[Project] Consortium | University of La Rioja

Context of the project

One of the objectives of the European Union is to bring together 60 consortia representing 500 universities (out of the 4000 existing universities). 44 consortia have already been formed and approved and funded by the EU. Universities already involved in a consortium cannot join another consortium as a principal.

The project

The University of La Rioja, a public university located in Logroño, in the region of La Rioja in Spain, is preparing a new consortium project, with the financial support of the region of La Rioja for the first year, which has allowed them to recruit a person specifically dedicated to the project (Carlos Torquemada) and which allows them to use a service provider for the constitution of the file.

Here are the pre-selected members in the consortium federated by La Rioja: Bordeaux Sciences Agro, Geisenheim (Germany), Verona (Italy), Rioja as main members + UTAD in Villa Real (Portugal) and Romanians from Craiova as associated members + others but it is necessary to remain on 1 university/country. The consortium project wishes to reach an objective of 7 main members with a balanced geographical distribution between Southern, Northern and Eastern Europe.

The associate professors Marc Greven, Daciana Papura and Yann Buchwalyter have therefore gone to meet the stakeholders of this project and have been asked to ensure that the consortium project does not remain centered on wine but that it extends more broadly to issues of viticultural and agricultural development and agro-ecology in European territories.

This objective was achieved and the group agreed to remove the word wine and to add notions of agricultural terroir, rural development, sustainability, agro-ecology, and adaptation to climate change.