Annual progress report - Cost 873

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Monitoring Progress Report – 2009 COST 873 – Bacterial Diseases of Stone Fruits and Nuts _________________________________________________________________________________ In addition a request was made in which all MC members provided a self-rating of the Action on a scale of 1=best, highly beneficial to 3=worst, highly un-useful. The response was high with over 50% of MC members responding in 2008 and 2009, giving a high rating of overall satisfaction with COST873. Highlights of COST873 volunteered by respondent MC members in these surveys were: Website ease-of-navigation and content Communication Meetings, particularly the small STF meetings to generate research results Research collaborations initiation and support from COST873 II.C.a. Main Successes Technology and Know-How Transfer: Action 873 is ahead of schedule regarding the Tech Transfer workshops with the first held by the CoP in 2009. Smaller meetings with stakeholders were held in 2008 and 2009. Highly-significant contacts with governmental stakeholders from the EU Commission, National Ministries and the OECD have been made regarding issues of central importance to not only COST873 but European agriculture. A meeting with stakeholders was held in Brussels in 2009, and participation in the OECD biopesticides steering group was initiated in 2009. Plans are being made for an OECD-COST873 joint international conference on biopesticide regulatory issues in 2010. A wide-range of industry contacts have been established from diagnostic companies, chemical/biocontrol manufacturers, precision agriculture to breeding/nursery groups. Action 873 is on-schedule with Disease Fact-Sheets with a task-force headed by J. Elphinstone, CSL, UK established to gather existing fact-sheets from all signatory countries for posting on an already reserved space on the Action website. A number of fact sheets in local languages have been prepared and posted online or are in final stages for publication online. COST873 has already become an important resource for bacterial diseases with end-user plant inspectors, growers and scientists (e.g., incorporated into extension training in the Netherlands). COST873 has had an active and successful Training and Mobility Module. Regular training courses have received an extremely positive feedback from ESR participants as well as their mentors back home. Training materials from these courses have been published online for wider dissemination. Since the first course on classical-molecular phytobacteriology held in March 2008 at FERA, York UK, we have organized further courses in phytobacteriology (Angers FR, June 2009), walnut propagation (Murcia ES, March 2009), and pathogen genomics (Zürich CH, April 2009). These courses will remain a major focus of COST873 based on participant response to those already held. We particularly are interested in arranging courses on plant resistance genetics, phytosanitary science, and science management (perhaps as a Trans-COST training course). Two courses are already planned courses for 2010: Pseudomonas classical-molecular phytobacteriology (Belgrade, April), and Xylella phytosanitary-phytobacteriology (Bari, October) training. Initial lag in COST873 STSMs has been corrected, now with a high level of interest, and a high quality of training results – particularly due to the focus on linking STSMs with active COST873 STF research activities. This has been due to the STF sub-group instrument, exposure via Training Courses, and extensive adverstisement (online, at meetings, and one-to-one encouragement). Many participants have volunteered that www.cost873.ch has provided a simple procedure for STSM application. In fact, 38
Monitoring Progress Report – 2009 COST 873 – Bacterial Diseases of Stone Fruits and Nuts _________________________________________________________________________________ participants of other COST Actions have mentioned that they get application information via www.cost873.ch. An STSM instrument for senior scientist participants has broadened COST873 outreach by sending experienced scientists to conduct local training to a larger number of ESRs. Two such training STSMs have already been conducted in Turkey and Serbia. Further encouragement will be given in 2010 to deploy COST873 senior scientists to conduct in-field training STSMs. Note that this is available primarily as a supplement to the ERASMUS program (e.g., when exchange does not involve two academic institutions and is not eligible for ERASMUS). The links and information about ERASMUS have been posted on the website. Such STSMs will also require a training component (i.e., local class activity such as a training workshop in the lab and/or field) involving several local students, as well as the standard research component. This is anticipated to increase awareness of STSM availability and recruit promising students to take advantage of this opportunity. II.C.b. Drawbacks The Action is making excellent progress on all of its main aims: 1) coordinated research, 2) building links between research and stakeholder sectors, and 3) integration of young and developing scientists. No significant drawbacks were faced during the third year 2009. The COST873 community has developed a level of comfort that fosters timely feedback from all participants. This has enabled us to rapidly respond to concerns and interests of participants regarding COST873 activities. II.C.c. Key difficulties The Action did not face any significant difficulties during the third year 2009. Clarifying procedures to recruit new COST-countries and non-COST country institutes has been more time-consuming than expected, but in the end largely successful with applications accepted for 2 institutes from New Zealand, Lebanon, South Africa and Australia. Discussions for Macedonia, Georgia and Armenia to join have been stalled due in part to difficulty contacting correct national authorities. Even though we are in the 4 th year, continued effort will be made to recruit members from the EU margins in 2010. COST873 recognizes several benefits of this: 1) long-term value of establishing contacts to develop post-COST873 cooperation and research projects, 2) critical role such regions hold for European phytosanitary security, particularly concerning regulated pathogens, 3) value of plant germplasm resources, particularly species that originated/diversified in these regions, and 4) the potential impact even 2 years of COST873 training opportunities can have on less-experienced institutes/scientists in these regions. Minor organisational hurdles arose from confusion over mid-year start of the annual budget period, but this just required providing more direction in planning activities. As with probably all COST Actions, obtaining information from a majority of participants to prepare annual reports has been a perennial difficulty. Organisation by COST of a professional seminar on project management for new Action Chairs (e.g., at the APC when Chairs are excused from DC discussions) would be very useful, and this could be one topic to cover. 39
Page 1 and 2: Monitoring Progress Report - 2009 C
Page 37: Monitoring Progress Report - 2009 C

Annual progress report - Cost 873

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?