Labex Europe supports the scientific cooperation, which should bring contributions to tropical and temperate crops Scientists from the renowned, over 170 year-old Rothamsted Research and from Embrapa met in São Carlos (SP), on Tuesday and Wednesday (5 and 6), with a bold mission - identify research on smart crop protection, soils and more sustainable integrated systems that can be the foundation for scientific cooperation between the two institutions and enhance Brazilian and international agricultural research. The topics were selected by Rothamsted Research's Scientific Cooperation office after an analysis of Embrapa's portfolios. The work meeting has occurred in the aftermath of World Soil Day, annually celebrated on December 5, on an initiative by Labex Europe (one of Embrapa's Virtual Laboratory abroad), in partnership with the institute located in the United Kingdom (UK) and the two Embrapa centers in the city of São Carlos: Embrapa Instrumentation and Embrapa Southeastern Livestock. uch Units work on the proposed cooperation topics, as they develop research with methodologies and advanced techniques for soil analysis, such as optics and photonics, and sustainable systems, which include Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry Systems (ICLFS). Embrapa Instrumentation hosts the event, in which ten researchers from Rothamsted Research and 19 Embrapa researchers from eight centers in the Brazilian South, Southeast and Midwest join efforts to overcome the challenge of selecting projects that entail contributions for both countries. Converging with ongoing projects within the Embrapa Management System (SEG), up to four projects could be nominated to be supported by the Newton Fund/BBSRC - Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and thus kickstart the cooperation. For the acting general head of Embrapa Instrumentation, Wilson Tadeu Lopes da Silva, it is important to underscore the possibility of scientific cooperation with an institution of world excellency. “International cooperation is essential to overcome the challenges of Brazilian agriculture and achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, he clarifies. This opinion is also shared by the general head of Embrapa Southeastern Livestock, Rui Machado. “The event represents a great opportunity for interaction between high-level teams focused on the sustainable development of agriculture. It is interesting to broaden synergistic and convergent relations on behalf of sustainable intensive cattle farming in Brazil”, he asserted. Labex Europe's coordinator, Pedro Luiz Oliveira de Almeida Machado, reports that a similar procedure had already been performed by Rothamsted with China. “We are delighted to have the possibility to have a meeting of this nature, in such a differentiated format”, he stated. According to Machado, the British institution is interest in contributing to the development of Brazilian agriculture. “They expect Embrapa to already have ongoing research projects in which Rothamsted Research could join”, he said while recalling that it will be Embrapa's first partnership of the kind. Nevertheless, the Labex Europe coordinator said that this type of arrangement strengthens the traditional partnership that Embrapa already has with the British institution, which has already hosted a Labex researcher, in Harpenden, in the English county of Hertfordshire, and which has seemed contented by the scientific collaborations with the Brazilian company. Rothamsted Research also has a long history of successful partnerships in Brazil, including initiatives with private companies and funding agencies, such as the São Paulo State Foundation of Support to Research (Fapesp). “This current partnership is not with Brazil, but rather with several institutions. They have selected Embrapa and this is a recognition of the expertise and skill of our team, of the quality of our research, and of our challenges, which they also deem to be of high relevance”, Machado asserts. Dynamics The interactive workshop will be promoted according to the “Sandpit” methodology conceived by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), in 2003. The goal is to inspire innovative and multidisciplinary research proposals. Coordinated by Pedro Machado and the Rothamsted Research representatives Simon Vaughan and Nicola Yates, on the first day the workshop allows researchers to present their research projects and the main challenges related to their areas. Then, on the second day they are divided into groups. The subject “smart crop protection” involves 14 researchers, 10 of which from Embrapa and four from Rothamsted Research, which already has a program in this line of work. The proposal is to monitor and anticipate the propagation of pests, weeds and diseases in real time, and combine genetic, chemical, ecological solutions and agronomic strategies for crop protection. The other group, made up of 13 researchers - 9 from Embrapa and four from Rothamsted - will be responsible for the theme “soils and sustainable systems”. The two groups are going to discuss opportunities for joint aligned research projects that can be developed in partnership. The projects will be initially discussed in the two days of the workshop so that they will have preliminary version by the end of the meeting; but they will be finished in the United Kingdom, where they will be revised by Rothamsted Research. They will only be submitted on December 18. Approved projects will be announced in January 9, and the projects will have to be concluded by February 28, 2019. Labex's activities Labex stands for Embrapa Virtual Laboratory abroad, an initiative that aims at fostering scientific and technological cooperation with other countries. The idea was introduced in the mid 1990s, and the first virtual laboratory was implemented in the United States (Labex USA), in 1998, within the country's Department of Agriculture. Labex Europe is based in the association “Agropolis International”, in the city of Montpellier, France, where it was installed in 2002, four years after the American unit. Machado believes that the program was instituted to offer efficient performance within more structured cooperation in order to seek engagement in other important subjects that are strategic to Embrapa, differently from the also important individual cooperation, in which the researcher from an institution liaises with another colleague from a research center for a project. The coordinator explains that individual performance only depends on a person and their skill, with the risk of another topic not having the same luck, as the professional may be unfamiliar with it or have difficulties approaching researchers that can largely contribute to the advance of other themes. “The Labex program offers the possibility of better structured and more comprehensive international scientific cooperation in different themes, which would not be encompassed if it depended on a researcher's individual action”, he stresses. Translation: Mariana Medeiros