Plant science to tackle climate change - SPS-CEPLAS Summer School 2024

This Summer school is co-organized by the French Saclay Plant Sciences (SPS) network and the German Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS).

Mankind is facing an unprecedented challenge from anthropogenic climate change. This is already associated with altered rainfall patterns, extreme weather events and less predictable seasonal patterns, which are expected to increase in the future. Climate change is a major challenge to crop production, food security and therefore to human society.

Agriculture is a victim of climate change but also a culprit since 20-25% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are released through agricultural activities. Without a substantial diet change, the ever-growing world population will require a 70-100% increase of agricultural productivity by 2050 to produce enough food. This must be achieved in a sustainable manner without compromising nutritional quality and in a context of decreasing GHG emissions and increasing C-sequestration to help mitigate global climate change. This complex scenario will require resilient, higher yielding crops having a more efficient use of water and minerals, and suited to climate-change adapted cultivation schemes and practices. Moreover, laboratory/researcher practices will also have to be modified to accommodate low energy-use/low C-footprint research activities.

In this context, the SPS-CEPLAS Summer School 2024 will focus on introducing and discussing strategies, techniques and practices to carry out next generation plant research aimed at improving sustainable climate-change friendly plant productivity.

The summer school will bring together outstanding and enthusiastic young scientists (PhD students and young post-docs) and high-level researchers from all over the world in order to exchange knowledge and ideas. It is limited to a small group of participants (20 maximum) to privilege informal interactions and scientific discussions.