UM awarded $2.5 million to establish a new global innovation centre for plant resilience

University of Manitoba Associate Professor of biological sciences, Dr. Olivia Wilkins has been awarded $2.5 million through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Alliance Grant program to lead the Canadian team in the new $16.3 million USD Global Centre for Sustainable Plant Innovation and Resilience through International Teamwork (C-SPIRIT).

“The impact of climate change on food production is a critical concern around the world and addressing it requires global expertise and cooperation,” says Olivia Wilkins. 

The Global Centre is one of six international collaborative research centres included in the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) competition jointly funded by agencies in the United States, Canada, Finland, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom, which awarded nearly $82 million. By partnering with collaborators across several continents, the resulting research will address the critical challenge of stabilizing global food production amid unpredictable weather patterns by finding sustainable solutions for worldwide food challenges.

“The Global Centre is an exciting opportunity to deepen collaboration between leading scientists and early career researchers from North America, Europe and Asia along with other local and international stakeholders as we work to meet this challenge,” says Olivia Wilkins.

The Centres support global cooperation with projects that bring together multidisciplinary teams from around the world to address challenges through the bioeconomy that integrate public engagement, workforce development and closely tracks community impact. The grant will provide support over 5 years to fund the Canadian portion of the centre’s research into the discovery and synthesis of natural products from plants and microbes that will sustainably enhance plant and soil health in agriculture. This project will help to solidify UM’s place in the sustainable research landscape as an important pillar within the Global Centre.

The centre will have tremendous impact on achieving Canada’s goals of the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act and will provide additional benefits to the economy, environment and training pipelines. Canada is at the forefront of development and application of spatial and single cell transcriptomic technologies in plants and of machine learning (ML) tools and artificial intelligence for biomolecule discovery. This work aims to improve sustainable agriculture and food security in an uncertain climate future marked by environmental stressors.

“Plants are amazing. They produce a huge diversity of potent biomolecules with roles in agricultural resilience and pharmaceutical development,” says Olivia Wilkins. “The Global Centre will train the next generation of leaders to harness this diversity to improve the sustainability and stability of food crop production in Canada and across the globe.”

The global nature of the centre establishes a training program to promote opportunities for researchers to work in different countries to help share and enhance global knowledge and train future scientists, who will be equipped to solve future climate-related food security problems. The exchange program will provide excellent opportunities for students and post-doctoral fellows to train in diverse settings and will play a pivotal role in training the next generation of scientists and leaders in sustainability research. 

“UM is excited to play a key role in this global initiative investing in the power of the bioeconomy to solve the biggest challenges in agriculture,” says Dr. Mario Pinto, UM Vice-President Research and International. “UM is a leader in research in water and food security and I am grateful for NSERC’s support for Dr. Wilkins as she leads the Canadian team in their important research contributions to the Global Centres.”

UM Today Staff