CBGP (UPM-INIA) Director, Dr. Antonio Molina, disserts about Plants and Sustainability in Harvard

The CBGP at the Workshop on New Trends in Sustainability at the Real Colegio Complutense in Harvard.

The Workshop, organized by the Real Colegio Complutense (RCC) in Harvard and the Campus of International Excellence (CEI) Moncloa – in which the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) participate –, was attended by several prestigious researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, and several professors from different research centres of the UCM and the UPM. The meeting, attended by almost half a hundred participants, aimed to analyze different points of view about sustainability and the challenges to be faced in order to maintain a sustainable economic growth in a climate change environment. The challenges that society has to face in order to be sustainable and the scientific-technological responses that can contribute to reach these challenges were presented, and so were the policies that must be implemented to deal with these challenges. It was divided into four different topics: Sustainability in the age of climate change, social and governance conditions for sustainable cities to be possible, leadership and innovation to fulfill the promises of urban sustainability, and preserving natural sites.

Amongst the lecturers, Dr. Antonio Molina, CBGP Director, delivered a speech about ´Plant Adaptation to Environmental Changes: Challenges and Biotechnological Solutions´. The CBGP Strategic Plan aims to developScience of excellence addressing Social demands and plant challenges to contribute to Sustainable agriculture (PlantS3). The Severo Ochoa program funding, recently obtained by CBGP, will guarantee the implementation of this ambitious objective. To do this, its strategic plan is to start projects and activities for developing new biotech approaches to improve plant productivity in a sustainable agriculture.

The UPM and the UCM, within the framework of the CEI Moncloa, promote strategic initiatives for the development of new knowledge and technologies in the field of sustainability, which is one of the main objectives of CEI Moncloa strategic plan.

RCC at Harvard is a Spanish center affiliated to Harvard University since 1990. It is a non-profit organization, aimed at providing academic, scientific, and cultural cooperation between Harvard University and the Spanish system of Higher Education. RCC has five Partner Universities, amongst which the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid is found.

For more information: https://rcc.harvard.edu/