CzPPN could secure a leading position for the Czech Republic in European plant research infrastructure
The Czech Plant Phenotyping Network (CzPPN), coordinated by CATRIN at Palacký University Olomouc, received an excellent rating in the recent international evaluation of Czech large research infrastructures, organised under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. The results will inform the Czech government’s decision on public funding for large research infrastructures from 2027 onwards. The platform has long been seeking inclusion in the Czech Roadmap of Large Research Infrastructures.
“We are pleased that we managed to attract the attention of the international expert panel and convince its members that our infrastructure fills a gap in the portfolio of Czech research infrastructures in agriculture and food production, while also having links to environmental and health research. Inclusion in the roadmap would enable the Czech Republic to join the European research infrastructure EMPHASIS, something we have been working towards for a long time,” said Lukáš Spíchal, Head of CATRIN-BIO and leader of the platform.
CzPPN brings together four Czech universities, an institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the technology company PSI (Photon Systems Instruments). The network is coordinated by CATRIN at Palacký University, with Masaryk University, the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava and the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences as partners.
At the European level, CzPPN is a potential Czech national node of EMPHASIS, a research infrastructure focused on plant phenotyping at different levels and recognised as an ESFRI Landmark, one of Europe’s major research infrastructures. EMPHASIS is currently moving towards launching its operations as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). The CzPPN consortium has been actively involved in EMPHASIS for many years, including its preparatory phases, EMPHASIS-PREP and EMPHASIS-GO, and has the potential to become an influential member.
“Based on the overall assessment, including all three external evaluation reports, the evaluation panel considers CzPPN a very high-quality proposal with clear benefits at both national and European levels, which would enable the Czech Republic to take a leading position within the EMPHASIS infrastructure,” reads an excerpt from the evaluation report, in which CzPPN received an “excellent” rating.
The proposal to establish the new research infrastructure, the Czech Plant Phenotyping Network, previously underwent an international evaluation of large research infrastructures in 2021. Although it received a positive assessment at the time, CzPPN was not approved as a large research infrastructure due to financial constraints.
This year’s assessment of large research infrastructures was again carried out by an international evaluation committee in accordance with the established evaluation methodology. The assessment was based on the submitted project documentation, external international peer-review reports and interviews with representatives of the proposed research infrastructures.
