ICNF AND InBIO SIGN A COLLABORATION PROTOCOL

On November 5, 2014, InBIO and the Nature Conservation and Forests Institute (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas - ICNF) signed a Strategic Collaboration Protocol aimed at framing and promoting the scientific and technical cooperation between both institutions.

Present in this event, which took place at Vairão Campus and was coordinated by InBIO’s Director Prof. Nuno Ferrand de Almeida, were the Secretary of State for Planning and Nature Conservation (Secretário de Estado do Ordenamento do Território e Conservação da Natureza), Prof. Miguel Castro Neto and his committee, the Direction Board of the Nature Conservation and Forests Institute (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas - ICNF), headed by Eng. Paula Sarmento, the Rector of the University of Porto, Prof. Sebastião Feyo de Azevedo and the Director of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, Prof. António Fernando Silva.

This Protocol is expected to foster new and fruitful opportunities to scaffold the conservation of nature and the sustainable management of biodiversity, hunting and fishing resources and forest areas, through the concerted commitment of InBIO and ICNF in scientific research, development and dissemination. Amongst the wide range of goals set for the partnerships to be prompted between InBIO and ICNF in the context of this protocol, it is possible to highlight a few, as for instance:

i) the revision and implementation of the National Strategy for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity;
ii) the development and maintenance of the new national research infrastructure – PORBIOTA, which will be established as the Portuguese node of the European Research Infrastructure LifeWatch;
iii) the harnessing of the potential of the Next-Generation Sequencing Platform, recently installed at CIBIO-InBIO, in the context of the project Capacity building at CIBIO for research using Next-Gen Sequencing, funded under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (grant agreement No 286431);
iv) the efficient and informed implementation of CITES, and the development and application of the emerging field of environmental genomics;
v) the organization of an Annual Scientific Knowledge Updating Program; and
vi) the preparation of an Internship and Post-Graduate Scientific Training Programme.

To watch a video of this event, please visit: TVU