FertiCycle holds 3rd Annual Meeting

By Paul Petersen

In mid-September of this year, the FertiCycle ITN held its 3^rd Annual Meeting at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, University of Lisboa (ISA), in Lisbon, Portugal.  The two day meeting was held immediately after the first module in the FertiCycle C4 Course – Research Communicating, Presentation and Population Outreach, a course offered to FertiCycle Research Fellows through ISA.  

The Annual Meeting was an opportunity for FertiCycle Early Stage Researchers (ESRs or Research Fellows), to present the progress of their research and training activities to fellow ESRs, supervisors, project beneficiaries and partners.  Additionally, the working groups for this project were also able to meet and plan out the last 16 months of the project timeline, including future courses, secondments and internships, and a planned a final conference or seminar. 

Each ESR gave a 15 minute presentation on their specific research project, with a 5 minute question and answer round.  Most notable at was the progress and growth seen in the academic development of the FertiCycle ESRs.  The FertiCycle ITN project coordinator, Lars Stoumann Jensen, communicated this to the ESRs after the meeting by stating, ‘I was really pleased to see all the progress of the ESRs, it is clear you are all on your pathway to successful research outcomes, and you have gained so much more confidence in yourself and have become more skilled in presenting your work clearly – congratulations! You all still have quite a bit of work and learning ahead of you, but you seem to be on the right track.’   And Dave Chadwick, Professor of Sustainable Land Use Systems, and FertiCycle ESR supervisory from Bangor University stated ‘It is really encouraging to see how much the confidence of our ESR’s has grown since the last meeting.’

The meeting was highlighted with by two Keynote presentations.  The first by Javier Brañas Lasala and João Castro Pinto, FERTIBERIA, on Bio-based fertilizing products as the best practice for agriculture management sustainability – The B-Ferst Project; and the last Keynote presented by  João Coimbra, a progressive Portugese farmer at Quinta da Cholda farm, on New challenges for sustainable maize growth – the relevance of new fertilizers.  The presentations were highly informative and motivating, and the FertiCycle consortium is grateful for their participation and contributions.

The last Annual Meeting for FertiCycle, scheduled for some time in the Fall of 2023, will be a associated with a seminar or conference.  So much more to come!