Ege University Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences Institutes

Department of Seed Science and Technology

We train "breeders" with our European Union Project.

EU Commission Supported Project Summary

Program: Erasmus+

Key Action : Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practice

Action Type : strategic partnership for higher education

Project No: 2015-1-FR01-KA203-015095

Project Name:  European Plant Breeding College

Summary

Today in Europe, the seed sector is faced with the challenge of achieving sustainable agricultural production in the face of climate change and environmental stress, ensuring agricultural production that will provide sufficient food to feed the growing population in the world. For this reason, the seed sector has to develop high varieties of adaptation to different environmental conditions and to carry out innovative work in seeds. The seed sector needs to have experience in project management, broad vision and international experience to meet these expectations, both in classical breeding methods and in biotechnological methods. However, these days there is a limited number of breeders having this profile in human resources; The seed sector has an urgent need for breeders with these characteristics.

Gent University, Ege University, Valencia Polytechnic University, Agricultural Sciences Sweden University and LaSalle Polytechnic Institute, the '' Plant Breeding '' graduate programs combine to form the European Plant Breeding Association (EPBC).

With this formation, the aim is to make each partner;

Providing students with development by sharing their experience and knowledge,

Increasing the academic quality of existing programs by increasing integration, international vision, and excellence among postgraduate master's programs,

Feeding the human resources by raising the plant breeder, which is the seed sector needs,

It is to produce projects together.

To achieve these objectives,

Online courses will share knowledge and experiences with innovative teaching methods such as webinars, project preparation.

Intensive courses and joint counseling thesis will be provided to exchange students of the project partner programs.

The establishment of an industrial rotation (internship) network system will bridge the human resource needed by the seed sector.

Organizations will be organized jointly with high school students, teachers and experts from the seed sector, who may be future breeders.

The best theses carried out in plant breeding will be selected and awarded.

As a result, EPBC will provide industry growth by meeting the plant breeder portfolio expectations of the European seed sector beyond more competitive and sustainable agriculture.

Project start and end date: 01.09.2015-31.08.2017