This proposal SFS-03a-2014-aligned focuses to minimize the risk of introduction/impact of emerging pests threatening EU agriculture and forestry. The targets are: 1) Xylella fastidiosa and its vectors in olive, grapevine, citrus, stone fruit, ornamentals and landscape trees of high socio-economic importance; 2) ‘Ca. Liberibacter solanacearum’ and its vectors affecting a number of strategic crops such as potato, tomato and carrot; and 3) Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus (anomorph. Chalara fraxinea) and Phytophtora spp. seriously affecting broadleaf and conifer species in forest ecosystems. Targeted pests, their vectors and the host response will be explored using innovative approaches (NGS, transcriptomic). Diseases surveillance and epidemiology given by current methods will integrate improved survey protocols and remote sensing. Innovative IPM will include studies of microbiome to develop sustainable solutions in line with the EU plant health legislation. New knowledge gained with POnTE will result in an outcome-based pest prevention and management work plan to: a) implement area-wide pest risk assessments; b) prevent the entry and develop surveillance and early detection tools (diagnostic kits, lab-on-chip, new biomarkers); c) mitigate the spread and reduce the socio-economic impact; d) IPM based on disease resistance, disease-free seeds, cultural practices and physical environmentally-friendly treatments; e) support knowledge-based decision-making policies at EU level. The proposal fosters and promotes a multi-actor approach and transnational research collaborations among 25 Partners at the forefront of research in plant protection, agro-engineering and economics. It involves key industries/SMEs that develop diagnostic kits and services, agrochemical and seed companies, stakeholder groups. End-users will participate in the development of the project and immediately implement the practical solutions derived from the outcomes to solve these serious emerging diseases.

Ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss may facilitate the emergence of zoonotic diseases. The 4-year ZOE project will analyze the links between landcover and land use changes in tropical biodiversity hot-spots facing loss of primary forest and biodiversity and in temperate regions that have undergone ecosystem degradation and deforestation over historical timescales. In areas experiencing different levels of ecosystem degradation, biodiversity assessments will be based on remote sensing-based GIS analysis of landscape structures, geobotanic plant mapping, and targeted trapping of rodents, ticks, and mosquitoes, as prototypic reservoirs and vectors of zoonotic diseases (macro-organism scale). Host- and soil-associated microbiome and virome high-throughput sequencing will be combined with assessment of human exposure to prototypic zoonotic pathogens, using high-throughput serological analyses (microbiological scale). ZOE will link with local communities and stakeholders to address perceived land use and land cover changes, disease occurrence, coping strategies, and risk behaviour. Results will be synthesized in modelling and risk mapping frameworks linking biodiversity loss and zoonotic disease risks and tested in forecasting scenarios to feed into cost-efficient monitoring schemes and early warning systems. An online knowledge platform will be created to link all relevant stakeholders of the biodiversity-health nexus, including other EU-funded consortia, national and supranational organizations stakeholders, local communities, and the public. A joint stakeholder conference will be organized, and community engagement workshops will specifically co-create and advance knowledge in local communities involved in ZOE. The ZOE project is proposed by an interdisciplinary consortium with expertise in geography, geobotanics, ecology, virology, immunology, epidemiology, sociology, psychology, anthropology and science dissemination from 7 EU and 4 American countries.

XF-ACTORS aims to establish a multidisciplinary research program to answer the urgent need to improve prevention, early detection and control of Xylella fastidiosa (Xf). Recently, Xf was introduced into Italy, where it is causing severe damage to olive crops, and in France, where so far it is limited to ornamental plants and some landscape trees. The overall goal of the research program is to assess Xf potential to spread throughout EU territory, while maximizing its impact through a multifactor approach, based on a seamless integration amongst the 29 partners involved. Proposed actions will be complementary to those carried out under the Project POnTE - 635646, thus ensuring an unbroken continuity with currently ongoing efforts. Specific objectives have been outlined following a step-by-step route, from preventing its introduction into pest-free areas to the establishment of successful eradication strategies in infected zones. Preventive measures against Xf will be strengthened by implementing EU certification programs and developing a plan for establishing a EU Clean Plant Network. EU policy makers will be supported through the development of pest risk assessment tools, focused on current outbreaks and forecasting potentially threatened regions. Surveillance will be properly implemented, supporting the development of early detection tools for field use, remote sensing technology and predictive modelling. Critical information on the pathogen biology, epidemiological traits and hosts under threat, will be gathered with the guidance of the American research groups with long-established research. At the same time, the insect-bacteria interactions will be determined, for developing strategic control measures. The final overall objective is a comprehensive integrated management strategy for diseases associated with Xf, applicable both IPM and organic farming systems, to prevent Xf spread, control its economic, environmental/social impact, when an outbreak would occur.

Science has undergone, since the end of the XX century, a biotechnological development hardly imagined some years ago. Genetics, medicine and new technologies have transformed human reality as we knew it up to now, raising serious ethical doubts. Is everything technically possible also acceptable in ethical terms? And if so, where are the legal limits? In Biolaw it converge science to reach an advanced knowledge, ethics to question the limits and the complexity of realities and law to offer a fair response. However, the professional world and the academia lack the skills, the training opportunities and the necessary resources to cope with these problems. With this project, we hope to create a mass of well trained lecturers and professionals in the field of Biolaw at each partner institution in Costa Rica and Mexico. On the basis of the existing offer and demand, we will develop 4 capacity and 2 doctoral courses online, focused on research skills and on Bio-law specific topics. We will support the launch of a new joint doctoral programme in Mexico and will support its expansion with 1 more university in Mexico and 2 new in Costa Rica. The courses will be developed and taught online and in 3 different languages (English, French and Spanish). The new academic offer, together with a set of training and dissemination activities –international seminars, conferences and stays abroad- and the help of new elearning and bibliographical equipment, will come to integrate the partner’s doctoral and lifelong learning offer, contributing this way to the emergence of a critical mass of well trained lecturers and professionals and to its further development, also at international level.The project will surely impact not only in partner institutions, improving their accessibility, visibility and their capacity of attraction and influence, but also in the public and private sectors of Health, Environment a Law in the partner regions and countries.