The John Innes Centre (JIC) in the United Kingdom has formed a new alliance with the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics in Spain, and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany. The alliance will promote the vision of a pan-continental European Research Area.

The partnership will initially focus on enabling graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to work together, share experiences and move between the three centers. Dr. Inmaculada Ferriol-Safont from Barcelona is the first early-career researcher to move to Norwich as part of the alliance. Other early-career researchers from the three institutes are already planning a conference for their group in Catalonia in the Autumn of 2019, which will facilitate the building of many new networks for the future.

Professor Dale Sanders, Director of the John Innes Centre, said "We remain committed to being part of an open and successful European Research Area. For that reason, I am absolutely delighted to join with two of our strongest peers in Europe to form this new alliance."

For more details, read the JIC news release.

Figure: Dr Inmaculada Ferriol-Safont is a post-doctoral researcher who will study the potentially devastating viruses of curcubit (cucumber) in the lab of Professor George Lomonossoff.