STARGATE aims to enhance the ability of the Centre for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry (CBQF) of the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP) to respond to a key societal challenge: to evolve the agri-food system’s practice to promote more resilient and sustainable systems, starting from more resistant, nutritious and diverse crops at the farm level, to guarantee safer, healthier and sustainable options for consumers. This will be attained by increasing CBQF’s knowledge of high-tech sensors and phenotyping technologies with the perspective to develop predictive models relating to more resilient crops, robust to climate change and integrated into circular agriculture. These technologies have the potential to ultimately lead to benefits for the society, regarding increased production, efficiency, quality and sustainability.
STARGATE intends to:
• Strengthen scientific excellence at UCP in the use of phenotyping, multi-omics, signal and image data management and analysis tools and development of predictive models for crop performance towards food chain decisions;
• Strengthen innovation capacity and interactions with the industry, promoting UCP’s autonomy to collaborate with farmers and industry in this area, performing early-stage monitoring of agri-food production systems to understand and improve performance in downstream steps of the food chain, promoting advanced innovation transferable to the agri-food sector;
• Boost competencies in research management, communication and proposal preparation, to maximise the impact of UCP’s activities and improve success in securing international funding;
• Establish the foundation for the STARGATE Knowledge Hub in Portugal, bringing together transdisciplinary expertise, to exploit and realise the potential of sensor-based, signal, image and multi-omics data, towards sustainable food systems, fostering innovation and partnerships with the private sector.
To achieve these objectives, a comprehensive set of training activities and active engagement with different agri-food chain stakeholders will be carried out. It will bring STARGATE’s achievements to the scientific community, farming and industry stakeholders, contributing to boosting the national economy and promoting the country internationally.
