The « PLant science in the ANThropocene » (PLANT) workshop will run from March 24th to April 4th, 2025 at the Institut Pascal of the University Paris-Saclay (campus about 25 km south of Paris).

This 2-week workshop will address key challenges for the international Plant Science community, from basic sciences to socio-economic and environmental aspects including climate change. It will gather about 60 international scientists. The attendance will mix high stature senior scientists, together with numerous younger ones.

The program will focus on three themes:
– Theme I: « Frontiers in Plant Science fundamental research » (March 24-25-26)
– Theme II: “Feeding the planet: roles for Plant Science and associated socio-economic challenges » (March 27-28-31 and April 1)
– Theme III: « Plants as factories: from chemical compounds to mitigating climate change” (April 2-3-4)

Mornings will consist mainly of presentations by about 20 senior scientists, who will provide their vision of how to rise to those challenges, while the afternoon sessions will be devoted principally to brainstorming across generations on selected topics. This workshop will thus require input from all participants, the goals being the emergence of consensus community opinions and the specification of paths to success for several major challenges, be they at the level of training the next generation, guiding deciders of public policies, or connecting with the wider public on the importance of plant sciences in the Anthropocene. All these challenges are of high complexity and depend on several disciplines. Thus, beyond plant biologists and geneticists, some participants will come from agronomy, ecology, social and environmental sciences, economics, and also from chemical, physical and computational sciences.

Syntheses in the form of opinion papers will be drafted for publication.

APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN FOR PARTICIPATION IN THIS WORKSHOP

Applications deadline: Tuesday December 17, midnight
To know more and apply : https://indico.ijclab.in2p3.fr/event/10763/

Admission is restricted because of capacity constraints and the need to have the brainstorming sessions be effective. There are no registration fees and lunches and coffee breaks will be provided.
Participants must hold a PhD.

Note: There are no sessions during the week-end of March 29-30, you can use your free time to do some tourism!

Confirmed speakers:

David Baulcombe (University of Cambridge, UK)
Faouzi Bekkaoui (INRA Maroc)
Wolfgang Busch (Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA)
Carole Caranta (INRAE, France)
Claire Chenu (INRAE, France)
Nathalie Diagne (myAgro, Senegal)
Catherine Feuillet (INARI Agriculture, USA)
Veronica Grieneisen (Cardiff University, UK)
Caroline Gutjahr (MPI Potsdam, Germany)
Kalina Haas (IJPB INRAE, France)
Olivier Hamant (INRAE and ENS Lyon, France)
Helke Hildebrand (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
Heribert Hirt (KAUST, Saudi Arabia))
Monica Hofte (Ghent University, Belgium)
Laurent Laplaze (IRD Montpellier, France and CERAAS, Senegal)
Bruno Moulia (PIAF INRAE, France)
Marek Mutwill (NTU Singapore)
Anne Osbourn (John Innes Centre, UK)
Nicholas Provart (University of Toronto, Canada)
Péré Puigdomenech (CRAG, Spain)
Pamela Ronald (UC Davis, USA)
Kazuki Saito (RIKEN, Japan)
Ben Scheres (Wageningen University Research, The Netherlands)
Marc-André Selosse (MNHN, France)
Andreas Weber (CEPLAS, Heinrich Heine University, Germany)
Detlef Weigel (MPI Tubingen, Germany)
Dolf Weijers (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)