Domain Committee "Forests, their Products and Services (fps)"
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- I. Management Report
- Executive summary (max.250 words)
- I.A. COST Action Fact Sheet COST Action
- End date
- Intentions to accept
- Science Officer: Dr Xin-Ying Ren, fps@cost.eu Administrative Officer
- I.B. Management Committee member list
- I.C. Overview activities and expenditure
- Total Action Budget: 145,245 k€
- Remaining Action Commitment: 41,516.89 €
- II. Scientific Report II.A. Innovative networking
- II.B. Inter-disciplinary networking
- III. Previous scientific report(s) II. Scientific Report II.A. Innovative networking
- III. Previous scientific report(s) Reporting Period: 15/10/2009 to 31/12/2009 II.A. Innovative networking
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COST Domain Committee "Forests, their Products and Services (FPS)" COST Action FP0901 Start Date 15/10/2009 Analytical Techniques for Biorefineries MONITORING PROGRESS REPORT Reporting Period: from 1 January 2012 – 31 December 2012 This Report is presented to the relevant Domain Committee. It contains three parts:
II. Scientific Report prepared by the Chair of the Management Committee of the Action III. Previous versions of the Scientific Report; i.e., part II of past reporting periods The report is a “cumulative” report, i.e. it is updated annually and covers the entire period of the Action. Executive summary (max.250 words): FP0901 has now been running for 38 months altogether and the number of COST countries participating is currently 27, with four active non-COST members (two reciprocal agreements). The number of registered participants is +130, of which about 100 have been actively participating. The number of female participants and ESRs are bot very good, both being about 50%. The number of joint publications by the partners involved in FP0901 in the field of the Action is up to now +70 and +100 on meeting abstracts as well. The industry has also shown appreciable interest in the Action one important task is still to involve them also on a practical plane, not only as watchers. From scientific and networking aspects, the main success stories have definitely been the successful STSM visits. 21 STSMs have so far been finished and 11 of these have been by female ESRs. The analytical Round Robin type activities have also been important and will allow the Action to develop and get closer to reaching the goals. It is also nice to see that especially ESR’s and also young female researchers seem to have found activities within the Action. The Chair, Steering Group, and some MC members have actively been promoting the Action at conferences and meetings, as well as in direct contacts with the industry. FP0901 has had joint activities both with other Actions and EU projects. I. Management Report prepared by the COST Office/Grant Holder 
I.A. COST Action Fact Sheet
Trees, annual and perennial plants, recycled fibres, and lignocellulosic side streams from forest and agroindustry are renewable resources for the development of natural materials, biochemicals, and bioenergy. The chemical complexity of plant materials, the feed material of Biorefineries, renders the analyses of the feed constituents, processes, and valorised products challenging. The main objective of the Action is to develop new and evaluate existing analytical methods related to forest-based and agroindustrial Biorefineries. Thus, the Action covers the analytical methods for the Biorefinery feed material and for processed biochemicals, biomaterials, and process residues. Especially analytical pretreatments will be evaluated. Critical steps are the representativeness of the sampling and samples, the extraction, fractionation, and sample storage methods applied. New methods will be applied and evaluated for their relevance. Other emphasised areas will be development of analytical on-line applications, hyphenated techniques, and applying statistical multicomponent analyses to sort out the relevant data from the main data stream. The European forest-based, bioenergy-based and agroindustrial industries will benefit from the Action in receiving relevant information on their developments of sustainable and environmentally benign solutions for novel utilisation of renewable resources. The development of analytical tools will lead to cost effective and sustainable processes and products.
North Carolina State University, United States Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil CSIR Forestry and Forest Products Research Centre, South Africa
 
I.B. Management Committee member list  
I.C. Overview activities and expenditure
II. Scientific Report II.A. Innovative networking Round Robin-type activities on method evaluation and analytical method development continued from the last year. Several biomass samples at different stages of processing are available for distribution to WG members upon request from the partners responsible of each sample. Analytical results are compared and thus methods and pretreatments evaluated, with the common goal to develop novel methods applicable for the different sample types. This means of interaction will give new knowledge on analytical methods necessary for building fruitful Biorefinery projects and create new networks, also in the form of joint STSM works on these samples. Industry will eventually benefit from the application of novel methods, for example as better process and product safety, more efficient processes, and a better understanding on how to utilise biomass in the future. This will eventually also have a positive environmental impact and hopefully decrease the use of oil-based products in the future. The industry has also actually shown an interest in following these activities. Especially the STSMs on lignin and polyphenol analysis have been interesting and also valuable from an industrial point of view. So far, no direct spin offs of the Action have been identified or brought to the knowledge of the Chair. II.B. Inter-disciplinary networking Good contacts have been retained with other Actions and the European/international conferences; 2012 the MC meeting/workshop was again in conjunction to the EWLP conference and with the Chair of Action FP1105 as an invited speaker. This allowed for all participants to be able to broaden their own scientific areas in discussions with the other researchers. Cooperation with the FP7 Biocore project was arranged so that FP0901 also participated with lecturers the Biorefining, Principles and technologies, 2nd European training course in Wageningen. For the Afore FP7 project summer school in Lissabon, both lecturers and students participated in the course. The Chair was invited to a meeting of the European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence to present FP0901 to them and to their industrial partners. Due to health reasons, the vice-chair did however go there. Generally, the level of inter-disciplinarity is good and the networking outside the core group of FP0901 is important for method development.
The actual number of actively participating persons dropped from the second year. One reason may be the confusion with meeting arrangements and reimbursements due to reasons not possible to control from the Action. Furthermore, it seems as if many institutions have chosen one contact person while several are following our web pages. It also seems as if industry closely follows the web pages, as we hoped for. The number of female participants is very good, being close to 50% and the number of ESRs is also growing. Altogether 21 STSMs have been completed during the first three years (7+6+8). STSMs and ESRs are expected to participate actively in meetings, which also seem to be the case. 5 trainees were reimbursed for taking part in a session/meeting of a summer school and in that and another summer school, trainers from FP0901 participated (not paid by the Action). The efforts of our participants from non-COST countries was mainly to take part in the meetings and give presentations, as well as to be involved in the Round Robin Activities. Individual contacts between FP0901 partners and other COST Action participants are on a high level. FP0901 arranged an MC meeting/workshop in conjunction with the EWLP conference in August 2012, which was an excellent opportunity to broaden especially the networks of our ESRs. The contacts between parties within our Action also seem to be at a high level, where the STSM possibility is the best tool to even increase these contacts. Very welcome and in conjunction with the goals of the Action has been the good cooperation and new networks between groups from different areas. Most participants have a good track record in raising national and European research funds, and at least one joint project have been initiated through the Action to the Woodwisdom ERA-NET. Two STSMs were last year also coupled to that project. A poster was presented at the EWLP 2012 meeting in Espoo. The number of publications by the partners involved in FP0901 in the field of the Action (year 2010-2012) is about 65 (25 articles, 40 conference papers and STSM reports, and additionally 107 presentations in FP0901 workshop). However, keeping track of these are difficult due to people not really reporting anything. II.D. Self evaluation From scientific and networking aspects, the success stories have definitely been the STSM visits, with 21 altogether so far for FP0901. The implementation of the Round Robin type activities have also been important, although a bit slow in the start-up, and will allow the Action to develop and get closer to reaching the goals. Several RR activities are in progress. The industry still show appreciable interest in the Action but their direct involvement is hard to implement. ESR’s and also young female researchers are active within the Action. The number of non-COST participants is also good, with 4 accepted partners. Two of these are from counties with reciprocal agreements, which can be considered a valuable asset to the Action, although no partner yet has utilised the possibility to directly cooperate with any of them. Good contacts have been established with other Actions, European conferences (Italic, EWLP), and projects (Biocore, Afore, Pinobio). A training school on the application of chemometrics was organized 2011 and FP0901 also participated with both lecturers and students to several non-COST training schools. The Chair, Steering Group, and some MC members have actively been promoting the Action at conferences and meetings, as well as in direct contacts with the industry. Difficulties still occur in the use of the new e-cost system and getting all partners to understand how the system and the reimbursements are supposed to work. And now it has changed again. Still also from the GH and Chair point of view, running this kind of work is challenging. This led to the decision that the GH changes for the last year. Also, some more activity from MC members and participation in meetings could be wished for, since the action is only as good as the participants make it. It is also difficult for the WG leaders and the Chair to prepare reports when the Action members report very scarcely on any activities or joint publications they may be involved in. FP0901 is outmost thankful for the valuable help we have got from our scientific officer and the COST Office in general. III. Previous scientific report(s) II. Scientific Report II.A. Innovative networking Round Robin-type activities on method evaluation and analytical method development have been agreed on and initiated. Several biomass samples at different stages of processing have been identified as interesting and selected for distribution to WG members upon request from the partners responsible of each sample. Analytical results are compared and thus methods and pretreatments evaluated, with the common goal to develop novel methods applicable for the different sample types. This means of interaction will give new knowledge on analytical methods necessary for building fruitful Biorefinery projects and create new networks, also in the form of joint STSM works on these samples. Industry will eventually benefit from the application of novel methods, for example as better process and product safety, more efficient processes, and a better understanding on how to utilise biomass in the future. This will eventually also have a positive environmental impact and hopefully decrease the use of oil-based products in the future. So far, no direct spin offs of the Action have been identified. II.B. Inter-disciplinary networking So far, FP0901 has agreed to arrange an MC meeting/workshop in conjunction with the final meeting of FP0602 (Biotechnology for lignocellulose biorefineries) and the Italic 6 conference in September 2011. This is especially welcome since the biotechnology area is represented also in FP0901 analytical methods and both Actions and the conference will complement each other and broaden the cooperation within analytics, which most certainly will provide a scientific impact in the future. Furthermore, 2011 there will be an international training “workshop” on biorefinery, which will be organized within the framework of the FP7 project BIOCORE. The FP0901 Chair was contacted by Michael O’Donohue (Research Director, LISBP-Biocatalysis group, INSA/INRA UMR 792, Institut National de la Recherche, Argronomique), with whom the first contact actually was established through the COST network. II.C. New networking 
The number of COST countries participating in FP0901 is currently 26, with one additional accepted by the MC but not yet by the DC. The non-COST participation is appreciable, with three members and one more pending the DC decision. Two of these are from countries with reciprocal agreements. For year 1, a 10% contribution of these will grow for next year. These participants have been actively participating in the meetings, presenting interesting results from their own work and in e-mail contacts with other participants. STSM visits to some of these partners have actively been under discussion but not yet realised. The increased number of parties from the beginning is hopefully going to be seen also in future budgets. 
The actual number of registered participants is about 120, of which about 80 so far have been actively participating, but it seems as if many institutions have chosen one contact person while several are following our web pages. We are convinced that if the budget would have allowed larger meeting participation, this would actually also have been seen in these numbers. It also seems as if industry closely follows the web pages, as we hoped for. The number of female participants is very good, being about 50% and the number of ESRs is also growing. Again, it may be that from some places, it is more the supervisors that have registered. 7 STSMs have been completed year 1 and we expect a growth in this number now that this is getting more familiar to the participants. STSMs and ESRs are expected to participate actively in meetings, which also seem to be the case. Individual contacts between FP0901 partners and other COST Action participants are on a high level. FP0901 has also agreed to arrange an MC meeting/workshop in conjunction with the final meeting of FP0602 (Biotechnology for lignocellulose biorefineries) and the Italic 6 conference in September 2011, which will broaden especially the networks of our ESRs. The contacts between parties within our Action also seem to be at a high level, where the STSM possibility is the best tool to even increase these contacts. Very welcome and in conjunction with the goals of the Action has been the good cooperation and new networks between groups from different areas. Most participants have a good track record in raising national and European research funds, but so far no joint projects have been initiated through the Action. FP0901 has prepared and distributed a flyer to get other groups aware of the possibilities within the network. A poster was also presented at the EWLP 2010 meeting in Hamburg and at several smaller meetings in Finland. The Chair has also actively promoted the Action at several meetings in Europe. The number of publications by the partners involved in FP0901 in the field of the Action (year 2010) is 205 (66 articles and book chapters, 94 conference papers and 45 presentations in FP0901 workshops, see separate list/file) II.D. Self evaluation From scientific and networking aspects, the main success stories have definitely been the successful STSM visits. The start-up of the Round Robin type activities have also been important and will allow the Action to develop and get closer to reaching the goals. The industry has also shown appreciable interest in the Action and the next task would be to involve them also on a practical plane, not only as watchers. It is also nice to see that especially ESR’s and also young female researchers (e.g. 3 out of 7 STSMs) seem to have found activities within the Action. The number of non-COST participants is also good, with 3 accepted partners and one pending a DC decision. Two of these are from counties with reciprocal agreements, which can be considered an valuable asset to the Action. Some additional interest has also been shown from other non-COST participants, but not to completion. The Chair, Steering Group, and some MC members have actively been promoting the Action at conferences and meetings, as well as in direct contacts with the industry. A temporary drawback was the delay in the organization of the planned Training School, but due to very active partners, this will take place early during year 2 instead. Otherwise, difficulties have mainly been found in the use of the new e-cost system and getting all partners (and the chair and grant holder) to understand how the system is supposed to work. FP0901 is outmost thankful for the valuable help we have got from our scientific officer and the COST Office in general. III. Previous scientific report(s) Reporting Period: 15/10/2009 to 31/12/2009 II.A. Innovative networking
II.B. Inter-disciplinary networking
II.C. New networking
II.D. Self evaluation Since we have only started up the Action, we have nothing to report here yet. Yüklə 230,16 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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