ECPGR Steering Committee

The 17th ECPGR (End-of-Phase) Steering Committee meeting was held in Oeiras, Portugal, from 30 May to 1 June 2023 [more info]. The meeting was organized in collaboration with the Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (INIAV). The meeting report is available [here].

The ECPGR Steering Committee held its 16th (mid-term) meeting in Malmö and Alnarp, Sweden, from 7–9 June 2022, gathering National Coordinators from 28 European countries and observers from NordGen, the FAO Plant Treaty Secretariat and the European NGOs. The meeting, hosted by NordGen at its new facilities in Alnarp, evaluated the implementation of the first three years (2019–2021) of ECPGR Phase X [more info].
The meeting report is available [here]

On 23 November 2020 the Steering Committee held an ad hoc online meeting to discuss drafts of the European Strategy on Genetic Resources and of the European Plant Strategy on Genetic Resources. The meeting was followed on 24-26 November by the GenRes Bridge feedback workshop, also to discuss the draft European Strategy on Genetic Resources. 

The 15th (End-of-Phase) meeting of the ECPGR  Steering Committee was held 15-17 May 2018 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Phase X of ECPGR (2019-2023) was agreed by the National Coordinators with a revised list of objectives. The framework for the establishment of a European Evaluation Network was launched and a Memorandum of Understanding for enhanced collaboration was also agreed for signature between the European Seed Association and ECPGR.  more info

The Programme is guided by a Steering Committee (SC), consisting of the Coordinators of National Programmes ("National Coordinators", NC), of all participating countries. The SC nominates an Executive Committee (ExCo) composed of five persons, to plan and execute the ECPGR activities, as decided upon by the SC.

The European Commission (EC) is invited to nominate a representative as full member of this Committee. Bioversity International, Euroseeds, the European Association for Research on Plant Breeding (EUCARPIA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) and a non-governmental organization (NGO) representative are invited as permanent observers. (see: Observers in the SC).

The Steering Committee holds the overall responsibility for the Programme; it approves its budgets¹ and provides overall technical and policy guidance to the operations of the programme. The SC reviews the progress made by Working Groups (WGs) and Task Forces (TFs) and takes decisions regarding their general scope and their establishment or termination. It approves and provides guidelines for ad hoc activities. It mandates and oversees the Secretariat to carry out its decisions. 

The SC meets at least once every two and a half years. Between meetings, the SC makes use of a dedicated listserver to communicate and take management decisions.

¹  Formal decision concerning payment of member annual contributions is taken by the competent authorities within each country