The joint French-Swedish virtual laboratory “UPRA” has opened its doors to welcome a new partner, the CRAG research center in Spain.

In 2005, increasing connections between research projects at the Umeå Plant Science Center in Umeå, Sweden (UPSC) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) on biology and plant genomics lead to the creation of a “European Open Laboratory” called UPRA. In the continuity of this virtual laboratory, a new partner has just been added, the Center for Agricultural Genomics Research in Barcelona, Spain (CRAG).

This past week on 7 October at the INRA Nancy-Lorraine Center in Champenoux, representatives from UPSC together with those from two INRA research departments (Plant Biology and Breeding – BAP, and Forest, Grassland and Freshwater Ecology Division – EFPA) and CRAG signed a new cooperation agreement. UPRA has now been renamed INURPRAG — combining INRA, UPSC and CRAG. These three research institutions conduct highly complimentary work in the areas of integrative biology and plant genomics. This extension of UPRA to include Spain is an excellent opportunity to promote exchanges across Europe by providing a framework to coordinate future European projects.

The signing of this convention took place in the framework of the first trilateral symposium for Integrative Plant Biology which gathered scientists from the three institutions with support from LabEx ARBRE, Saclay Plant Sciences and the University of Lorraine.