BIOSUPPORT · Strengthening the University of Plovdiv Research Potential in Plant Systems Biology and Food Biotechnology

Currently, the University of Plovdiv (UoP) and the Faculty of Biology (FoB) is covering a wide field of research activities which can be put under the area of plant systems biology, food testing and biotechnology. It is one of the best performing research organizations in Bulgaria in its field. It hosts very well trained core staff, with researchers that have been serving different trainings and work periods in high level European universities and have good quality publications in peer review international journals. Nevertheless UoP-FoB urgently needs to keep-up with the contemporary science in the field and to strengthen its human resources capacity and research infrastructure. The main opportunities would be more and better trained staff, better connections and dissemination of results, leading to the upgrading to a larger, better organized and much stronger research infrastructure with significant regional impact on the industry and strong partnership with leading EU research institutions. The objective of this project would be also to further consolidate the full research capacities of the UoP-FoB with the support from affiliated scientists from two other Faculties by supporting its action plan for future development in one general field which has been under development for the last 15 years by different research groups. Strong cooperation with regional SMEs and food industry as a whole would be another important objective, achieved both by inclusion of SMEs in the project team and external support from the major industry players in the country in the field of Plant and Food Biotechnology. This will be achieved by acquiring of new equipment, series of mobility of the scientists in different high quality European research institutions, secondment periods of prominent European researchers in UoP, organizing conference and workshops in key topics for the UoP, and visiting international scientific events.