological challenge in the field of plant phenotyping. The project proposals will be evaluated by a Commission of independent experts. More information will be circulated in January 2021 on www.phen-Italy.it.

The gantries will allow multispectral imaging, 3D scanning and high-resolution thermal imaging of plants as well as a combination of multispectral- and thermal imaging with gravimetric phenotyping to study plant water household.

The plant research community in Norway has joined forces and submitted a national infrastructure proposal to establish the Norwegian Plant Phenotyping Platform (PheNo).

The University of Barcelona in partnership with the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) are developing a smartphone-based, user-friendly application for smallholder farmers from the MENA region (Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia) and United Arab Emirates (UAE) aiming to identify major biotic and abiotic stresses in key relevant herbaceous crops.

In a landmark discovery for global wheat production, an international team has sequenced the genomes for 15 wheat varieties representing breeding programmes from around the world.

Press release (PDF)

University College Dublin (UCD-Ireland) has acquired a PlantScreen system from Photon System Instruments (PSI) with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland Future Research Leaders Programme (SFI-FRL) awarded to Dr. Sónia Negrão.

For the past six years, IPPN and EMPHASIS have carried out their bi-annual "Plant Phenotyping Surveys". They cover basic and advanced questions related to plant phenotyping for the purpose of assessing the status of global plant phenotyping and emerging fields. The surveys address participants from all geographic regions and in all professional disciplines in any way related to plant phenotyping.

During the 3^rd meeting of the Interim General Assembly (IGA) on 9 November 2020, important decisions were made regarding the scope and timeline of the EMPHASIS implementation phase including the establishment of a new association, and a Chair and Vice-Chair were elected.

The new website of the International Bioeconomy Forum (IBF) is now online. The IBF was launched in 2016 by the European Commission and provides a platform for international communication and cooperation regarding the development of a sustainable bioeconomy. Members are the European Commission, Argentina, Canada, China, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA.

We are excited to present the EMPHASIS Scribble Series: three short animated videos produced in scribble style illustrate the basic concepts of research infrastructures, why we do plant phenotyping and what EMPHASIS is all about.

A team of communication experts and managers of research infrastructures led by EMPHASIS and Instruct-ERIC have developed a step-by-step guide on how to develop and implement a communication strategy for research infrastructures.

Earlier this year, EMPHASIS has reached an important milestone: the establishment of the Interim General Assembly (IGA), a board of ten countries that have formally declared their intention of moving EMPHASIS towards operation. 

We are constantly striving to improve our webinar series and would very much appreciate your feedback.

EOSC-Life call for projects sharing data, calls and workflows in the cloud

The latest edition of the EMPHASIS Newsletter published on 29 September 2020 is now online.

The French infrastructure Phenome Emphasis has been officially prolonged until 2025, with an extra funding of EUR 5 million.

The Nordic network NordPlant has been prolonged until 2023 with funding from NordForsk.

This year’s CVPPP was held alongside the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) on Friday 28 August online.

The Nordic Plant Phenotyping field day that was held here at NMBU on 17 June. This is an annual get-together for plant breeders and scientists in the Nordic countries to get in touch with field phenotyping activities and learn about the latest development.

Interdrought 2020, organized by CIMMYT and the University of Queensland, was scheduled to take place in Mexico City in March 2020. As it was not possible to proceed with face-to-face meetings due to the travel restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizing committee delivered the scientific program online.

EPPN2020 has just launched its sixth call for application for transnational access, open to European groups but also open (to a limited extent) to groups originating from emerging countries or international research centers. The call closes on 26th of October 2020.

The plant biologist from the University of Nottingham who is pioneering research to reveal how root systems work has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

During two web-based ministry meetings held in February and April, the newly established Interim General Assembly discussed specific steps for moving EMPHASIS into implementation.

To compensate for the cancellation of many scientific conferences and opportunities to discuss latest developments in the field, the plant phenotyping initiatives IPPN, EPPN2020 and EMPHASIS are launching a webinar series on plant phenotyping. We are looking for contributions from researchers from all phenotyping-related fields.

We are happy to present our new digital flyer providing a brief introduction to EMPHASIS. Please feel free to download, share and present it at any occasion.

The Communication Toolkit for European Research Infrastructures provides an easy and useful set of tools, guidelines and resources to improve the communication strategy and activities of research infrastructures. Its common use is expected to increase the individual and collective visibility of research infrastructures, by aligning key-messages and improving how different stakeholders perceive them.

It’s competition time: EMPHASIS is launching a photo competition in plant phenotyping in collaboration with IPPN and sponsored by LemnaTech and DPPN. Send us your best plant phenotyping photos and be in for a chance of winning a high-end camera!

As the preparatory project EMPHASIS-PREP will be finalised towards the end of 2020, EMPHASIS progresses in developing its business plan in discussion with national ministries. 

EMPHASIS is collaborating with partners from eleven other research infrastructures in the H2020-funded RI-VIS project to increase the visibility of European research infrastructures (RIs) to new communities in Europe and beyond.

The implementation of a digital space for the life sciences in Europe is moving forward with EMPHASIS contributing as part of the EOSC-Life project.

A team at Palacky University Olomouc is developing a stand-alone, high-throughput indoor phenotyping device for seedlings and small plants and is asking the community to take part in a short survey to optimise its use.

The EPPN2020 project “Trichoderma-Plant interaction for improvement of drought tolerance” (TrichoTOL; ID 159) was carried out by a research team from Educons University in Sremska Kamenica, Serbia, with strong support from the host institution Slovak University of Agriculture, in Nitra, Slovakia.

In February, we supported the science week of a German primary school with some exciting experiments and insights on plants and their importance to humans.

In February 2020, the ENVRI community published a joint statement on Horizon Europe in order to engage in a dialogue with the European Commission on the upcoming Framework Programme.

Plant Phenomics is pleased to announce a special issue on Statistics, Bioinformatics, and Machine Learning Methods in Phenomics.

Submission Deadline: April 1st, 2020

PLOS ONE is calling for papers on plant phenomics and precision agriculture research. The deadline for submission is 5 June 2020.

On 16 January, Anja Karliczek, German Federal Minister of Education and Research, inaugurated the Science Year 2020, which will focus on the bioeconomy. The aim of the dedicated Science Year is to raise public awareness for the importance of a bio-based economy.

In advance of this week’s UN COP25 Climate Change Conference, the European Parliament has approved a resolution declaring a global climate and environmental emergency.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) 14^th Plenary Meeting in Helsinki in November was followed by an evaluation of the interoperability of image-based data of the Finnish National Plant Phenotyping Infrastructure (NaPPI) with the PHIS information system for plant phenomics.

The next call for access to European plant phenotyping facilities via EPPN2020 is now open.

Representatives of nine countries discussed the next steps for moving EMPHASIS into the Implementation Phase.

We are excited to present our new logo as part of our recently developed corporate identity.

EMPHASIS participated with an interactive booth in the Science is Wonderful! exhibition of the European Research and Innovation Days in Brussels. 

The 11^th European Plant Science Retreat was hosted this year at the University of Nottingham from 8 to 10 of July. The annual conference is targeted at PhD students studying at European universities and aims to bring together early career researchers working in plant sciences. The meeting was hosted and organised by PhD students from the University of Nottingham with the generous financial support of the European Plant Phenotyping Network 2020 (EPPN2020) and other funding bodies.

The network may form the basis of Poland’s participation in EMPHASIS.

Geographical distribution of EMPHASIS
expressions of interest in Portugal (July 2019)

The Portuguese plant research community is highly engaged with phenotyping initiatives. Participation in EMPHASIS and access to EPPN2020 transnational calls is a major breakthrough as high-throughput platforms are unavailable within the country.

EMPHASIS participated in the ENVRI-Plus dissemination conference

The Plant Biology infrastructure (TAIM) is listed in the Estonian Research Infrastructure Roadmap 2019, and Estonia now has a long-term programme for the use of agricultural big data – a collaboration between Agricultural Research Centre, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Estonian Crop Research Insititute, Tieto Estonia AS and E-Agronom OÜ.

Training for scientists from industry and academia

Vollebekk research farm at NMBU
in Ås. Photo: Morten Lillemo

Three of the leading plant science research institutions in Norway have joined forces to develop a roadmap for a national plant phenotyping infrastructure called PheNo. In other news, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) has teamed up with the plant breeding company Graminor, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico and Boston University in the USA for an innovative project combining high-throughput field phenotyping with genomic selection and virtual reality.

On 27 March, the second official BPPN meeting took place at KU Leuven. 

As Forschungszentrum Juelich opened its gates for 28,000 visitors on 7 July, EMPHASIS used the opportunity to explain to the general public why plant phenotyping is essential for crop breeding, adaptation to climate change and sustainable crop production.

Participants during the ESFRI workshop

EMPHASIS participated in an ESFRI workshop on 'Monitoring Research of Infrastructures Methodology and Key Performance Indicators' in an advisory capacity.

Stephan Summerer (ALSIA) training Peruvian scientists

Basilicata Agency of Development and Innovation in Agriculture (ALSIA, Italy) and Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALMA, Peru) team up for a training course in imaging for plant phenotyping

Concrete steps for the formal implementation phase

First testimonials on EPPN2020 transnational access experiments are published.

Catris Workshop

EMPHASIS has been invited to participate in the CATRIS validation workshop in Brussels.

The 2nd call for research projects within IBISBA is now open.

The report 'Inter RI data identification and citation services' from ENVRIplus provides a summary of three use cases related to data citation.

EMPHASIS discusses data management for phenotyping with the viticulture community.

EOSC-Life brings together the 13 Biological and Medical ESFRI research infrastructures (BMS RIs) to create an open collaborative space for digital biology.

EMPHASIS-Prep has met with representatives of 24 national plant phenotyping communities in Europe.

EMPHASIS was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Research Infrastructure Leadership

Workshop at ALSIA

The EMPHASIS  Italian node Phen-Italy organized the workshop "New technological approaches to enhance plant phenotyping – Experiences of CNR Institutes" at ALSIA - Metapontum Agrobios Research Center.

EMPHASIS joins forces with twelve European Research Infrastructures (RIs) to increase the visibility of RIs.

 

The newly-formed UK plant phenotyping network PhenomUK held its inaugural meeting at Rothamsted Research.

EMPHASIS and Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures at the ENVRI community booth at EGU 2019

 

The Czech Plant Phenotyping network held a second annual meeting at CEITEC in Brno.

Corbel 3rd meeting

CORBEL, the cluster of biological and medical research infrastructures in Europe, held its 3rd Annual General Meeting, providing a platform to reflect the progress made so for and discuss and decide on next steps in further joining scientific capabilities and sharing services to understand and translate biological mechanisms.

Emphasis held a modelling workshop Sep 24 – 26 in Brussels, discussing the potential benefits to be generated by Emphasis for the modelling community and potential future roles of the modelling community for plant phenotyping experiments in the Emphasis framework. The results of this workshop will form a basis for the on-going discussion with modellers, data scientists and experimental plant phenotypers in Europe.

Announcement: Training Course Bologna 2018

Phen-Italy co-organized with the Wheat Initiative, CREA and University of Bologna  a training course Training course on High-throughput wheat phenotyping in Bologna t the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

The role of Austria and Eastern Europe in agricultural production.

 

Data standards and Information Systems: strategies of the European infrastructures EMPHASIS and ELIXIR

Exhibition Vienna, September 2018

EMPHASIS has been exhibiting at the “International Conference for Research Infrastructures 2018” in Vienna, Austria.

EMPHASIS representatives have participated on invitation in the 3rd ESFRI Exchange of Experience Workshop on “Effective use of Preparatory Phase Funding”.

Field Workshop

How will the future of field phenotyping in (pan-)Europe look like? This was THE topic of the EMPHASIS Field Phenomics workshop on the 6th of September 2018.

EMPHASIS welcomes Greece within the Support Group

Participants of the WS: The Italian Plant Phenotyping Landscape

The Italiano Emphasis node Phen-Italy organized the workshop:  The Italian plant phenotyping landscape and the other international initiatives

A third UK EMPHASIS Workshop was held at the University of Nottingham to further increase understanding of EMPHASIS and discuss potential UK capability in relation to the EMPHASIS infrastructure requirements and services. Conclusions from all UK workshops have led to an BBSRC leading on an in-depth consultation exercise with the UK plant/crop phenotyping community and stakeholders to inform future strategy and engagement.

EMPHASIS partner project EPPN2020 held a second General Assembly of Members in at the University of Nottingham addressing transnational access to plant phenotyping facilities in Europe.

Working group to organize the collaboration between Elixir and Emphasis project,

EMPHASIS were represented at the 7th ERIC-Forum meeting which took place in Oxford, UK hosted by INSTRUCT-ERIC. The meeting covered a wide range of issues including recommendations from the OECD on an impact assessment for RIs and an update on the 2nd ERIC Implementation Report by the EC.

EMPHASIS is from now on participating in the Board of European Environmental Research Infrastructures (BEERI), providing strategic advice and guidance to the cluster project of environmental infrastructures. In that role, EMPHASIS will help to create a more coherent, interdisciplinary and interoperable environmental research infrastructure landscape in Europe, tackling grand challenges facing human society (e.g. food security, climate change mitigation).

Further information on BEERI is available here:  http://www.envriplus.eu/beeri/

ENVRIplus

Emphasis is now associated partner of the ENVRIplus cluster,

Research Infrastructure Announcement

EMPHASIS representatives participated in the high-level conference “Research Infrastructures beyond 2020 – sustainable and effective ecosystem for science and society” taking place in Sofia,

Emphasis Meeting

Representatives from 22 European countries that have been mandated by their national community (and form the so-called Support Group) met at IBG-2 (Forschungszentrum Jülich) between March the 12th – 13th.

InRoad works towards a better synchronisation of RI roadmapping procedures and thus contributes to a sustainable and efficient RI landscape in Europe. EMPHASIS was present at this important event which looked to address issues around long-term sustainability around RIs based on recommendations from the EC and feed into shaping these recommendations further.

We are happy to welcome the Swedish community as 20th plant phenotyping community committed to support the development of the pan-European initiative EMPHASIS.

EOSC Pilot Logo

1st Stakeholder Engagement Event in Brussels, contributing to the first phase of the development of the future European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

Service Catalogue

The biological and medical research infrastructure cluster CORBEL has published a joint Catalogue of Services

Tartu, November 2017

This forum, organised under the auspices of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU, attracted nearly 120 participants to discuss the need to further development of EU-based technologies that can be applied for characterization of plant form and function in shifting climate.

16 - 17 November, 2017

1st ERIC Forum, Graz

Goals CORBEL

Within the last two days, thirteen research infrastructures from the biological and medical cluster met for their 2nd Annual Assembly in Amsterdam in the framework of the cluster project CORBEL (https://www.corbel-project.eu/).

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss further actions on the formation of the Belgian Plant Phenotyping Network (BPPN), similar to national plant phenotyping networks as they exist in Germany (DPPN), France (Phenome-FPPN) and many other that starting to exist.

BrightnESS

EMPHASIS exchanged concepts and best practices with several ESFRI infrastructures today for the establishment and maintenance of an innovation framework and its ecosystem at research infrastructures on invitation by the Technical University of Denmark.

The first UK EMPHASIS Workshop was held in the UK to introduce relevant stakeholders to EMPHASIS.

AnaEE&EMPHASIS

The European infrastructures EMPHASIS and AnaEE aim to collaborate in bringing innovative solutions for a sustainable intensification of agriculture.

EMMRI 2017

Executive Masters in Management of Research Infrastructures programme (EMMRI) has been started with its first face-to-face module “Governance and Organisation”, with two member of the EMPHASIS-Prep Coordination and Support Team participating.

We are happy to welcome the Estonian community as 15th plant phenotyping community committed to support the development of the pan-European initiative EMPHASIS.

Corbel Framework

A framework for quality management in the field of biological and biomedical research infrastructures (BMS)has been developed and published with the contribution of EMPHASIS.

Core Modules

Two members of the EMPHASIS-Prep Coordination and Support Office have been admitted to the Executive Masters in Management of Research Infrastructures programme (EMMRI) at the University of Milano-Bicocca ( http://www.emmri.unimib.it/ ).

Agenda Gothenburg 2017

After having successful two regional mapping conference in Portugal in March 2017 and Austria in April 2017, EMPHASIS held a third meeting in Gothenburg as Satellite Meeting next to the SEB (Society for Experimental Biology) conference.

Corbel Consortium

EMPHASIS has been approved to join the CORBEL consortium, an initiative of currently thirteen new biological and medical research infrastructures, which together will create a platform for harmonised user access to biological and medical technologies, data and related services.

11 Biological and Medical Science Research Infrastructures including EMPHASIS explored how they could stimulate innovation in Europe through providing open access to their key assets,

Belgian Plant Phenotyping Network

Plant phenotyping researchers of the public sector in Belgium united for the first time, in campus Plant Systems Biology (VIB) Ghent,

We are happy to welcome the Danish community as tenth plant phenotyping community committed to support the development of the pan-European initiative EMPHASIS.

plants day 2017

Partners from the EMPHASIS-Prep consortium organised multiple activities in the framework of the Fascination of Plants Day 2017, an initiative initiated by the European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO; www.epsoweb.org) and intended to increase the understanding about plant science importance with the broader public.

EMPHASIS contributed to the discussions and experience exchange at the “2nd RICH Symposium: Fostering the innovation potential of research infrastructures”. This workshop organised by RICH ( http://www.rich2020.eu/ ), the network of National Contact Points for H2020-Research Infrastructure Programmes, aimed at  showcasing approaches to innovation taken by Research Infrastructures and projects in all scientific domains, as well as to provide a floor for the discussion of policies and incentives for innovation.

maize ghent 03-2017

EMPHASIS was present during the European Maize meeting and the EMPHASIS-prep project was presented for the first time to the European Maize community. Conference took place in the city center of Ghent in the campus of Ghent University

retrain exchange meeting

The EMPHASIS-Prep Coordination and Support Office participated successfully in a staff exchange programme on service provision of European research infrastructures, organised by the RiTrain project (http://ritrain.eu/). The programme was highly tailored to the individual needs of the participants allowing them to take full advantage of their time at EMBL-EBI to gain insight into the working practice of an established and successful research infrastructure.

After a successful first regional mapping conference in Portugal in March 2017, EMPHASIS held a
second meeting in Vienna as a Satellite meeting to the International Wheat Genomics Symposium.
The meeting attracted over 70 participants and focused on the phenotyping landscape in Austria,
Serbia, Hungary, Switzerland, Romania, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Slovakia. This meeting helped to
further exchange knowledge about plant phenotyping activities in the respective countries and to
foster collaboration across national borders in Europe. Specific breakout sessions enabled to identify
needs and demands for support by EMPHASIS to generate benefit for the community once it
operates. This mapping conference will be followed by two further meetings in Gothenburg in July
2017 and Tartu in November 2017.

RiTrain project

The EMPHASIS-Prep Coordination and Support Office participated successfully in a staff exchange programme on strategic vision, governance and business development organised within a framework of the RiTrain project ( http://ritrain.eu/  ) by the ESFRI project EATRIS ERIC.

Kickoff Mapping

EMPHASIS started a series of regional conferences, intended to map the European plant phenotyping landscape and foster the knowledge exchange within the community. We started this process with a conference in Lisbon that took place on March 29 as side event to a 3rd general meeting of the COST action FA1306. The meeting introduced the EMPHASIS project to more than 70 participants from academia, industry, politics and funding agencies.

APPN Kickoff 2017

The Austrian Plant Phenotyping Community held its first meeting at BOKU - Vienna, organised by the Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities and supported EMPHASIS. This meeting had great success in fostering information exchange about plant phenotyping activities in Austria and in Europe and was an adequate starting point for the building of an Austrian plant phenotyping community as part of the European landscape.

Find further information about the event here: https://www.appn.at/1stappnmeeting-2/