From the initial idea to approval: through the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), the NRW.Europa team at ZENIT brought together Turkey’s Ege University and Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2023, paving the way for a collaborative network that accelerates knowledge transfer and high-throughput plant phenotyping in Europe.

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have selected plants based on observable traits. This tradition has evolved into the discipline of ‘plant phenotyping’: it combines agronomy, plant physiology and plant breeding to precisely assess traits such as yield, quality and stress tolerance. In the face of climate change, a growing global population and geopolitical uncertainties, suitable genotypes must now be identified more quickly, reliably and cost-effectively. Genomic methods – such as QTL mapping and GWAS – have professionalised marker-assisted selection; the task now is to network and make measurement and analysis capacities available across Europe.

This is precisely where the cooperation initiative ‘Expansion of a cooperative network for knowledge exchange and technology transfer for high-throughput plant phenotyping in Europe’ comes in. The Enterprise Europe Network office at Ege University in Izmir kicked things off: at an information day, it presented the budget mechanisms, call details and application process for the European Horizon WIDERA funding programmes to researchers. One of the scientists expressed interest in a twinning project. The project idea was reviewed, deemed suitable for the funding programme and published via the EEN.  

NRW.Europa Support
This is where the NRW.Europa team at ZENIT stepped in as a matchmaker. ZENIT reviewed the profile and forwarded it to suitable German contacts. The result: an expression of interest was received from Forschungszentrum Jülich. The Institute of Plant Sciences based there is a global leader in phenotyping thanks to its outstanding expertise in above- and below-ground plant-environment interactions, as well as its strengths in technology development, engineering and bioinformatics. ZENIT conveyed this interest to the Turkish university and established direct contact – quickly, systematically and with a focus on results.

This initial contact evolved into a powerful consortium in which the partners defined roles, milestones and a robust work plan: at its core are joint experiments, training schools, workshops, work shadowing placements and systematic technology transfer. The application was submitted on time under the Twinning HORIZON-WIDERA call and received a positive evaluation.

Benefits
The total funding for the project under the ‘HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions’ programme, involving partners from Turkey, Cyprus, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, amounts to €1,436,237.06 for the period from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2027.  The expected impact extends beyond the project’s duration, which ends in June 2027. The network harmonises standards, creates interoperable data flows and provides low-threshold access to high-throughput phenotyping infrastructures. For breeding and plant research, this means: faster identification of suitable genotypes under dynamically changing environmental conditions, more robust varieties and accelerated transfer from the laboratory to the field. At the same time, the cooperation strengthens Europe’s sovereignty in key technologies. And it serves as an exemplary demonstration of how precisely matching works within the Enterprise Europe Network: from needs analysis and the conceptualisation of the idea through to successful approval – with the prospect of follow-up projects that will further deepen exchange and technology transfer.

To complement this, several Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) involving researchers from Turkey and Cyprus took place in Jülich last year. Furthermore, a workshop on ‘Guidelines and Protocols for High-Throughput Phenotyping’ is planned for 15–17 June 2026, which aims to further deepen the exchange on methodological standards and best practices.

“The NRW.Europa team at ZENIT helped us to become a consortium partner in the project. Without their valuable tip about the call for proposals, we would not have become a partner.” 
Dr Onno Muller, PHENOWEX project manager at FZ Jülich

Contact to the research project: PHENOWEX

Link to the website of the project: The Project – PHENOWEX


Contact to Forschungszentrum Jülich:
Dr. Onno Muller

Contact to the NRW.Europa-Team:

ZENIT GmbH / Enterprise Europe Network
in Nordrhein-Westfalen NRW.Europa
Astrid Pauli
Phone: ++49 208 30004-42
E-Mail: Astrid.Pauli@zenit.eu
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/nrweuropa