Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique – CIRM (INRA)


Website: inra.fr/cirm_eng

The French research institute, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), is Europe’s top agricultural research institute and the world’s second centre for the agricultural sciences. Research in INRA is dedicated to food, nutrition, agriculture and the environment. INRA employs over 12000 people and has an annual budget of over 880 M€ for running 250 laboratories dispatched in 17 research centres in France, mainland and overseas. It focuses on competitiveness, regional land use, health, sustainable development and bioeconomy.

Centre International de Ressources Microbiennes (CIRM) is a unique network of five Biological Research Centres (BRCs) run by INRA that holds over 22000 strains. CIRM was created in 2004 to deal with the large number of microorganism collections of INRA spread in the different INRA research centres. The five BRCs constituting CIRM are located in five sites in France: Rennes, Angers, Tours, Jouy-en-Josas/Montpellier and Marseille. With an annual operating cost of 2.4 M €, CIRM holdings display a large intra-specific diversity within the species interest, making possible population genetics and genomics. The CIRM BRCs are embedded in research units of INRA, thus, with facilitated access to a large number of equipment, analytical platforms and expertise. CIRM is the pillar of the Research Infrastructure “Resources for agronomical research” (RARe), which is on the French roadmap.

Universitat de València Estudi General (UVEG-CECT)


Website: www.uv.es/cect

The University of Valencia (UVEG) is a leading academic organisation at a national level, with a remarkable international dimension, which ranks among the top 300 in Europe as per university ranks. As per URAP 2016, UVEG ranks the third among all Spanish universities, first in Valencia region and 188th in the world. The Spanish Type Culture Collection (CECT), a broad scope collection, is a central service of the University of Valencia and thus, benefits from and excellent academic and research environment. CECT is the only collection of microorganisms that maintains and supplies prokaryotes and fungi, and is of official and public nature in Spain. Founded in 1960, it is a member of the World Federation on Culture Collections (WFCC) since 1977 and of the European Culture Collection Organization (ECCO) since 1983. In 1992, it was recognised as an International Depositary Authority (IDA) for storing microorganisms for patent purposes. According to the functions of a Biological Resource Centre, CECT activities include the preservation of microbial resources, research conducted upon them, and several services offered online. The main ones are the deposit of strains under three modalities (public, restricted and under the Budapest treaty), supply of strains for many different purposes (research, teaching, quality control, and biotechnological applications, etc.), identification of isolates, training and counselling on conservation and taxonomy. CECT currently maintains circa 10,000 microbial strains, most are prokaryotes, followed by yeasts and filamentous fungi.

Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI)

Website: spieurope.eu

Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI) is a private consulting company founded in 1996 as an active centre of national and international networks connected to the SME and innovation sectors. Since its inception, SPI has become a leading promoter of linkages between private sector companies, science and technology institutions, and national and international public and private organisations. From its onset, SPI embraced the mission of managing projects that promote regional, national and international development, stimulate entrepreneurship, innovation and knowledge management and encourage internationalisation and creation of strategic partnerships and business relationships. SPI has vast experience in EU project management including in over 25 FP7/CIP and now over 40 H2020 projects across a range of research themes including a strong international component such as ICT, smart energy, environment, food, biotechnology, health, international cooperation of science, technology and innovation, nanosciences, nanotechnologies, NMP and space. SPI has a wide-ranging experience in dissemination and communication activities and strong networks (e.g. from H2020 projects).

Universidade do Minho (UMinho-MUM)

Website: www.uminho.pt

The Universidade do Minho (UMinho) is a public, state-funded, academic institution in the Northwest of Portugal. It is the fifth largest university in Portugal, with about 18000 students, and courses in almost all disciplines. UMinho is a research University, engaged in the valorisation of the chain Knowledge-Research, Development and Innovation. Nowadays, in the Universidade do Minho, the training atmosphere is related to lifelong education, e-learning, and long-distance training which use new educational technologies and platforms. Micoteca da Universidade do Minho (MUM) is a filamentous fungi culture collection established in 1996 and hosted by the Centre of Biological Engineering (CEB). CEB is a research centre integrated into the Portuguese Science and Technology System. It gathers the critical mass of expertise and resources necessary to respond to the industrial, economical and societal challenges related with the development and application of Biotechnology and Bioengineering. The research activities are focused on four interdisciplinary thrust areas covering the molecular, cellular and process scales, corresponding to four thematic strands: Industrial Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Environmental Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Health Biotechnology and Bioengineering and Food Biotechnology and Bioengineering.