Items on the agenda included the identification of topics for C-IPM’s 2016 call (2017 funding), the presentation and discussion of ideas for knowledge-sharing workshops, and a discussion of how to help foster IPM using communication approaches.

Topic selection for the 2016 call began in August with a long list of topics produced by early autumn. One of the main objectives of the annual meeting was to discuss these topics and select those in which most funders have common interests. The final list is expected to be ready in March 2016.

During the meeting, the C-IPM executive committee proposed a number of workshops to increase knowledge transfer. These include a workshop on biocontrol co-organised by C-IPM, Ecophyto and IOBC (read more here) and a workshop on IPM demonstration farms to be held in May, 2016, in Bonn, Germany. In addition, workshops on Drosophila suzukii  and on breeding for IPM can be expected in 2016.

The meeting also heard about progress on the strategic research agenda for IPM in Europe. The strategic research agenda has been the subject of two stakeholder consultations and the C-IPM executive committee is now finalizing the document, which will be submitted to the European Commission by the end of March 2016.

This article is a shorter version of the one which first appeared on the C-IPM website. You can read the complete article here.