17. Jun 2025
International Graduate School: AGRI-explore (AgriPolyII)
spokespersons: Prof. Dr. Edgar Peiter, Prof. Dr. Sven-Erik Behrens, coordinator: Dr. Amanda Ratier Backes (funding 2024-2027) (link)
Agri-Explore is embedded in the globally visible focus on plant research in Saxony-Anhalt. The acronym EXPLORE highlights the need for training young scientists who, during their work in the graduate school and their subsequent leading roles in academia and industry, optimize the resilience and productivity of crops by exploring new avenues. The particular strength of the Agri-Explore concept lies in the integration and combination of findings on various resilience mechanisms of crop plants, in order to be able to intervene specifically in the development of optimized genotypes. The projects focus strongly on crop plants and integrate supportive work on model species. The targeted modification of plant resilience mechanisms in crops using genome editing is supported by a newly established Plant Transformation and Genome Editing core facility at the MLU Biocentre, which is available to all projects of the graduate school and supports the training of doctoral students in plant biotechnology methods.
The International Graduate School “Agri-Explore” is part of the AgriPoly II – International Graduate Schools in Agricultural and Polymer Sciences at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. AgriPoly II is a graduate school, funded by ESF+ (60%) and National Fund (40%), with the aim of education and training of early career scientists in sustainability in the application of crop plants and polymers. It is divided into two sub-graduate schools: Agri-Explore and POLY-Sustainable Polymers. The research focus of Agri-Explore is resilience of plants in climate crisis and in POLY-Sustainable Polymers the sustainability of polymers, with the bigger topic of circular usage of plastics, is investigated.
