It's called PROSPER and it's a new European project that aims to transform European agriculture through the valorization of “orphan” legumes - resistant crops, little exploited, but with great potential to face the challenges of climate and food in the future.
The consortium, with total funding of around 5 million euros, brings together 27 partners from 13 European countries and Tunisia, including universities, research centers, companies and non-profit organizations in the agricultural sector. Among them are countries from the Mediterranean (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and France), Central Europe (Germany, Belgium, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania), Northern Europe (Denmark, Sweden and Finland).
The aim of PROSPER is to test and validate new agricultural diversification strategies, adapted to different climates and social and economic contexts, promoting more sustainable, innovative practices that are adjusted to the needs of different agricultural realities.
InPP, PROSPER's partner, will be responsible for analyzing:
Soil health and environmental impact
Energy efficiency and waste management
Nutritional quality of crops
Fair valuation along the production chain
To do this, the InPP team will use advanced technologies, such as real-time sensors and geospatial analysis, which will help study soil health, carbon sequestration captured by crops, water management and biodiversity, among others.
PROSPER is co-created with the main players in the agricultural sector, ensuring that the solutions developed do not remain on paper: they will be practical, useful and transformative.
The project starts in September 2025. We are ready to embark on this journey towards a greener, fairer and more resilient agriculture.
InnovPlantProtect (InPP) was present at the Science 2025 Meeting in Lisbon, at the Nova SBE Campus, to take part in the parallel session “Crop Protection for One Health, and Food and Environmental Sustainability”.
The Encontro Ciência took place from July 9 to 11 at the NOVA SBE Campus in Carcavelos, with the motto “Science, Innovation and Society”. Portugal's largest science and technology meeting was the stage for promoting and discussing the scientific, social, cultural and economic impact of research in Portugal, exploring the intersection between science, innovation and society, to inspire new ideas and foster transformative collaborations.
The director of the Data Management and Risk Analysis Department, Ricardo Ramiro, and the director of the New Biopesticides Department, Cristina Azevedo, presented some of the results of their work in this session co-moderated by the executive director, António Saraiva.
During the session, two important solutions for the agricultural sector, developed by our team, were presented:
iCountPests - an innovative app that uses AI to detect and count pests accurately and quickly in photos of chromotropic traps.
InPP 2 - a broad-spectrum biofungicide capable of fighting Botrytis cinerea, the fungus responsible for gray rot in tomatoes.
CoLAB MORE Colab - Collaborative Mountain Research Laboratory and Sfcolab - Collaborative Laboratory for Digital Innovation in Agriculture, were also present at the parallel session, as well as GREEN-IT, to discuss how science and innovation can tackle the challenges of climate change and promote more sustainable agricultural systems.
On June 30, InnovPlantProtect (InPP) was present at the meeting “7 years of CoLABs: impacts and perspectives”, which brought together political decision-makers, experts from the Portuguese innovation ecosystem, leaders from different sectors, representatives of public and private entities and the representatives of the 41 Collaborative Laboratories (CoLAB), at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento in Lisbon.
The meeting, organized by the Forum of Collaborative Laboratories (FCoLAB), aimed to reflect on the impact of the work carried out by the different CoLABs over the last seven years, as well as to address future prospects and identify strategies to boost the contribution of scientific research and innovation to the economy and society.
This initiative was an opportunity to showcase the products, services and solutions developed by CoLAB over the last seven years, highlighting its contribution to innovation, competitiveness and sustainability in various sectors of the economy. The application recently launched by InPP, iCountPests, which allows pests to be counted automatically using images from traps, reducing the time invested in monitoring and making it possible to create a pest history, was also highlighted.
The event was attended by the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, Fernando Alexandre, the Secretary of State for the Economy, João Rui Ferreira, Manuel Heitor, from the IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research and former Minister of Science and Innovation, António Grilo, President of ANI, among others.
In his speech, the Minister for Education, Science and Innovation, Fernando Alexandre, highlighted the purpose of science at national level: “We hope that the science created in Portugal will generate innovation. More than technology, innovation is the answer to society's problems. You are the agents of change!”.
During the session, the main activity indicators and proven impact of the first seven years of CoLABs' activity were also presented, and multisectoral perspectives on their role in the national science and innovation ecosystem were debated, focusing on topics such as socio-economic impact, internationalization, business competitiveness, technological innovation and sustainability.
The activity indicators and the impact of the 7 years of activity are as follows:
More than 260 projects approved
More than 1,300 qualified jobs created
19M€ in tax revenue generated
More than 900 interactions with companies
33 patent applications (10 granted)
680 scientific articles published
The two afternoon panels were attended by companies, partners and management entities, who reflected on the impact generated so far and presented proposals for maximizing CoLAB's long-term contribution to both the economy and Portuguese society.
At a time when the basic funding options for CoLABs are being discussed, this event is of the utmost importance. The area of crop protection, in particular, needs more investment in innovation. Holding this event was important for bringing this urgent and strategically important issue to the debate.
The InPP was also present in the exhibition area, receiving important visitors, including the Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, Fernando Alexandre, the Secretary of State for the Economy, João Rui Ferreira, the Secretary of State for Science and Innovation, Helena Canhão, the President of the FCT, Madalena Alves, the President of the National Innovation Agency, António Grilo, the President of the National Monitoring Committee for the RRP, Pedro Dominguinhos and the Executive Director of Ciência Viva, Ana Noronha.
InPP and CEPAAL formalized a partnership protocol with the aim of supporting the members of the Center for the Study and Promotion of Olive Oil in Alentejo in the protection of their olive groves.
The two entities will collaborate in developing strategies to solve the challenges posed by pests and diseases to the Center's member agricultural companies. The partnership also includes the provision of laboratory and digital services by InPP to CEPAAL producers, under specific contracts.
InPP has joined the observer group of the European Technology Platform (ETP) ‘Plants for the Future’, which represents the innovation channel in the area of plant science and agriculture. The Plant ETP aims to stimulate research and innovation by promoting dialogue between industry, academia and the agricultural community, in order to benefit producers and end consumers.
The ETPs are public-private partnerships recognized by the European Commission and are considered instrumental in the transfer of knowledge, driving innovation and promoting competitiveness at European level.
“All the new technologies applied to [plant] breeding are the result of the development of scientific knowledge and its application to a practice that goes back 10,000 years,” defended InPP's executive director, during the event. webinar “Debates on Biotechnology: from Agriculture to the Bioeconomy”. “The ability we have to improve plants so that they produce what we need is not something that suddenly appears,” recalled Pedro Fevereiro, in the session entitled “Biotechnology in agriculture and agro-industry”.
The event, organized on June 7 by the Portuguese Farmers' Confederation (CAP) and the Portuguese Bioindustry Association (P-BIO), as part of the National Agriculture Fair 2021 and BIOMEET Sessions 2021, “We are now able to intervene at specific points in order to make changes in a similar way to what happens in nature,” explains Pedro Fevereiro. The InPP CEO recalls that these NTGs derive from our current ability to sequence the genomes of all organisms, particularly plants - which allows us to know at what point we need to act in order to alter plant characteristics so that they behave as we want them to, be it with an increase in productivity, an increase in tolerance to environmental factors, etc.
NTG also allows for a much more regional adaptation to the needs of producers and consumers. “One of the big differences is that we don't introduce new DNA sequences into plants, or we introduce very small sequences.” For Pedro Fevereiro, the concern about biodiversity is really a false question, since we've always been looking for more adaptable plants and “what can affect biodiversity are bad agricultural practices”. For a CoLab like InPP, which is dedicated to developing bio-inspired technologies for crop protection, NTG is the most advanced way of managing the genome of plants so that they resist pests and diseases, particularly emerging ones, in the context of reducing the use of traditional phytopharmaceuticals.
One of the aspects enshrined in the GMO directive, which dates back to 2001, is that the legislation should be adjusted in line with the evolution and practice of these techniques, recalls the director of the InPP, concluding that “we should have started ten years ago”. Not least because only NTGs will make it possible to respond to consumer requests in good time.
The three speakers on this panel, moderated by CAP's secretary-general Luís Mira, were unanimous: communication about NTGs needs to be more effective than that regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the 1990s, and it needs to reach the general population, agreed the deputy director-general of the Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary (DGAV), and Pedro Queiroz, director-general of the Federation of Portuguese Agri-Food Industries (FIPA). Paula Carvalho, who mentioned the case of wheat in Germany and France, which has already reached stagnation in terms of production capacity, even hopes that “European legislative adaptation won't take too long”.
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