European Plant Science Organisation
EPSO
EPSO, the European Plant Science Organisation, is an independent academic organisation that represents around 200 leading academic research institutes, universities and departments from 30 countries.
ID: 38511867304-09
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Tomas Tobé (Member of the European Parliament) and Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet
26 Jun 2025 · Research Policy
Response to EU Life sciences strategy
17 Apr 2025
European Plant Science Organisations (EPSO) response to the call for evidence for A Strategy for European Life Sciences The European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO) welcomes the initiative to develop A Strategy for European Life Sciences. EPSO is an independent academic organisation that represents more than 200 research institutes, departments and universities from 31 countries in Europe and beyond. EPSOs mission is to improve the impact and visibility of plant science in Europe. The importance of plant sciences is obvious since they are the ultimate source of all our food and central for a resilient and competitive modern agriculture, forestry and bioeconomy especially in times of geopolitical instability and climate change. Plants are crucial for achieving several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by providing animal feed, timber, fibre (e.g. cotton), high value substances (fragrances, aromas, pigments, pharmaceuticals, recombinant proteins and peptides), oils, grains, fruit, vegetables, flowers and biomass for energy. Investing and supporting plant sciences is one of the fundaments for competitiveness in life sciences. Plant sciences fits EU-Level strategies such as Building the future with nature: Boosting biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, provides advanced materials for industrial leadership (cellulose, pectin), contributes to the European economic security strategy, and is central for a circular bioeconomy strategy. Although the major breakthrough in plant sciences have been established in Europefrom Gregor Mendels genetic laws important for classical breeding strategies to the establishment of novel breeding technologies with the recent discovery of genome editing (Nobel Prize 2020 to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier) funding has not matched the number of innovative ideas and projects of high-value technologies which could be developed (see appendix of recent plant science projects). Europes open culture and innovative spirit would be highly attractive for scientists and entrepreneurs if funding allocation to plant sciences within the European framework were strengthened. Therefore, EPSO suggests boosting collaborative basic research to create an upward Research & Innovation spiral. Europe needs to ensure profit from a balanced participation of basic and applied research. A continuous exchange between advancement of knowledge and applications will increase the effectiveness of the European research and innovation system. To strengthen the effectiveness of the R&I cycle of Europe, EPSO proposes making collaborative basic research an intrinsic component of existing instruments (R&I Actions) and introducing a new instrument (Research Actions) for collaborative basic and applied research. Ultimately, this strategy will meet the needs of the industrial sector and private companies. EPSO recommends a strong independent programme (i.e. FP10) with a distinct and dedicated budget that allows the funding of all first-ranked project proposals throughout the programme. EPSO advocates the bottom-up research support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and the European Research Council (ERC). These curiosity-driven, ground-breaking research projects have demonstrated their exceptional ability to identify and promote excellence in Europe (examples of successful projects in the annex). EPSO strongly supports an innovation-friendly legislative environment enabling the uptake of new technologies, particularly biotechnologies, by streamlining regulations. EPSO sees a great innovation potential in defining goals but leaving the pathways open to the stakeholders to achieve these, thus increasing trust in and flexibility for beneficiaries. EPSO suggest strengthening the innovation potential between health and food, agriculture and biotechnology. This would enable plant biologists, breeders, crop processors, nutritional scientists and health experts to conduct interdisciplinary res
Read full responseResponse to Legislation for plants produced by certain new genomic techniques
5 Nov 2023
EPSO welcomes the move towards a more proportionate regulatory environment for NGT crops. EPSO acknowledges that the proposal is a balanced compromise and supports most of its content, especially the quasi-equivalence of NGT1 plants with conventionally bred ones and the omission of additional labelling requirements beyond the seed labelling. EPSO has identified a few elements in the legal proposal that should be addressed: 1-Criteria for determining the status of NGT1 plants Plant genomes differ considerably in size and complexity, and crop species vary greatly in their levels of genetic diversity. The number of expected genetic changes that can be obtained using conventional breeding methods, moreover, will vary between different species if the number of changes is counted on the whole genome. For example, the model species Arabidopsis thaliana is diploid (n=2, two basic sets of chromosomes) and has a genome size of 125 megabases (Mbp). However, barley is diploid but with a genome size of 5,100 Mbp, whereas common wheat (Triticum aestivum) is hexaploid (n=6) and has a genome size of 15,600 Mbp; potato is tetraploid (n=4), strawberry, octoploid (n=8). The differences in genome size will allow for a larger total number of genetic changes to occur in e.g. bread wheat than in Arabidopsis, during conventional breeding by random mutagenesis. Equally important because selection (central to all conventional breeding methods) will act on two alleles in Arabidopsis or barley, four in potato, six in bread wheat, and eight in strawberry, the number of changes needed to achieve a favourable genetic change will be progressively higher in each of these crops. EPSO suggests that the maximum number of targeted genetic changes allowed in NGT1 plants (20) should be counted per basic set of chromosomes to compensate for differences in genome size and complexity between different plant species. 2-Field trials EPSO believes that the legislation should enable a simplified approval system for field trials for scientific purposes. Often, field trials are carried out to verify that the induced genetic changes lead to the expected traits under agricultural conditions. The proposed legislation must not create additional administrative burdens for field trials for scientific purposes. EPSO therefore proposes that the verification of NGT1 status prior to a limited scientific field trial should only require a simplified procedure at the relevant national level. The documentation required for any field trial review process must be the same for all Member States and the criteria for consideration of the NGT1 status of plants be strictly scientific. 3-Not exclude NGT1 plants from organic farming practices Many envisaged NGT1 traits will be of direct benefit to organic farmers, who often lack effective plant protection alternatives. For instance, NGT1-induced resistance to late blight in potatoes could reduce the need for chemical plant protection measures by 90%. For the benefit of organic farming, EPSO strongly recommends that excluding NGT1 category plants should not be part of this legislation. Organic farming organisations nevertheless may choose to abstain from using NGT1 plants. The exclusion of NGT1 plants from organic farming practices would have a negative effect on European agricultural research. Currently, in Horizon Europe, most calls relevant to plant biology and breeding stipulate that the funded research should be applicable to both organic and conventional agriculture. In practice, this excludes the use of NGTs as a breeding pathway in research proposals. EPSO thinks the combination of the NGT1 exclusion and the Horizon Europe call stipulations will, therefore, have a negative impact on agricultural research and innovation because it will limit the positive contributions NGT1 plants can have on the Farm-to-Fork and Biodiversity Strategies under the EU Green Deal. EPSO statement full version: https://epsoweb.org/
Read full responseMeeting with Maria Da Graca Carvalho (Cabinet of Commissioner Carlos Moedas)
10 Mar 2015 · Meeting with Karin Metzlaff