Portugal
EMPHASIS.PT
Website – https://sites.fct.unl.pt/emphasis_plant-phenotyping-pt/home
General email addresses:
- cm.pinheiro@fct.unl.pt
- pbarros@itqb.unl.pt
Portugal’s motivation for joining EMPHASIS
Portugal’s motivation to join EMPHASIS as a founding Member is rooted in its commitment to tackling the agricultural challenges of the future through science and innovation.
As a Southern European country, Portugal faces the direct impacts of climate change—from water scarcity to rising temperatures—while also preserving a rich and diverse agricultural heritage.
Joining EMPHASIS is more than gaining access to world-class infrastructures; it allows Portugal to contribute its unique environments, expertise, and creativity to shape the future of plant phenotyping in Europe.
The EMPHASIS.PT community
The Portuguese community, organised under EMPHASIS.PT, is a network of 14 research institutes, universities, and collaborative laboratories that span the entire country, from Trás-os-Montes to the Alentejo and Madeira.
This nationwide coverage mirrors the diversity of Portuguese agriculture—from vineyards, olive groves, and banana plantations to orchards, pastures, vegetables, and cereals—and unites expertise across plant sciences, agronomy, genebanks, experimental stations, engineering, imaging, and data management.
Innovation and infrastructure
Over the past decade, the community has invested in cutting-edge phenotyping tools, including:
- Drones and satellite monitoring systems
- Automated imaging platforms and physiological sensors
- High-throughput metabolomic and genome-scale methodologies
With a proven record of success in European initiatives such as EPPN2020 and AgroServ, Portuguese teams are recognised for their excellence, competitiveness, and collaborative spirit.
A living laboratory for resilience
And here’s the fun fact: in Portugal, access to stress is easy. Within just a few hours of travel, researchers can expose plants to drought, heat, salinity, or poor soils—real climatic and environmental stress conditions that mirror the challenges of global agriculture.
This natural diversity turns Portugal into a Living Lab for resilience, where crops can be tested in contrasting conditions without crossing borders. What might be seen as a challenge elsewhere has been transformed into a scientific advantage, turning stress into opportunity.
Portugal’s vision for the future
By joining EMPHASIS, Portugal reinforces its role as a key European partner, combining scientific excellence, agricultural diversity, and unique environments.
EMPHASIS.PT is ready to drive innovation for sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, and food security.
Its distinctive perspective is clear: when harnessed by science, stress can grow into solutions.
More Community members
Austria
APPN brings together Austria’s plant phenotyping community; researchers, breeders, data scientists, technology developers to build shared infrastructure and methods, promote collaboration, and raise the profile of phenotyping nationally and in Europe
Belgium
EMPHASIS-Belgium, the national node located in the host country for EMPHASIS-ERIC, takes a collaborative and service-oriented approach around multiscale plant phenotyping in Belgium via cutting-edge facilities, access provision and community engagement.
France
PHENOME-EMPHASIS provides indoor and field platforms with linked biochemistry, imaging, and data services to evaluate genotypes in diverse settings, advancing climate resilience and agroecology transitions.
Ireland
Irish agriculture drives crop yield and disease research. PPN-Ireland (2016), an SFI-backed network, connects eight institutes with key phenotyping facilities. Teagasc integrates diverse crop data with molecular tools to enhance global breeding innovation.
Israel
More information coming soon.
Italy
The Italian Plant Phenotyping Network (PHEN-ITALY) is an 18-partner Joint Research Unit (JRU). Its mission is to promote and coordinate the scientific community and relevant stakeholders’ participation in national plant phenotyping research.
Netherlands
NPEC (Wageningen/Utrecht/NWO) is a high-throughput, high-resolution phenotyping facility. It provides above and below-ground data that dramatically accelerates the breeding of novel, adaptive crops—crucial for future food security—by analysing plant performance under diverse biotic/abiotic factors.
Norway
PheNo provides a distributed national infrastructure across Norway for high-resolution controlled environment, field and seed phenotyping and data analysis services to support research and educational needs in academia and industry.
Switzerland
The SPPN's research spans from fundamental ecological/biological studies using model plants to applied research on field and orchard crops. It provides comprehensive phenotyping infrastructure available at multiple scales: landscape, field, individual plant, and organ levels.
United Kingdom
PhenomUK comprises 15 research centres/universities housing controlled and field phenotyping platforms. These are organized into 8 targeted clusters: photophysiology, 3D/growth, health/disease, protected environments, drones, deep field, advancing practice, and digital.