ERA-PG was an ERA-NET focused on Plant Genomics supported by the European Commission 6th Framework programme. It consisted in a collaborative network of ministries and agencies running programs in plant genomics. ERA-PG started in 2004 with twelve member organisations from eleven countries. In 2009, at the end of its contracting period, the network was enlarged to 23 partners from 17 countries.
Plant science entered into the era of “omics” technologies and it became obvious that it would help answering fundamental questions regarding plant growth, flowering, resources consumption, stress resistance, …
The scientific community soon realized that answering these questions could help addressing key challenges such as crop production with restricted access to water, resistance to drought and salt, higher carbon dioxide sequestration, etc…
These challenges being of major importance to human health and global economy, the European commission decided to support this initiative aiming at optimizing high level collaborations and reduce knowledge fragmentation in the field of plant genomics.
Major achievement of ERA-PG: