NextGenBioPest Joined Forces with SYBERAC!

Two Horizon Europe flagship initiatives, NextGenBioPest and SYBERAC, today announced a groundbreaking collaboration aimed at transforming the future of crop protection and terrestrial ecosystem health. This strategic synergy brings together cutting-edge innovation in sustainable agriculture and pioneering research on chemical risk assessment to promote both food security and environmental resilience.

NextGenBioPest is driving a new era of plant protection by delivering novel tools, biological agents, and smart practices to reduce the dependence on traditional chemical pesticides. Focusing on key fruit and vegetable crops, the project is developing diagnostics, RNA-based pesticides, low-risk green chemicals, plant resistance inducers, and advanced agronomic and ecological approaches. These innovations are designed to be seamlessly integrated with existing pest management strategies, ensuring sustainable and effective crop protection.

SYBERAC, on the other hand, is at the forefront of systems-based ecological risk assessment (sb-ERA), providing the science and methodologies to understand how chemical pollution affects biodiversity, ecosystem services, and the terrestrial environment. By incorporating real-world exposure routes and impacts, SYBERAC supports a paradigm shift toward chemical regulation that safeguards both genetic and functional ecosystem diversity.

The collaboration between NextGenBioPest and SYBERAC reflects a shared vision: to create a holistic, data-driven approach that balances agricultural productivity with ecological integrity. By aligning NextGenBioPest’s innovative biocontrol solutions with SYBERAC’s systemic understanding of chemical exposure impacts, the two projects will co-develop risk evaluation tools, harmonized protocols, and integrated strategies to ensure new crop protection methods are not only effective but ecologically sound.

This cross-project collaboration will include joint research activities, data sharing, workshops, stakeholder engagement events, and co-authored scientific outputs, reinforcing the European Union’s commitment to sustainability, food safety, and environmental stewardship under the Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy.

About NextGenBioPestNextGenBioPest is a Horizon Europe project that delivers a comprehensive toolkit for rational pest and pathogen management in horticulture, significantly reducing pesticide use while increasing crop yields through novel biological and ecological approaches.

About SYBERACSYBERAC is a Horizon Europe project advancing systems-based ecological risk assessment to understand and mitigate the impact of chemical pollution on terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.