The Executive Agency “Operational Program Science and Education for Smart Growth” (OP “SESG”) and the Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology (CPSBB) signed the contract for research infrastructure and equipment for the PlantaSYST Project.

The overall objective of the procedure BG05M2OP001-1.003-0001-C01 “Complementary support for Bulgarian scientific organizations implementing projects under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, WIDESPREAD-Teaming Phase 2” is to finance the costs ineligible under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme – investment aid for research infrastructure and equipment.

The contract for the PlantaSYST project: “Establishment of a Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology for the translation of fundamental research into sustainable bio-based technologies in Bulgaria” is worth BGN 29,998,861.62. The implementation period is 44 months. The main objective of the PlantSYST project is to create a new Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology (CPSBB) in Plovdiv and to establish it as a leading center for plant sciences both in Bulgaria and globally. The governments of Bulgaria and Germany, the Municipality of Plovdiv as well as the Bulgarian and German partners of the PlantaSYST project support the newly established CPSBB. The funds from the OP “SESG” will be used for building a new CPSBB campus in Plovdiv, as well as for state-of-the-art equipment that will allow applying cutting edge technologies in functional genomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics to identify the regulatory mechanisms and metabolic pathways, which drive plant development, physiology of stress, and the synthesis of valuable metabolites with a potential market application.