A cooperation agreement between the National Research Council (CNR) and the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) for research in the bioeconomy and agri-food sectors was signed yesterday 1 April 2019. With about 700 scientists and researchers, NIBIO is the main Norwegian research center for the development of the bioeconomy, a scientific sector that deals with the use and management of marine and terrestrial biological resources.
The signing of the agreemen crowns an initiative started during the visit to Norway by CNR President Massimo Inguscio in April 2018.
Participating at the signing ceremony at the CNR headquarters in Rome were, for CNR, President Inguscio and the Director of the Institute of Biometereology (Cnr-Ibimet) Antonio Raschi and, for NIBIO, Director General Nils Vagstad and Director of Research Per Stålnacke.
The agreement aims at fostering cooperation between scientists and research centers of the two institutions, promoting new projects, workshops, seminars and conferences, in the following areas of interest:
– technological innovation and digitalisation of the bioeconomy;
– enhancement of agri-food and forestry supply chains;
– sustainable use of biology and chemistry in agro-industrial sectors;
– impacts and interactions of climate change with the bioeconomy.
In these thematic areas both parties will support joint research projects every two years.
The first call for submission of proposals will be launched expiring June 28, 2019.
The institutions will promote the achievement of these objectives with substantial contributions to the projects admitted to financing and through the common use of means and infrastructures as well as the exchange of data, information and scientific personnel.
The main architects of the initiative are the Director of the Department of Bio-food Sciences of the CNR, Francesco Loreto, and for NIBIO the Director of Research Per Stålnacke and the young Italian researchers Jonathan Rizzi and Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo.
