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March 2012
SPPS prizes open for proposals
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SPPS has traditionally awarded the SPPS Popularization Prize on its biannual congress, but in August last year it was decided to establish three additional awards. Members of SPPS are invited to propose nominates for all four prizes before 31 August 2012. The nomination and decision procedures are described in detail below, but first we would like to introduce the four prizes. Please note that all prizes are awarded biannually at the SPPS Congress and that membership of the Society is not a requirement.- SPPS Early Career Award
A monetary award to an early career scientist based in Scandinavia. The award is granted to a young, highly talented scientist, who has shown good progress and made significant, independent contributions to Scandinavian plant biology. Nominates must have achieved their doctoral degree less than 10 years before the start of the SPPS Congress. - SPPS Award
A monetary award given to a scientist based in Scandinavia in recognition of his/her outstanding, meritorious contribution to the science of plant biology in Scandinavia. - Physiologia Plantarum Award
A monetary award to a scientist that has made outstanding contributions to plant science in the areas that are covered by Physiologia Plantarum. This could be either lifetime contributions or recent breakthrough-type of contributions. - SPPS Popularisation Prize
A monetary award of honor to encourage plant biologists to bring their research results to the public. The Prize can be awarded to an author who has clearly popularized plant biology in newspapers, journal articles or books, in TV or radio, or by other public forms.
The Popularisation Prize has existed for many years but has not been awarded since 2005, when it went to Anna Haldrup from University of Copenhagen in Denmark
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March 2012
Overwhelming interest in Fascination of Plants Day
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Already more than 275 institutions from 37 countries have signed up to make local events at the first Fascination of Plants Day on 18 May 2012. In Europe alone, 28 countries participate, and among them Poland made a blast on 14 March when 27 organisations, research units and botanical gardens announced their participation. The last two countries to enroll were India and Israel. They are now represented by a local National Coordinator, who will guide plant science institutions, universities, botanical gardens, museums, farmers and companies to open their doors for a variety of plant-based events for all the family.
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March 2012
Global Plant Council is off for a good start
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The Global Plant Council (GPC) has now been granted status as a non-for-profit organization by the Swiss authorities. The good news came om Valentine's Day and was followed up just four days later, when GPC held its first major event by convening a symposium at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada on 18 February 2012. The symposium, entitled The Global Plant Council: Bringing a Global Plant Science Perspective to Major Issues that Threaten Mankind aimed to highlight the five critical problems the world faces:- World Hunger
- Health and Well-being
- Climate Change
- Energy and Biomaterials
- Sustainability and Environmental Protection
These five global problems have been selected as priority problem statements that should be addressed by a Working Group under GPC, and each of them was highlighted by a speaker from the member organizations.
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March 2012
Some like it hot: Farming in a changing climate
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Global climate changes are posing major challenges on future agricultural production. Annual temperatures are expected to increase by 2.5°C by the end of the century, and to make things worse the major part of this increase is going to hit the growing season. Add to this, that the weather is going to be more extreme with more frequent heat waves, longer periods of drought and more intense floods - and it seems obvious that not just our crops, but also the farmers, have to adapt to the new climatic reality very fast.
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March 2012
Scandinavian research institute:
MTT Agrifood Research Finland
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MTT Agrifood Research Finland - or simply MTT - is a governmental research institute under the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. With its headquarter in Jokioinen 100 km northwest of Helsinki and research groups spread around the country at 15 different locations, it employs approximately 750 people. Research activities cover all aspects of agriculture and forestry and are grouped into 8 thematic research programmes and 6 research areas covering key expertises:
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January 2012
Report from the Global Plant Council (GPC) meeting in China
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The 2nd Annual Meeting of the Global Plant Council (GPC) took place last summer in the Chinese city of Qingdao and was hosted by the Chinese Society of Plant Biology. GPC is an international coalition of 20 plant science societies and 14 of them were represented at the meeting. The purpose of GPC is to use the expertise of its members to address problems and identify solutions to global issues like hunger, health and climate change where plants in one way or another can play a critical role. The main focus of the meeting was to identify these problems.
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January 2012
Evaluation of Finnish plant science
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The Academy of Finland has completed an international evaluation of plant science in Finland during the period 2005-2009. Four universities (Helsinki, Eastern Finland, Oulo and Turku) and three government research organizations (MTT Agrifood Research Finland, the Finnish Forest Research Institute Metla, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland) were evaluated eventhough some of them only deal with plant science to a limited extent. The evaluation was based on pre-collected material and direct interviews by the expert panel, which was headed by Professor Dorothea Bartels from University of Bonn, Germany.
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January 2012
ShortNews from the plant science field
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ShortNews from the plant science field is a new regular section in SPPS Newsletter. Here, we will bring you up to date with some of all the small things that is going on in the field of plant science. If you happen to know about something - an arrangement, a change of organisation, some major achievements or the like - that you would like to share with a broader audience, feel free to send a notice to the SPPS secretary.
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January 2012
Farming goes vertical
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Feeding an ever increasing population in a changing climate is a huge challenge to farmers and agricultural researchers. But some believe that agriculture of the future might not depend on neither climate nor need for land. Instead of growing our crops under open skies in rural areas, the 'fields' should move indoor and into the middle of cities.
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January 2012
Scandinavian research institute:
Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences, SLU, Sweden
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SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences or Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet) is a university seated under the Ministry for Rural Affairs and, accordingly, is highly focused on research in biological resources and production. With a total staff of 2900, 700 graduate students and 4000 undergraduate students, the university deals with almost all topics related to agriculture, forestry and food industry to environmental questions, veterinary medicine and biotechnology. SLU is divided into four faculties located at four main campuses spread around the country: In this issue of the SPPS Newsletter we will present the Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences, which is located at the campus in Alnarp in the southernmost part of Sweden
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More details on the SPPS PhD Student Conference in Estonia
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Several esteemed plant scientists are attending the 7th SPPS PhD Student Conference that will take place 12-15 September 2012 in the Estonian city of Laulasmaa.
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Did you renew your SPPS membership?
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We are well into 2012, so you should have renewed your SPPS membership by now.
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7th SPPS PhD Student Conference already this year
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We are happy to announce that the 7th SPPS PhD Student Conference will take place already this autumn, from the 12th to the 15th September 2012.
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Time to renew your SPPS membership
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It is time to renew your SPPS membership for 2012.
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Fascination of Plants Day goes global
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The initiative taken by European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO) to arrange a Fascination of Plants Day has gained momentum as 153 institutions from 29 countries in Europe, Asia and Australia are now joining in.
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