AnaEE (Preparatory Phase):

Infrastructure for Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems

Objectives

AnaEE is a Research Infrastructure, registered on the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI 2010) roadmap. The AnaEE Preparatory Phase was initiated in November 2012 until October 2016, followed by the AnaEE Pre-Operational Phase from October 2016 to June 2018.

ANAEE will provide Europe with a distributed and coordinated set of experimental, analytical and modelling platforms to analyse and predict in a precise manner the response of the main continental ecosystems to environmental and land use changes.ANAEE will consist of highly equipped in natura and in vitro experimental platforms associated with sophisticated analytical and modelling platforms coupled to networks of instrumented observation and monitoring sites throughout Europe.

INRA Transfert was in charge of the AnaEE preparatory phase project management, with a consortium of 19 partners from 13 different countries.

INRA Transfert is now in charge of the AnaEE pre-operational phase project management, aiming to build a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). This new phase is composed of 5 members (Belgium, Denmark, Israel, France and Czech Republic).

European Commission funding : 3 400 000 € (Budget 4 787 692 €)
Duration : 3,5 years
Start : November 1st 2012
Coordinator : Abad CHABBI (INRA Grignon) - abad.chabbi@inra.fr
Projet manager : Agathe RENARD (INRA Transfert) - agathe.renard@inra.fr
Website : www.anaee.com

WatBio:

 Improved biomass crops suitable for growing on drought-stressed marginal lands

Objectives

WATBIO is about finding and putting into practice science-based solutions to address one of modern agriculture’s great challenges: delivering non-food biomass without competing with food production while protecting already stretched water resources.  We need perennial crops that tolerate drought to efficiently produce biomass on land un-suited to food production.  

The goal of WATBIO is to use the power of next generation sequencing to accelerate the breeding of non-food biomass crops for drought-stressed conditions while maintaining biomass productivity and quality in water-scarce environments unsuited for food crops.  WATBIO focuses on the improvement of poplar, miscanthus and arundo which are perennial non-food crops that have high biomass yield.  For poplar and miscanthus the research will produce new germplasm with increased drought tolerance.  For arundo, its genetic diversity will be assessed and increased, and breeding tools will be developed.

Twenty-two partners (15 academic institutions and 7 private sector) who span the crop improvement chain will:

1. identify  key traits for the maintenance of high quality biomass production in water-scarce environments;
2. link these traits through modelling to underlying key genes, proteins and metabolite networks;
3. utilise a wide range of measurements on plants for screening at multiple sites to test genotype x environment interactions;
4. use sequence-based gene expression data and to identify 40 genes related to drought tolerance for testing proof of concept using GM approaches; and
5. use sequence-based data for genome wide association and genomic approaches, linking physiology to traits of high heritability and to underlying genes.

EC funding : 8 999 997 € (Budget 11 658 901 €)
Duration : 5 years
Start : November 1st 2012
Coordinator : Gail TAYLOR (University of Southampton, Grande Bretagne) - G.Taylor@soton.ac.uk
Project manager : Lian LOMAX-HASMTER - llomax-hamster@inra.fr
Website : www.watbio.eu

Aquaexcel2020: AQUAculture infrastructures for EXCELlence in European fish research towards 2020

Objectives

AQUAEXCEL2020 is a research infrastructure project funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme and coordinated by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). The project, which has started in October 2015, aims to further support the sustainable growth of the European aquaculture sector. AQUAEXCEL2020 will integrate a large group of leading European aquaculture research facilities and aims to advance aquaculture research and innovation in Europe. One of its key aspects will be to provide subsidised access to top-class aquaculture facilities, as well as numerous highly pertinent services for researchers from academia and industry.

Aquaculture provides about half of the fish for human consumption worldwide. The demand for fish is rising, but fisheries are not expected to grow due to fully or over-exploited fish stocks. Aquaculture production seeks to meet this increasing demand for fish, but while the aquaculture sector is growing in the rest of the world, it has stagnated in Europe in recent years. Sustainable growth of the aquaculture sector in Europe, based on efficient and environmentally responsible production of high value fish products, can be achieved by ensuring excellent scientific research and by the results being translated into innovation and industrial growth.

AQUAEXCEL2020 will help to achieve this target by integrating 39 top class European aquaculture research facilities that cover all relevant scientific fields, fish species and systems. The project will provide a single access portal to high-quality, harmonised services and resources tailored to the needs of the European aquaculture community, support and conduct world-class research and provide the basis for a European aquaculture innovation system from basic research to applied science.

European Commission funding : 9 708 861,78 €
Duration : 4 years
Start : October 1st 2015
Coordinator : Dr Marc Vandeputte (INRA Jouy en Josas) - marc.vandeputte@inra.fr
Project manager : Bénédicte Ferreira (INRA Transfert) - benedicte.ferreira@inra.fr
Website : www.aquaexcel2020.eu