UB signs an agreement with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to promote scientific collaboration in agriculture
To promote teaching and research staff collaboration, teaching staff and students international mobility and the creation of research groups with shared objectives in several agriculture research fields are the main objectives of the agreement signed by Dr Jordi Alberch, Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation and Transfer of the UB, and Dr Li Jiayang, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), a prestigious institution affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Peopleʼs Republic of China.
To promote teaching and research staff collaboration, teaching staff and students international mobility and the creation of research groups with shared objectives in several agriculture research fields are the main objectives of the agreement signed by Dr Jordi Alberch, Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation and Transfer of the UB, and Dr Li Jiayang, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), a prestigious institution affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Peopleʼs Republic of China.
The agreement was signed within the 4th Global Forum of Leaders for Agricultural Sciences and Technology (GLAST 2013), which took place on 5-6 June in Beijing. The UB, the single Spanish institution that participated in the forum, was represented by a delegation composed by Dr Jordi Alberch and the professors M. Dolors Serret and M. Isabel Trillas, from the Department of Plant Biology at the Faculty of Biology of the UB, affiliated centre with the campus of International excellence BKC.
The new agreement will deal with aspects related to institutional collaboration in order to promote research and technology transfer, increase agriculture productivity, achieve more productive crops resistant to environmental conditions, and to improve the quality of products in an attempt to strengthen agriculture and economics.
More than 300 people attended this summit conference on future agriculture challenges which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future. CGIAR research aims at reducing rural poverty, increasing food security, improving human health and nutrition, and ensuring more sustainable management of natural resources.
It is important to remember that the collaboration among UB and Chinese research institutions on agriculture was born within the programme Optichina (Breeding to Optimise Chinese Agriculture), an international consortium built up within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union and led by Josep Lluís Araus, professor from the Department of Plant Biology of the UB and head of the Consolidated Research Group on Ecophysiology of Mediterranean Agriculture of the UB. Particularly addressed to sustainable agriculture sector, Optichina aims at promoting research and technology transfer among European and Chinese scientific groups. China has achieved rapid development in its agricultural sector and rural areas, and it is an emergent power in agriculture.