Unit identification
Identification: Centro de Engenharia dos Biossistemas, CEER
Name of coordinator: Luís Santos Pereira
Host institution: Instituto Superior de Agronomia, ISA
CEER initiated by 1980 focusing the development of agricultural engineering (Ag Eng), i.e. the applications of engineering in agriculture. It was based upon ISA Ag Eng staff. Field research in Ag Eng was then starting in the country and activities were mainly oriented to support PhD theses of teaching assistants.
The CEER has 3 major research groups oriented to various domains of Biosystems Engineering. Research Group I focus on Water, Natural Resources and Climate, Group II is focused on Integrated Sustainable Horticultural
Systems, and Group III includes the areas of Eco-Processing of Food and Feed (that replaced the former Food Science and Engineering). CEER is aiming to develop multidisciplinary research through collaboration among the Groups. The following multidisciplinary objectives are identified:
a) to forecast impacts of climate change on the olive crop and olive oil including an identification of adaptation measures: downscaling climate scenarios, impacts on flowering, growth and yield processes, effects on diseases and pests, impacts on fruit yields and on oil quality, adaptation requirements relative to crop husbandry and water management, and economic issues;
b) to develop approaches for risk analysis of agrochemicals contamination of groundwater in agricultural areas: scenario building approaches, dynamic modelling of solutes fate in agricultural soils, databases and GIS applications, issues for health protection of direct consumers and impacts on food and feed products.
CEER has 51 PhD researchers and 44 collaborators including a number of post-graduate students aiming at a degree or to get an improved training through research. CEER has a simple organization: a Scientific Coordinator (SC), a Secretary, an Executive Board (EB) including the Principal Investigators of the Research Groups, a Scientific Board (SB) with all PhD researchers. Advice is provided by a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) constituted by 3 prominent foreign researchers: Prof. Dr. Richard G. Allen (University of Idaho), Prof. Dr. Luis Rallo Romero (Universidad de Córdoba) and Prof. Dr. José Miguel Aguilera (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), and an Industry Advisory Committee constituted by 3 industry related professionals per research group: Luís Bulhão Martins, Victor Paulo, Manuel Campilho (Group I), Armando Torres Paulo, Jans Jorg Bohm and Jorge Silva (Group II), and José Luís Monteiro Mata Torres, João Paulo Monteiro Marques and João Manuel Correia da Gama (Group III).
Additionally, we have 3 integrative units, transversal to all groups, aiming at the interaction between academia and industry, the organization of workshops and colloquia, and the dissemination of CEER activities.The SB members contribute for planning CEER activities through the respective Research Groups and discussing main issues. The EB encourages researchers to implement collaborative research contracts, thus activities have been always tied to them. This approach has been successful in funding research and young staff involved in projects or being trained through them, but it demands efforts from researchers to get successive contracts to keep their groups working. The SC and EB give priority to the exploitation of results into high standard scientific publications but also stimulate researchers to participate in national and international meetings.
