Planter er den primære fødekilde på Jorden. Nye afgrøder med forbedrede vækstegenskaber under tørke og i nærringsfattig jord er afgørende i en tid med klimændringer og høj befolkningstilvækst. Nitrat er en essentiel nitrogenkilde for planter, og akkumulering af nitrat fra jorden er et centralt trin i nitrogen-metabolismen og derfor afgørende for høstudbyttet. De membranproteiner, der transporterer nitrat ind i vedvævet for videre transport rundt i planten, kendes dog ikke. Foreløbigt arbejde af Professor Dietmar Geiger og hans forskningsgruppe tyder på, at den nitratspecifikke anion kanal SLAH2 er ansvarlig for transport af nitrat ind i vedvævet. Målet med dette projekt er at undersøge SLAH2s fysiologiske rolle i nitrat-akkumulering fra jorden, nitrat-distribution i planten og nitrat-signalering. Projektet har en multidisciplinær tilgang og kombinerer avanceret bioinformatik og molekylærbiologi med de nyeste teknikker inden for biofysik (f.eks. Patch Clamp elektrofysiologi). Projektet vil levere afgørende ny fundamental viden omkring nitrat-akkumulering, -distribuering og -signalering og har således potentialet til at forbedre høstudbyttet af fremtidens afgrøder.

The objective of MSCA-NET is to facilitate the transnational co-operation between National Contact Points (NCPs) for the MSCA in order to achieve a consistent and harmonized level of NCP support. Next to developing support for the facilitation of daily challenges for all NCPs, we put the focus on lowering the entry barriers for new NCPs and offer particular support services for Widening and Third Country NCPs. This will in turn simplify the access of potential MSCA applicants all over the world, in particular from Widening and Third Countries. We thus contribute to the decrease of the R&I gap between EU Member States/Associated Countries and Widening/Third Countries. We aim at a higher quality and quantity of applications from non EU-Member States/Associated Countries. We will achieve our goals by a wide array of measures: Career Development Support for NCPs in the form of Trainings, Twinnings and Mentoring; the development of a tool box for both NCPs and the scientific community; and strategic capacity development and the creation of synergies with and among MSCA stakeholders. This includes systematic outreach to the non-academic sector. The project is structured into 5 Work Packages and has 27 Beneficiaries and 4 Associated Partners from all levels of experience and among all Horizon Europe country groups. The baseline for our support services to NCPs is a benchmarking exercise whose results will be fed into the various relevant tasks. We ensure the expected project impact by strategical monitoring of the project actions and well planned communication, dissemination and exploitation measures such as the development of an innovative project dashboard. The project's outcomes will be fed back to policy developers and stakeholders within clearly defined processes in order to guarantee a sustainable impact on a wider level. MSCA-NET will run for 36 months and has an overall budget of 1'870'357 Euro. The action is under the coordination of Euresearch in Switzerland.