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InBIO HAS BEEN GRANTED 2.5 M€ BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION TO PERFORM TOP-QUALITY RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL METAGENOMICS

InBIO HAS BEEN GRANTED 2.5 M€ BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION TO PERFORM TOP-QUALITY RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL METAGENOMICS


InBIO, the Research Netwrok in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, is one of four Portuguese institutions to receive approximately 2.5 M€ from the European Commission’s ERA Chairs scheme, framed within the HORIZON 2020 Programme. From 88 submitted applications, only 13 were approved for funding. Amongst is our research network, which together with the Molecular Medicine Institute (IMM), Coimbra’s University, and the 3B’s Research Group from the University of Minho, will attract a significant amount of 10 M€.

 

The ERA Chairs scheme is one of several measures put forth by the European Commission with the purpose of creating opportunities to spread excellence and widen participation across Member States, leveling up research and innovation performance, by providing “support for universities and other research institutions to attract and maintain high quality human resources and implement the structural changes necessary to achieve excellence on a sustainable basis”.

 

Selected researchers for each institution which is granted support, will be chosen based on scientific quality and innovation indicators, stemming from the projects they have been developing as well as from their international collaboration networks.

 

InBIO’s proposal - Capacity Building at InBIO for Research and Innovation Using Environmental Metagenomics – led by Pedro Beja, coordinator of the EDP Invited Chair in Biodiversity, has as its main goal the expansion of the research and innovation potential of the network through the creation of an ERA Chair in Environmental Metagenomics. The project aims to strengthen the research potential of human resources, lab facilities and next-generation genome sequencing equipment funded by the FP7 CAPACITIES project Capacity building at CIBIO for research using Next-Gen Sequencing. This will enable the development of an emerging research line in environmental metagenomics for applications in biodiversity conservation, invasive species control, ecosystem services assessment, and environmental (bio)monitoring.

 

The project will support regional and national specialization strategies, by allowing to develop tools and approaches to foster environmentally sustainable growth, and by strengthening innovation and knowledge transfer activities in close collaboration with local and global industrial partners, as well as with governmental agencies. Likewise, it is also intended to promote advanced training of highly-qualified human resources, and to disseminate the potential and impact of InBIO’s research and innovation to the wider community.

2015-02-16
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