Scientific Research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech

Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech

Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg 1 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - University of Liege (GxABT-ULg) holds a privileged position at the crossing of research and development, which are at the heart of issues of international and societal interest, designating our institution as a leader in sustainable development.

One of the GxABT-ULg priorities was to increase the quality and quantity of scientific research, with this priority being organised around three Research Units; namely, AGROBIOCHEM, BIOSE and TERRA, which also include support Centres for Research and Education (CARE) and different technical platforms.

These structures have allowed the skills and expertise of GxABT-ULg to develop nationally and internationally in two major areas: «Living Resources and the Environment» and «Bioproducts and Consumers.»

GxABT-ULg emphasises the multidisciplinary and integrative approaches within these research fields, particularly with respect to their close relationship with to sustainable development. To achieve this objective, the skills and disciplines needed to meet the needs of partner organisations in our research and innovation challenges are grouped together.

2 Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg GxABT-ULg is a faculty of the University 58 CHINESE of Liege that has existed since 1860. In the 2015–2016 academic year, it had: 133 BELGIANS 17 FRENCH

1304 STUDENTS 329 PHD STUDENTS 15 BENINESE

33% FOREIGN STUDENTS 13 VIETNAMESE 9 MOROCCANS 46 NATIONALITIES 9 TUNISIANS 8 CONGOLESE 7 ALGERIANS 329 PHD STUDENTS 53 PhD students coming from Gabon, Hungary, Laos, Nepal, 7 CAMEROONESE Philippines, Italy, India... ACADEMIC, SCIENTIFIC, ADMINISTRATIVE 515 AND TECHNICAL STAFF Origin of PhD students 305 RESEARCHERS, GxABT-ULg hosted 329 doctoral including 43 PROFESSORS students during the 2015-2016 academic year, representing 34 ASSISTANTS 58 nationalities.

RESEARCHERS PROVIDING www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be/recherche 94 ADDITIONAL SERVICES G

277 RESEARCH PROJECTS ORBi HECTARES OF FIELDS AND EXPERIMENTAL FARM, 130 Open Access platform from the University of Liège including 17 HECTARES OF WOODLAND G http://orbi.ulg.ac.be

Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg 3 RESEARCH UNITS

AGROBIOCHEM

Projects in the AGROBIOCHEM Reasearch Unit aim to develop food and non-food organic products through the processing and valuation of bioresources. The aim of this unit is to improve the quality of life and well- being of human and animal populations, while preserving the environment. The Research Unit AGROBIOCHEM constitutes seven axes of research and six technical platforms, with the work being based on the expectations of consumers and the innovation needs of the sector. In the context of sustainable production methods, environmental and health aspects are at the heart of its focus. Projects in the Research Unit AGROBIOCHEM are intended to: •• characterise biological mechanisms with the objective to understand living organisms better •• improve the production of plant, animal and microbial bioresources in the spirit of sustainability •• model and manage industrial processes in the field of chemistry and bio-industries. G www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be/ur-agrobiochem

4 Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg BIOSE TERRA

Projects in the Research Unit BIOSE aim This unit includes interdisciplinary and to advance the field of the sustainable interfaculty studies that develop biological management of natural and manmade spaces. engineering in the fields of food, agriculture, biotechnology and the environment. The aim of The 2 main topics that are being developed in this unit are: this unit is to develop agriculture of the future •• the characterisation of physicochemical properties and flow in soil-water-plant systems to understand the plant-soil and its resulting products. relationship at the landscape scale. The basic principle of the centre is to stimulate exchanges This topic focuses on: among researchers across different disciplines. TERRA has 75 • studying gas exchange between agricultural and teachers and researchers, plus more than 100 PhD students forestry systems and the atmosphere, including and post-doctoral researchers. The interdisciplinary approach responses to climate and ecosystem management. of the centre promotes national and international scientific collaboration, interactions with the corporate world and • the integrated study of the water cycle, major interdisciplinary training. chemical elements and trace metals to improve our understanding on the flow of water and solutes in Over the next five years, 28 interdisciplinary projects, labelled soil and plants. TERRA, will be carried out, including 20 of them with the •• the characterisation of the components of natural systems Faculties of Sciences, Applied Sciences, Medicine, Veterinary likely to be impacted by humans, the evolution of those Medicine and the Management School within the University of systems with regards to global warming, the impact of Liège. human pressure, and the provided ecosystem services. These 28 projects have been combined into nine themes: Those two main topics lead to the development of 1. Climate change: monitoring, impact and adaptation multifunctional and participatory management models on 2. Multiscale soil systems ecosystems slightly impacted by humans, in addition to 3. Innovative methods in agricultural production improving our understanding of biotic and abiotic constraints 4. Innovation, new approaches and crop protection in highly anthropogenic environments. 5. Dynamics and changes in the forest socio-ecosystems of Central Africa The BIOSE Research Unit consists of five research axes and five 6. Feeding the future technical platforms. 7. Genetic improvement of agro-biological resources www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be/ur-biose G 8. Biotechnology innovative processes 9. Urban development of agro-ecosystems. G www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be/terra

Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg 5 To support its researchers, TERRA also EnvironmentIsLife: an Ecotron and a network develops strategies for research funding and of ground-based observatories (ICOS) the assembly of international projects. Three Ecotron is a unique device in Wallonia (Belgium) that continuously measures a set of ecosystem variables to CARE (Support Cells for Research and characterise the flow of energy and nutrients. Lysimeters Education) are associated with TERRA: instrumented in perfectly controlled conditions allow AgricultureIsLife, EnvironmentIsLife and researchers to study and model the behaviour of an FoodIsLife. ecosystem, by modulating specific environmental parameters (e.g. temperature, rainfall, atmosphere). AgricultureIsLife EnvironmentIsLife is also a part of the European network of terrestrial observatories, ICOS, with the aim to study The objective of AgricultureIsLife is to validate the gas exchange between ecosystems and the atmosphere. relevance of alternative techniques of agricultural production, and the processing of the agronomic, G www.environmentislife.be economic, social and environmental parameters. FoodIsLife AgricultureIsLife experiments production and processing innovative techniques to develop the agriculture of The objective of this strategy is to strengthen tomorrow while preserving water resources, eliminating FoodIsLife expertise at GxABT-ULg to value the spread of toxic substances in the environment and agricultural resources. The FoodIsLife teams study food in food, reducing the dependence of farms on energy, engineering and technology, from the raw material to optimizing the cycles of carbon and nitrogen, and the final product. providing people with local food resources that are From the perspective of research and support for affordable and of high quality. business development, the research focuses on the Through the use of a farm and experimental fields, fractionation steps of agricultural resources, purification, the strategy implemented by AgricultureIsLife aims processing, fermentation, etc. to increase the produced value by suggesting the As a technology platform, FoodIsLife includes workshops, diversification of sampling (or production) methods, pilot equipment and analytical laboratories that are which, once together, maximise the beneficial regulating supervised by research teams. services and reduce the costs. The pilot equipment is related to different aspects of G www.agricultureislife.be food production and fermentation. The food production equipment includes autoclaves, spray dryers, micro EnvironmentIsLife fluidisers, granulator fluidised bed dryers, UHT Studies within EnvironmentIsLife focus on the sterilisers, centrifuges, and high pressure steriliser. The evolution of interactions among water, soil, plants, fermentation equipment includes fermenters of 2 to ecosystems and the atmosphere in relation to 2000 litres and a downstream processing area. environmental factors that cause biotic and abiotic A biophysics laboratory houses additional equipment, stress. including nuclear magnetic resonance, viscometer, The effects of climate change on plants are studied blood pressure, film balance, texture analyser, (physico-chemical properties of soils, agricultural spectrophotometer, farinograph alveograph, infrared production, biodiversity, etc.) in parallel to plant- analyser, etc. Another laboratory is dedicated to atmosphere interactions (at the levels of the cell, leaf, fermentation. plant and ecosystem). G www.foodislife.be

6 Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg RESEARCH PROJECTS FUNDED THESE LAST 5 YEARS (2011-2015)

Funding sources publications 1000 per year, 2% 3% 3% 5% 6% OF WHICH 315 PEER REVIEW ARTICLES

101 CONFERENCES AND CONVENTIONS

397 SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

39% 42% Top 10 partner countries

BELGIUM

FRANCE UNIVERSITYAutre - Privé OF LIEGE (INTERNAL FINANCING) MOROCCO WALLOONAutre REGION

WALLONIA-BRUSSELSUniversité de Liège ( nancement FEDERATION interne) UNITED KINGDOM EUROPEAN UNION Région Wallonne GERMANY FEDERAL STATE Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles OTHER BURKINA FASO OTHERFédéral – PRIVATE Union Européenne IRELAND

NETHERLANDS

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

VIETNAM

Number of projects in Number of Projects progress by continent Number of 602 ongoing 229 projects with EUROPE at least one partner 1 NORTH 9 263 AMERICA 41 ASIA 9 AFRICA SOUTH 9 AMERICA OCEANIA

Scientific research at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech - ULg 7 Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech UNIVERSITY OF LIEGE

G www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be/recherche

Vice Dean for Research Further information Pr Frédéric FRANCIS a [email protected] a [email protected] G www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be

Director UR AGROBIOCHEM Director UR BIOSE Director UR TERRA Dr Luc WILLEMS Pr Gilles COLINET Pr Philippe JACQUES a [email protected] [email protected] a [email protected]

October 2016