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Work Packages

 

 

 

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Work Package 1 Management

 

Objective: The administrative, financial and research management of the project

 

Brief Description: This work package will take all actions necessary to guarantee the smooth operation of the project. Such actions will include a) formation of the steering committee (SC); b) commuication with the advisory board; c) recruitment of a project administrator; c) annual reporting on research project; d) biannual financial reporting to the EC.

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Work Package 2 Intelectual Property Rights strategy

 

Objective:  Development and implementation of an IPR strategic plan for products and services which will be developed

 

Brief Description:  This work package will focus on the establishment of an IPR strategic plan for the future exploitation and rights regarding products (eg. PesticideCHIP) and services developed during the course of LOVE-TO-HATE. The preparation of the plan will be undertaken by an IPR committee and an IP manager who will be recruited for a certain period of the project.

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Work Package 3 Reinforcement of human resources: recruitments and secondments

 

Objective:  The establishment of technology and knowledge transfer between academic and industrial partners through secondments and recruitments of research staff

 

Brief Description:  This work package will deal a) with the secondment of ERs and ESRs fellows from academic to industrial partners and vice versa; overall 10 ESRs, 7 ERs and 5 MERs will be seconded, b) the recruitment of three new ERs by the three academic partners of the group.

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Work Package 4 Dissemination and outreach activities

 

Objective:  to disseminate the results of the project to relevant target groups and increase visibility of the project to the society and the scientific community

 

Brief Description: This work package will incude all activities aiming a) to disseminate the findings of the project to the society and the scientific community (e.g. launch of a website, organization of a summer-school on pesticide-microbe interactions, organization of seminars, presentations and workshops for local authorities, stakeholders, regulators and policy makers, agrochemical companies, scientific publications); b) to promote communication with the wider public and increase public awareness on science and research which could reach to commercialization (e.g. E-newsletter launch, public releases to media, podcasts on environmental topics, multimedia releases, open-day events, visits of seconded fellows to schools)

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Work Package 5 Pesticide soil microbial ecotoxicity assessment

 

Objectives: a) to define and execute appropriate protocols for laboratory and field assessment of the soil microbial ecotoxicity of pesticides b) to evaluate the effects of selected pesticides on soil microbial diversity and function using appropriate and advanced molecular tools

 

Brief Description: This work package will deal with the development of laboratory and field protocols for properly assessing the soil microbial ecotoxicity of pesticides. The developed protocols will be used for laboratory and field evaluation of the soil microbial ecotoxicity of three pesticides which will be selected based on their use, registration status, metabolic profiles etc. Laboratory and field experiments will be executed within the first year of the project and the dissipation/metabolism of the given pesticides will be determined. In addion, their impact on soil microbial diversity and function will be assessed using a wide array of advanced molecular tools including molecular fingeprinting, next generation sequencing, phyllogenetic microarrays, qPCR and RT-qPCR targeting selected functional genes (e.g. amoA, nirS/nirK, pcaH).

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Work Package 6 Pesticide microbial metabolism – beneficial interactions between pesticides-soil microbes

 

Objectives: a) to assess the functional diversity of pesticide-degrading microbes using omic approaches; b) to develop prototype microarray for evaluating the pesticide biodegradation potential of soils

 

Brief Description: This work package will focus on the beneficial interactions between pesticides and soil microbes. Within this context advanced omic technologies will be utilized in order to shed light into the interactions between soil microbes and pesticides leading to accelerated biodegradation of chemicals in given soils previously exposed to those pesticides. Organophosphates and phenylureas will be the study pesticide groups since soils exhibiting enhanced biodegradation capacities against these chemicals are known. Based on these findings and database gene mining a new functional microarray for assessing the degradation potential of soils against pesticides (probes with pesticide detoxification genes  e.g. opdA, atzA, cehA, linA, etc) will be developed.