description
- The Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation (IUNG) is a brilliant Polish Research Institute. ProFiCiency aims at strengthening IUNG’s excellence, through technological, human and partnership capacities fostering, and most of all through a complete reshaping of its internal organisation. IUNG ambitions to adopt a totally integrated interdisciplinary approach around four interdisciplinary priority research areas (Soil Quality; Land Use; Production Systems and Techniques; and Plant Products Quality and Safety) to converge towards excellence on a crucial topic: “Managing the Production of Food and feedstuff, their safety and quality under global Climatic Change”. This ambition is the red line of the whole Action Plan, derived from the SWOT analysis. Measurables objectives are the acquisition of 17 pieces of equipment; the reorganisation of laboratories, a new HR policy, the hiring of 5 experienced researchers, intense mobility trainings (56 outgoing, 30 incoming), a sustainable agriculture platform, 2 international conferences, 8 workshops, 3 trainings, 1 open day and 2 farmers days, 1 website, 8 newsletters. The ProFiCienCy project will rely on 16 partners all across the EU. It has raised wide support reactions from official bodies (Polish Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Chamber of Lublin, Foundation for Polish Science, Regional Agrochemical Stations, Association of Tobacco Growers, National Council of Individual Farmers Union “Solidarity”). The main expected project outcomes are a better penetration within the ERA and IUNG’s recognition as the most promising research centre in Poland on the interaction between climate changes and the production of food and feedstuff of quality and high safety. ProFiCienCy also corresponds to a complementary funding of IUNG from cohesion funds and the FP7, since IUNG benefited from €3M funding from the European Regional Development Fund.