To achieve the objectives of Estonia’s long-term development strategy 2035 through supporting excellence in science, the Minister of Education and Research has allocated €70 million over seven years to ten centres of excellence. The Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge is involved in two centres of excellence:
- Agroecology and new crops in future climates,
- Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Land Use.
Centre of Excellence for Agroecology and New Crops in the Future Climate
The Centre of Excellence for Agroecology and New Crops in the Future Climate aims to develop agroecological sustainable farming practices to reduce the global footprint of food production in a changing climate.
Ilmar Tamm, Senior Researcher at METK:
In this centre of excellence, we will work on plant variety breeding and testing of new crops, soil microbial communities, and the use of plant growth-promoting microbes in crop production.
The project’s lead partner is the Estonian University of Life Sciences (led by Professor Ülo Niinemets), with the University of Tartu and METK as partners.
Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Land Use
The Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Land Use aims to identify the links between biodiversity and carbon fluxes and integrate this new knowledge with satellite data into machine learning models. The latter can be used as decision support for land use planning by policymakers, landowners, and land users.
The project’s lead partner is the University of Tartu (led by Professor Evelyn Uuemaa), and partners are METK and the Estonian University of Life Sciences.
Ants-Hannes Viira, Head of the Agricultural Research Department:
METK’s role in this centre of excellence is to lead the working group on socio-economic analysis and land-use policy, with a view to both agricultural and forest land.
”METK aims to generate knowledge on the extent to which agricultural and forest land owners and users are aware of the biodiversity and carbon flows on their land, to examine the effectiveness of current agricultural, forestry, and land use policies, and to analyze how these policies could be changed in the future to increase their positive impacts on biodiversity and carbon stocks."
Why is METK participating in The Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Land Use?
METK’s core activities include soil monitoring, evaluation of impacts of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), agricultural land use related environmental impact studies and monitoring, and operating Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) in Estonia. Participation in the Centre of Excellence will allow METK to contribute to research on land use and land use change, a key area for climate change and biodiversity. We will contribute with information on how the land use sector is performing economically and socially, and the economic and social costs of potential land use changes. As experts and researchers at METK, participating in the Centre of Excellence will allow us to collaborate with the best research groups in Estonia and grow our research portfolio and impact.
A Centre of Excellence is a scientific consortium that aims to develop the cooperation and joint activities of exceptionally high-level Estonian research groups. The Centre of Excellence focuses on solving high-risk, high-gain research questions based on the needs of Estonia. High-risk, high-gain research leads to a breakthrough research result that significantly affects the current knowledge or practices of one or more fields.
