European Research in the focus: First seminar of CORE Organic

In the course of the ERA-NET projects  CORE Organic I (www.coreorganic.org) and CORE Organic II (www.ocreoranic2.org) three calls were published to give researchers the possibility to jointly cooperate in transnational research projects in the area of organic food and agriculture.

Eight projects were funded in the frame of the first call of 2006, which were concluded by the year 2010 and 2011. Another eleven projects were selected in the first CORE Organic II call (2010) dealing with the topics cropping systems, monogastric produc-tion and food quality.

The aim of the seminar was to bring together the coordinators of all the projects, their respective funding bodies and people interested in organic research to learn about the contents and results of the projects.

The scientific program contained both the presentations of the aims, the approaches and the challenges of the selected eleven projects running from 2011-2014 (Tilman-Org, Bio-Incrop, InterVeg, Softpest multitrap, Bicopol, Vineman.Org, HealthyHens, Icopp, ProPig, SafeOrganic, AuthenticFood) and the results of the 2007-2010/11 pro-jects (COREPIG, ANIPLAN, PathOrganic, QACCP, AGTEC-Org, PhytoMilk, FCP, iPOPY).

The project coordinators of the “old” projects were requested to also respond to questions targeting the kind of dissemi-nation to different groups, the existing knowledge gaps and the consequential research ap-proaches.

After the presentations the „round-table“ discussion took place inviting the coordinators of the ended and the newly started projects to exchange their experiences and their knowledge. The discussion focused not only on the inter-nal project coordination, but projects also on the cooperation between the national funding bodies of CORE Organic and the applicants or project partners. Obstacles in the procedures or the cooperation were identified and suggestions for improvement identified. The latter were well accepted by both the project coordinators and the CORE Organic II consortium.

The event as a whole stressed the importance of joint European research and showed that common calls within the frame of ERA-NETs can be a successful concept to implement research activities on a transnational level.

Further information

• CoreOrganic2.org: European Research in the Focus
• Orgprints.org: Presentations at the first seminar of CORE Organic