The ENDURE European Research Group (ERG), officially launched at the ENDURE conference in November 2010 and in operation since January, aims to build on the success of the Network of Excellence through pooling resources on a longer term basis.

Its mission is: “To ensure the sustainability of crop protection in Europe through scientific excellence, interdisciplinary research, and international partnership, including policy makers and all stakeholders.”

ENDURE ERG aims to become a central point of scientific and technical reference for advisers and a recognised source of scientific advice to inform policies relevant to Integrated Pest Management (IPM). It is making research tools available to the scientific community and plans to play a leading role in building momentum on IPM-related research at the European Union level by creating synergies from national programmes.

ENDURE ERG will be concentrating on four areas in particular:

Strategy: ENDURE believes the demands placed on crop protection mean we must strengthen multidisciplinary research and develop new competencies, areas of study and approaches to innovation. ENDURE is identifying research priorities emerging from a collective dialogue with other stakeholders and research partners outside Europe. ENDURE is envisaging future needs and fuelling debates by developing scenarios on the future of crop protection.

Research: ENDURE believes that satisfying the new demands placed on crop protection R&D requires us to work at the European level to create synergies and enjoy access to the diverse competencies required by IPM. The ENDURE Resource Centre (the new name for the Virtual Laboratory) pools ENDURE’s resources and makes them available to the research community. ENDURE generates networked experimental set-ups, encourages mobility and contributes to higher education on IPM.

Support to policy: Policy makers at the European and national levels are currently implementing the EU’s ‘pesticides package’. ENDURE is providing them with scientific support to fine-tune the resulting crop protection policies at the national level. ENDURE’s Network of Experts provides on-demand scientific expertise and assessments for the advancement of IPM upon request from policy stakeholders (clients include the European Commission’s Environment Directorate General and national organisations in France and Italy).

Extension: The ENDURE Information Centre and the European Network of Advisers provide practical information, training materials and facilitate a collective learning process for extension services throughout Europe. ENDURE seeks to be a major source of documentary support on IPM solutions and to help share experience within the advisory community.

For more details on ENDURE ERG, contact the coordinator Antoine Messéan or the scientific officer Marco Barzman at: endure@grignon.inra.fr

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  ENDURE European Research Group [pdf - 538,63 kB]