The second edition of Agrohealth, the call for research projects in Agriculture, Food, Nutrition and Health of Agrotecnio and IRBLleida, was presented today at the IRBLleida headquarters. Endowed with €135,000 of own funds from both centres, Agrohealth is a unique initiative in the panorama of Catalan research centres, which combine their research capacity to develop collaborative projects that unite agri-food with biomedical research in favour of improving health and well-being.
More than 35 researchers from Agrotecnio and IRBLleida participated this morning in the presentation of the second Agrohealth call for proposals. During the event, preliminary results were presented of the projects from the first call, still in progress, which study various health problems such as obesity, anaemia and food poisoning.
Diego Arango, director of IRBLleida, highlighted the desire of both centres to “dimension Agrohealth according to the interest of the research staff, seeking to attract more funds and trying to finance ‘seed projects’ that can be scaled up”. For his part, José Antonio Bonet, director of Agrotecnio, pointed out “Agrohealth is an original call because it is the only joint call of two CERCA research centres in Catalonia. For Agrotecnio, it is strategic to focus on functional foods, gastronomy and health, of course human, but also animal, plant and environmental health”. “.
Through AgroHealth, the two CERCA centres in Lleida want to create lasting synergies between their groups, which will then be able to apply for more ambitious national and international calls for proposals. To participate, research staff must hold a doctorate, have a scientific or technical background consistent with the proposed project and be assigned or have applied for assignment before the deadline to Agrotecnio or IRBLleida.
The application period will open from 3 to 21 June, and the final decision is expected to be published in December 2024. Projects may have a maximum duration of two years and will start in January 2025.