Programme: Regions in Growth

Competence Center "Agro-Food Systems and Bioeconomy" is a modern multidisciplinary scientific complex with distributed research infrastructure in the field of agro-ecology, plant health, selection and food production, which will support with its scientific expertise and competence the transition of our society to a sustainable system of efficient production of bioresources, quality and healthy foods and towards circular bioeconomy. The Competence Center is a consortium of partners from three sites from the National Road Map. The Competence Center is structured in three complexes. The Agroecology and Selection complex foresees the modernization of experimental platforms for conducting modern agroecological research, monitoring and computer and software configurations for data collection and processing. The Plant Health complex envisages the modernization of scientific research infrastructure related to conducting research at a modern system level on the factors affecting plant health along the soil-plant-plant production chain. The Food and Health Complex plans to create a laboratory for metagenomic research of traditional fermented Bulgarian foods and beverages. Methods will be developed to extract and study biologically active substances contained in by-products as part of an integrated circular economy approach. A new direction in the complex is related to the development and application of new and fast methods for establishing the authenticity of food and feed in certain aspects and, respectively, for the traceability of products in the food chain. The construction and development of the Competence Center, the scientific results and the innovative products that will be created will have a significant impact on various spheres of socio-economic life. The Competence Center will work in close cooperation with the scientific and teaching community, NGOs, the food industry, state and local administration, agricultural producers and consumers.