A great news for the European Culture Collections is the recent project approved by the European Commission, under the call “Research and Innovation Actions - INFRADEV-03-2019”, and entitled Implementation & Sustainability of Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure for 21st Century (IS_MIRRI21).
This IS_MIRRI21 project was built on the top of the preparatory phase European project Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure (MIRRI) and subsequent work done by the Interim National Coordinators Forum (INCF) and Assembly of prospective Members (AM).
In brief, IS_MIRRI21 will push forward all work done so far under the MIRRI umbrella in order to establish this organisation as an European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) which is a specific legal form that facilitates the establishment and operation of world-class research infrastructure (RI). In addition, IS_MIRRI21 aims to implement the Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure (MIRRI) and secure its long-term sustainability. With this in mind, the mission of IS_MIRRI21 is to serve Bioscience and Bioindustry by providing (a) a broad range of high-quality biological resources and associated data, (b) long-term sustainability of microbial biodiversity, and (c) knowledge and professional development. This mission will be achieved by offering users from academia, governmental laboratories and the private sector access to a portfolio of microbial Biological Resource Centres' (mBRC’s), services, expertise, education and training build-up and synergistically on the top of mBRC’s proficiencies. To accelerate innovative research processes in life sciences and biotechnology using microorganisms, or their derivatives, IS_MIRRI21 will set up a single-entry point portal (Collaborative Work Environmental) to promote its services, resources, expertise and knowledge transfer activities, as well as to provide access to partners´ resource associated data made interoperable for data searching and data mining. The continuously increasing knowledge will be transferred to users via expert clusters (e.g., for legal framework, for biosecurity, to support training and education programmes, information and cut edge technology, etc.). It will promote cross-disciplinary and innovative solutions (industry and academic) research collaboration through the transnational access offer (pilot study) in different microbial topics defined in pipeline services. With this project IS_MIRRI21 envisages to be a sound partner of the ESFRI landscape on the Biological and Medical Sciences Research Infrastructures, consolidate the operation of MIRRI and enlarge the membership and European coverage and beyond.
The IS_MIRRI21 will be coordinated by Nelson Lima from Micoteca da Universidade do Minho (MUM) hosted at the Centre of Biological Engineering of the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal) with a total of 14 partners distributed by 10 countries and a budget with 5 million euros for 3 years.
Participants
- University of Minho (Coordinator) [PT]
- Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação [PT]
- Universitat de València-Estudi General [ES]
- Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique [FR]
- Institut Pasteur [FR]
- Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria [ES]
- Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen [NL]
- Service Public Federal de Programmation Politique [BE]
- Institute of Agriculture and Food Biotechnology [PL]
- University of Latvia [LV]
- National and Kapodistrian University of Athens [GR]
- Associação CCG/zgdv – Centro de Computação Gráfica [PT]
- Universita Degli Studi Di Torino [IT]
- All-Russian Collection of Microorganisms, Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms, Russian Academy of Sciences [RU]
+Info: www.mirri.org,
twitter.com/mirri_live,
www.micoteca.deb.uminho.pt,
www.ceb.uminho.pt/News/Details/3223
