Plant Molecular Farming is the manufacture of high-value products using plant biotechnology. Pharma-Factory was conceived and designed by SMEs active in the field to produce medical, veterinary and diagnostic products. Product-driven work packages and a collective approach to public involvement and regulatory consultation will accelerate commercialisation of new bio-products, and increase the competitiveness of European bio-industry by resolving technical, social and economic bottlenecks in this field. All parts of the work programme are addressed by refining technologies using new synthetic biology tools, demonstrating manufacturing advantages for individual products, identifying a clear regulatory path for each platform technology, developing clear business cases with supporting techno-economic evaluations and life cycle analyses and improving public engagement and acceptance. Five SMEs will develop products that include arylsulfatase B (for human enzyme replacement therapy), a vaccine for infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus in fish, two highly potent HIV neutralising antibody-based fusion proteins and plant chimaeric virus-like-particles for a diagnostic kit. In collaboration with academic partners they will advance six plant molecular farming platforms for this purpose, including whole plants, algae, hairy roots and plant cell culture, by designing and developing new tools to increase the competitiveness, utility and versatility of each platform. All companies will reach Technology Readiness Level 5 within the lifetime of the project, with two products to be commercialized. The project provides a unique opportunity to improve public involvement with plant biotechnology at a European-wide level. A work package has been dedicated to gain maximal impact by engaging with all stakeholders – from scientists to government and the public at large, developing new tools to facilitate communication, to help understand and reduce barriers to acceptance.

The University of Lleida, whose origins as a higher education institution date back to the year 1300 under the name of Estudi General de Lleida, has been participating in the Erasmus programme since it was renamed and refounded in 1991. Up to that moment, its faculties and schools had also taken part in the Erasmus mobility scheme through the universities in Barcelona which they used to belong to. The University has joined, from the very beginning they were launched, the new actions that the programme has developed, as it was the case with traineeships and training mobilities some years ago, and it is now with associated countries.The main aim pursued by the University of Lleida through its participation in the Erasmus programme is the internationalisation of its university community, directly by means of student and staff outgoing mobility as well as indirectly by means of internationalisation-at-home actions. Within this context, the Internationalisation Operational Plan of the University of Lleida regards mobility of students, lecturers and administrative staff, both incoming and outgoing, as one of the three most important goals of internationalisation in university teaching. The University of Lleida thought its participation in this second edition of the program Erasmus + Mobility of Higher Education between countries of the program and associates (KA107) as an important instrument to strengthen the university policy in the implementation of European programs as well as to reinforce mobility policies with non-member institutions of the Erasmus + program. The project includes mobility of students and teaching staff, both incoming and outgoing, with Algeria, Indonesia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan and Lebanon. With the institutions of each of these countries, the program has been implemented and most of the stays have been carried out.The overall satisfaction degree of the participants is very high, both in student mobility and in staff mobility (100% both in outgoing and incoming). With regard to the learning outcomes gained through their stay abroad, students highlight the construction and improvement of their personal abilities: planning and carrying out their learning independently, resolving capacity, ability to plan and organize tasks and activities and recognize the value of different cultures. Students also report some acquired and improved social skills during their Erasmus stay, such as adapting to new situations and being more receptive and curious to new challenges, improving skills related to the professional sector, the ability to cooperate with people of different cultures and the acquisition of more personal confidence. On the other hand, teaching and administrative staff have specially valued the increase in job satisfaction, the effort of cooperation with the partner institution and the expansion of the professional network.Besides the impact on the participants, and in line with the goals of the Internationalisation Operational Plan of the University of Lleida, the participation in the Erasmus+ programme contributes to the internationalisation of the University as a whole, both through the acquisition of international experience on the part of its teaching and administrative staff, and through the internationalisation of its classrooms thanks to the presence of students and staff from other countries. Our participation in the Eramus KA107 implies the reinforcement of the mobility with credits recognition with non- Erasmus member universities and in some cases also, the beginning of academic mobility with universities with which there was not this kind of collaboration, especially in master and PhD level. Beyond the university, the presence of a high number of foreign students has an important social and economic impact on the city of Lleida.In the long run, the academic mobility of students and staff is one of the actions pursued by the University of Lleida so as to improve the level of internationalisation of the institution in the field of teaching, in order to train highly qualified professionals who are able to take up the challenges of a global world and to help generate a positive impact on the fabric of the society and the economy in their environment.

Pressures on forest ecosystems are very likely to increase as a consequence of socioeconomic and demographic trends. A growing population will demand more products (e.g., wood) to be extracted from forest ecosystems. At the same time, these harvesting activities and their interactions with global change drivers will impact the sustainability of the supply of a wider range of non-provisioning services (e.g., wildfire protection, water, and biodiversity). The integrity of ecosystems must be safeguarded when developing harvesting activities, and yet this is further complicated by the occurrence of natural disturbances such as wildfires and droughts, etc. New decision support approaches are needed that can cope with this challenge. European and the American experiences with the development and application of decision support approaches for the provision of ecosystem services (ESs), offer a solid base for continued improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of forest management in the context of global change (e.g., responding to changes in demographics, socioeconomics, and climatic conditions). This provided the rationale for a project that will help to strengthen research collaboration through active networking and staff exchange between 8 European organizations and 10 American organizations that are leaders in these fields. This project will build from the top-level multidisciplinary expertise (wildfire ecology and management, wildfire behaviour simulation, hydrology, process-based modelling, biodiversity, wildlife management, ecology, water services, operations research, management science, stakeholder engagement, forest ecosystem management planning methods, supply chain management methods and decision support systems) in these organizations to address the integration of operational, tactical and strategic forest ecosystem management planning levels and potentiate the supply of ecosystem services at various spatial and temporal scales.

The objective of GenTORE is to develop innovative genome-enabled selection and management tools to optimise cattle resilience and efficiency (R&E) in widely varying environments. These tools, incorporating both genetic and non-genetic variables, will be applicable across the full range of systems (beef, milk and mixed), and will thereby increase the economic, environmental and social sustainability of European cattle meat and milk production systems. To achieve this, GenTORE brings together: 1) multidisciplinary scientific expertise in genomics, environmental assessment, nutritional physiology, health management, precision livestock farming, mathematical modelling, and socio-economics; 2) partners and stakeholders representing breeding organisations, farm technology companies, farm and veterinary advisory services, and farm sectors (organic, grazing, etc.); and 3) a unique data basis including >1 million genotypes. This multi-actor team will develop tools for: multi-breed selection for R&E, characterisation of diverse farm environments, large-scale phenotyping of R&E using on-farm technology, on-farm management of breeding and culling decisions, and predicting the consequences for farm resilience of changing breeding and management. These tools are designed to be applicable under commercial conditions at the end of the project. They will allow increased use of the genomic diversity in cattle breeds, e.g. use of selective cross-breeding to best exploit the local production environment. They will also allow farm managers, their advisors, and policy-makers, to assess the relative importance of breeding for animal resilience vs breeding for efficiency, with respect to system resilience. As such GenTORE will not only enable the use of genomic information to facilitate predictive biology of efficiency- and resilience-related traits, but will also increase resilience of livestock production in the face of current and future challenges of climate change and food security.