More than 300 experts from 17 countries shared cutting-edge research, discussed climate action strategies and strengthened partnerships between science, policy and the private sector.

The international conference PlantACT! 2025, organized by the Center for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP UPM-INIA/CSIC) and held April 7-9 at the School of Agricultural, Food and Biosystems Engineering (ETSIAAB) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), exceeded all expectations. More than 300 scientists, policy makers, young researchers and private sector players gathered to exchange solutions based on plant science with the aim of mitigating the effects of climate change and guaranteeing food production in the future.

The event has established itself as a key platform for multidisciplinary and international collaboration and a forum for discussion and proposals for sustainable technological solutions. For three days, presentations, round tables, networking sessions and a science communication workshop provided a dynamic environment for the exchange of ideas and the generation of alliances.

“We have laid the foundation for an engaged international community with a clear vision. Our challenge now is to continue moving towards solutions that connect science, policy and society,” said Heribert Hirt, chairman of the PlantACT coalition at the closing of the event.

The event has established itself as a key platform for multidisciplinary and international collaboration and a forum for discussion and proposals for sustainable technological solutions. For three days, presentations, round tables, networking sessions and a science communication workshop provided a dynamic environment for the exchange of ideas and the generation of alliances.

“We have laid the foundation for an engaged international community with a clear vision. Our challenge now is to continue moving towards solutions that connect science, policy and society,” said Heribert Hirt, chairman of the PlantACT coalition at the closing of the event.

The event addressed four key themes: nitrogen use efficiency, soil and plant health, carbon sequestration and food resilience. Research presented included advances in plant biotechnology, soil microbiomes, and applications of artificial intelligence in sustainable agriculture.

The presentations by leading scientists such as Heribert Hirt, Gloria Coruzzi and Fernando Valladares aroused great interest, as did the flash talks by young researchers. Also noteworthy was the success of the science communication workshop, which reinforced the need to train scientists capable of connecting with society and political decision-makers.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the participation of representatives from the private sector, especially those interested in technologies for optimizing fertilizer use and regenerative agricultural practices. Possible avenues for technology transfer and financing of pilot projects were identified, opening the door to a real and proximate impact of the advances in scientific research presented at the conference.

One of the highlights of the closing ceremony was the award ceremony, which recognized the scientific excellence and social impact of the papers presented.

The prize for the best poster was awarded to researcher Enrico Tampelloni of the CBGP (UPM-INIA/CSIC) and the accesit to Mohamed-Amine Hamzaoui, from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

The best flash talk went to PhD student Arturo Redondo López from CBGP (UPM-INIA/CSIC) for his presentation “Comparative transcriptomics reveals novel molecular mechanisms for metal tolerance in Poplar for phytoremediation applications” and the accesit to PhD student Varsa Shukla from the University of Cologne (integrated Cluster of Excellence in Plant Science, CEPLAS) for her presentation “Adaptative potential of sulfate content in Arabidopsis thaliana”, highlighting its clarity and rigor.

The awards were presented by Antonio Molina, scientific director of the CEX-SO Program of the CBGP (UPM-INIA/CSIC) and president of SOMMa, accompanied by a great support from the audience and special mentions by the organizing committee, which emphasized the future projection of the awarded works.

The next edition of PlantACT! will take place in 2027, with the aim of expanding the participation of countries from the global south and strengthening international collaboration.

All documentation of the event, including recordings, posters and presentations, will soon be available on the official PlantACT! website.  Youtube channel of the UPM and CBGP.

PlantACT! 2025 has made clear the need for collective action, sustained over time and based on scientific evidence and contact with the productive sector and policy makers. The event has served as a turning point to strengthen a global network that will continue to grow for future editions.

“It has not only been an academic event, but also an engine to activate new collaborations and concrete actions,” said Molina.

More information:

www.plant-act.org | cbgp.upm.es

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are rapidly expanding their data centers into water-scarce regions around the world, including parts of the US, Spain, and other continents. These centers use large quantities of water for cooling, which raises concerns in drought-prone areas already facing water shortages.

Investigations by SourceMaterial and The Guardian found that:

Although the companies claim to be working toward being “water positive” by 2030, many experts and insiders doubt the effectiveness or ethics of their strategies.

Read full article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water

This recording shows the introductory presentations held at the beginning of the 2-day experts’ workshop hosted by the University of Cologne New York Office with the UoC Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences CEPLAS and partners, promoting the new European initiative “PlantACT! Plants for Climate Action” in the U.S.

Welcoming Remarks: Dr. Eva Bosbach, Executive Director, University of Cologne New York Office

Presentations:

“PlantACT! Initiative – An Overview” by Prof. Dr. Heribert Hirt, Professor, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Speaker PlantACT!

“CEPLAS – Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences – SMART Plants for Tomorrow’s Needs” by Prof. Dr. Stanislav Kopriva, Professor, University of Cologne and Deputy Speaker, Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences CEPLAS .

This event and the public panel discussion which has a separate recording were organized in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, the German Consulate General New York, the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) New York, and the German Research Foundation (DFG) North America. We thank our partners and the John Templeton Foundation for their generous support.

The Conference is built on the مبادرة PlantACT! initiative’s mission (https://www.plant-act.org/) to provide a platform for international experts to discuss their research and collaborate on pressing climate change-related issues. The goal is to break down barriers, enabling participants to explore cross-disciplinary approaches that enhance both scientific understanding and practical applications for mitigating climate impacts.

Conference Keynote Speakers:

Fernando Maestre – King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia

Siobhan Brady – College of Biological Sciences, University of California- Davies, USA

Wolfgang Busch – Salk Institute for Biological Studies – San Diego, USA

Jonathan Lynch – Huck Institues of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Gloria Coruzzi – Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, USA

Fernando Valladares – Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales – CSIC, Spain

Paloma Ruiz-Benito – Universidad de Alcalá – Alcala de Henares, Spain

Maria Jose Sanz – Basque Centre for Climate Change, Spain

Jaume Flexas – Instituto de Investigaciones Agroambientales y de Economía del Agua, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain

Ron Mittler – College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, University of Missouri, USA

Carolin Delker – Crop Physiology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Gabriele Berg – Institute of Environmental Biotechnology, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Registration Information: Registration Deadline: January 15th, 2025

The Conference is free of charge and requires previous registration, which gives access to conference sessions, keynote talks, and workshops is mandatory. It will be held at the Salón de Actos of UPM Agronomy School (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Agronómica Alimentaria y de Biosistemas, ETSIAAB) in Madrid.

Conference attendees are encouraged to present a poster during the poster session or to give a short talk (upon selection).

Do not forget to register: https://www.plantactconference2025.cbgp.upm.es/index.php/key-dates-registration

Please check the conference website for more details: https://www.plantactconference2025.cbgp.upm.es/

For general inquiries & registration support don’t hesitate to get in touch with events.cbgp@upm.es

Third Edition – November 21 & 22, 2024
Université d’Evry Paris-Saclay

Join us for this dynamic workshop aimed at fostering collaboration across disciplines to tackle global health challenges linked to water management, biodiversity, and environmental issues. Experts from biology, chemistry, social sciences, and humanities will discuss critical topics, including:

• Urban and industrial wastewater treatment
• Pollution’s impact on ecosystems and public health (microplastics, endocrine disruptors, etc.)
• Climate change, water scarcity, and biodiversity loss
• Innovative solutions for pollution remediation and sustainable urban planning

This event will bring together international researchers, industry leaders, and local stakeholders, providing a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration. Students from the EUGLOH network are encouraged to participate in poster sessions and oral presentations, with prizes for outstanding contributions.

Don’t miss this opportunity to network, explore research partnerships, and discover new academic and professional opportunities.

Register here: https://www.eugloh.eu/courses-trainings/events/multidisciplinary-and-internationalworkshop-on-water-environment-and-global-health/
Submit your abstract: cees.thirdedition@gmail.com

Cereals are of global importance for food security and their production is dramatically impacted by climate change. Increased occurrence of severe drought events is one of the main factors responsible for this impact. Sorghum, one of the most drought tolerant cereals, is key for food security in West Africa and, due to its agronomic and technological properties, is expected to contribute to crop diversification in Europe. The aim of the SorDrought project is to identify and characterize mechanistic traits contributing to drought tolerance in sorghum, decipher their genetic control and evaluate how these traits could be used to improve breeding efficiency in sorghum. The project focuses on post flowering water stress, which is the main constraint both in the European and West African contexts .

The SorDrought project will use elite genotype from the selection programmes in Europe and West Africa, diversity panels covering the world diversity and multiparental populations that will allow us both to perform genetic analyses and will provide a way to quickly introgress interesting alleles in elite germplasm for breeding.

To achieve its objectives, SorDrought will mobilize a consortium that has strong expertise in the phenotyping and physiology of target adaptative traits and in genetic analyses of complex agronomical traits and its use in breeding with researchers from 3 public laboratories and breeders from 2 seed companies as well as ISRA/CERAAS, the regional hub for research on dryland cereals in West Africa. It will promote collaboration and exchanges between researchers from public and private sector in France and Africa and will provide breeders with knowledge, tools and expertise to create a new generation of cereal crops integrating new physiological traits to improve performance and resilience both for Europe and Africa.

Climate change poses a substantial threat to global food security by significantly reducing the yield of major crops due to extreme weather conditions. Among these, grain and fruit crops, crucial components of the human diet, are especially vulnerable due to their sensitivity to abiotic stresses during the critical process of sexual reproduction. Consequently, there’s an urgent need to develop advanced crop varieties resilient to reproductive stress. RECROP is an interdisciplinary team comprising agronomists, physiologists, geneticists, biologists, bioinformaticians, and Machine Learning researchers from both public and private sectors. RECROP employs comprehensive approaches to understand the basis of crop sensitivity and develop solutions for enhancing yields in the context of climate change. Its objectives include uncovering the genetic, molecular, and physiological factors influencing crop reproduction sensitivity, creating a strategic pathway for resilient crop development, and providing sustainable guidelines for enhancing resilience through exogenous treatments, thereby expanding genetically inherited stress tolerance. This mission will be executed through four Working Groups (WGs), which, alongside research discussions, will host training schools, workshops, conferences, and dissemination activities. RECROP prioritizes support for Early Stage Career Researchers and Innovators, fostering networking and collaboration with neighbouring COST countries. We aim to establish communication channels with Policy Makers to offer scientific insights and guidance for evidence-based policies in the realms of biotechnology, technology, and agriculture sectors and increase the awareness among the general public about the importance of sustainable solutions for crop improvement.

Join RECROP and support of our mission. Apply here: https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA22157/

Group Leader at Goethe University Frankfurt
RECROP-COST Action Chair

Email: fragkost@bio.uni-frankfurt.de
Phone: +49 69 798-29287

Max-von-Laue Str9, 60438, Frankfurt, Germany

Research team

Publications