The "PLant science in the ANThropocene" (PLANT) workshop will run from March 24 to April 4, 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 100 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 environmental and 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)
Each of these themes will also cover cross-cutting issues: training, innovation and outreach activities.

Mornings will consist mainly of presentations by about 40 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: February 17, 2025 (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!

Provisional program

Theme I: "Frontiers in Plant Science fundamental research"

Monday March 24
- Loïc Lepiniec (IJPB, SPS - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - AgroParisTech, France) – “Plant Sciences in the Anthropocene”
- Christophe Maurel (BPMP, France) – “Plants and water: climate change puts the pressure on”
- Dolf Weijers (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) – “A protein-centered view towards fundamental plant biology”
- To be announced

Tuesday March 25
- Kalina Haas (IJPB INRAE, France) – Title to come
- Marek Mutwill (NTU Singapore) – Title to come
- Detlef Weigel (MPI Tubingen, Germany) – "Imperfect plants in an imperfect world"
- Sheng Luan (UC Berkeley, USA) - "Decoding calcium signals contributes to sustainable agriculture"

Wednesday March 26
- Veronica Grieneisen (Cardiff University, UK) – "The multi-scale nature of transport in plants: from auxin to nutrients, and translating knowledge from Arabidopsis to other species"
- Bruno Moulia (PIAF INRAE, France) – “Mobilizing Interdisciplinarity for Plant Sciences: Lessons and Pathways”
- Nicholas Provart (University of Toronto, Canada) – "Raising the BAR for Plant Translational Biology: Guard Cell Drought Transcriptomes Use Case"
- Andreas Weber (CEPLAS, Heinrich Heine University, Germany) – “Overcoming limitations of photosynthesis through synthetic biology”

Theme II: “Feeding the planet: roles for Plant Science and associated environmental and socio-economic challenges"

Thursday March 27
- Carole Caranta (INRAE, France) – Title to come
- Claire Chenu (INRAE, France) – "Plants' contribution to Carbon sequestration in soils and soil health"
- Philippe Ciais (LSCE, France) – Title to come
- Pamela Ronald (UC Davis, USA) – “Engineering crops for resilience to a changing climate”
- Ben Scheres (Wageningen University Research, The Netherlands) – “The potential and pitfalls of Data Driven Breeding for sustainable agriculture”

Friday March 28
- Faouzi Bekkaoui (INRA Maroc) – “Contribution of agricultural research for better resilience of Moroccan agriculture”
- Heribert Hirt (KAUST, Saudi Arabia) – “Harnessing the power of deserts for fortifying plants to climate change”
- Monica Höfte (Ghent University, Belgium) – Title to come
- Pere Puigdomènech (CRAG, Spain) – “Role of scientists in debates on sustainable food production”

Monday March 31
- Catherine Feuillet (INARI Agriculture, USA) – "Solving Our Food System Challenges Through Integrated Innovation"
- Christian Huyghe (INRAE, France) – “Feeding the planet while getting back into the planetary boundaries: challenges and possible trajectories”
- Paul Leadley (ESE, France) – Title to come
- Global economy / To be announced

Tuesday April 1
- David Baulcombe (University of Cambridge, UK) – "Durable Disease Resistance in Crops"
- Olivier Hamant (INRAE and ENS Lyon, France) – “Sustainability: Robustness before efficiency”
- Sophie Nicklaus (INRAE, France) – “Driving consumers to eat more plant-based foods: nutritional, taste and organizational challenges”
- Marc-André Selosse (MNHN, France) – “Microbiota supporting plants and health:  how to support them”

Theme III: "Plants as factories: from chemical compounds to mitigating climate change”

Wednesday April 2
- Stéphanie Baumberger (IJPB, France) – “Role of plant sciences in the development of a global sustainable bioeconomy”
- Caroline Gutjahr (MPI Potsdam, Germany) – “Harnessing arbuscular mycorrhiza to enhance plant resilience”
- Wolfgang Busch (Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA) – “Harnessing Plants for Direct Carbon Removal: Generating Long-Lived Soil Carbon”
- Global economy / To be announced

Thursday April 3
- Wout Boerjan (VIB / Gent University, Belgium) – “Metabolomics to discover metabolic pathways for crop improvement”
- Herman Höfte (IJPB, France) – “Perspectives in plant cell wall research”
- Anne Osbourn (John Innes Centre, UK) – “A million shades of green: Understanding and harnessing plant metabolic diversity for food and health applications”

Friday April 4
- Kazuki Saito (RIKEN, Japan) – “The challenge of phytochemical genomics in the Anthropocene”
- Frédéric Bourgaud (ENSAIA, France) – Title to come
- Olivier Martin (IPS2, France) – “Conclusion and Prospects”