AGRITECH: National Research Centre for Agricultural Technology
The Agritech project promotes technologies for the sustainable development of agri-food production, aiming at climate change adaptation, reduction of environmental impact in agri-food, safety and traceability of supply chains, in line with the goals of the European Green Deal.
NRRP intervention area: Mission 4 – Education and Research
Component: 2 - From research to business
Investment: 1.4 – Strengthening research structures and creating “R&D national champions” on some Key Enabling Technologies
Duration: the project will end on 31/08/2025
Total project funding: €320,070,095.50
Proposer: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Ensuring the production of nutritious, healthy and sustainable food, breaking down social gaps and environmental problems
The goals of the National Agri-Tech Centre are:
- combine the best scientific expertise to make the Italian agri-food industry more competitive and sustainable
- connect research infrastructures at national level
- use technology to improve productivity and sustainability
- promote the ecological and digital transition
- work with businesses to increase resilience and economic competitiveness in the agri-food sector
- train the next generation of scholars in the field, ensuring the human capital and skills needed to meet future challenges
Project structure and participation
Foundation Composition
- Università di Napoli Federico II
- Università degli Studi di Bari
- Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
- Libera Università di Bolzano
- Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma
- Politecnico di Milano
- Politecnico di Torino
- Università di Roma La Sapienza
- Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
- Università degli Studi della Basilicata
- Università degli Studi della Tuscia
- Università degli Studi di Firenze
- Università degli Studi di Foggia
- Università degli Studi di Genova
- Università degli Studi di Padova
- Università degli Studi di Parma
- Università degli Studi di Perugia
- Università degli Studi di Salerno
- Università degli Studi di Sassari
- Università degli Studi di Siena
- Università degli Studi di Milano
- Università degli Studi di Torino
- Università degli Studi di Udine
- Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
- Università di Catania
- Università di Pisa
- Università Politecnica delle Marche
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - CNR - National Research Council)
- Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (Council for Agricultural Research and Economics – CREA)
- Agenzia Nazionale per le Nuove Tecnologie, l’Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile - ENEA (National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development)
Soggetti privati
- Centro Euro-Med sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Euro-Med Centre on Climate Change – CMCC)
- Fondazione Edmund Mach - FEM
- Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
- Antares Vision S.p.A.
- Consorzi Agrari d’Italia S.p.A
- Casillo Partecipazione SPA
- CNH Industrial Italia Spa
- De Matteis Agroalimentare S.p.A.
- Egeos SPA
- Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A.
- Eni S.p.A.
- Graded S.p.A.
- IBF servizi S.p.A
- Irritec S.p.A
- RELATECH S.P.A
- S.I.S Società Italiana Sementi S.p.A.
- Telespazio S.p.A.
Areas of action
- Spoke 1: Plant, animal and microbial genetic resources and adaptation to climate change (leader: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - CNR (National Research Council)
- Spoke2: Crop Health: a multidisciplinary systemic approach to reduce the use of agrochemicals (leader: Università di Napoli Federico II)
- Spoke 3: Enabling technologies and sustainable strategies for the smart management of agricultural systems and their environmental impact (leader: Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)
- Spoke 4: Multifunctional and resilient agricultural and forestry systems for climate change risk mitigation (Leader: Università degli Studi di Padova)
- Spoke 5: Sustainable productivity and mitigation of environmental impact in livestock systems (leader: Università degli Studi della Tuscia)
- Spoke 6: Management models to promote sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems (leader: Politecnico di Torino)
- Spoke 7: Integrated models for the development of marginal areas to promote multifunctional production systems that enhance agro-ecological and socio-economic sustainability (leader: Università degli Studi di Bari)
- Spoke 8: New models of circular economy in agriculture through waste valorisation and recycling (leader: Università degli Studi di Milano)
- Spoke 9: New technologies and methodologies for traceability, quality, safety, measurement and certification to enhance and protect typicality in agri-food chains (leader: Università degli Studi di Siena)
The University of Bologna participates in Spoke 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8.
Project team
University of Bologna team
Scientific Coordinator
Prof. Attilio Toscano
Teaching and research staff
- Cesare Accinelli
- Felice Adinolfi
- Elena Baraldi
- Riccardo Baroncelli
- Diego Bucci
- Maurizio Canavari
- Fabrizio Cavani
- Annamaria Celli
- Claudio Ciavatta
- Stefano Luciano Ciurli
- Andrea Contin
- Luca Corelli Grappadelli
- Alessandra De Cesare
- Luca De Marchi
- Micaela Degli Esposti
- Stefano Del Duca
- Marco Di Felice
- Diana Di Gioia
- Maria Luisa Dindo
- Giovanni Dinelli
- Luca Dondini
- Luca Fontanesi
- Andrea Formigoni
- Annalisa Franco
- Paola Galletti
- Tullia Gallina Toschi
- Enrico Gallinucci
- Andrea Giorgetti
- Matteo Golfarelli
- Gloria Isani
- Alessandra Lumini
- Marco Maccaferri
- Lorenzo Marconi
- Giovanna Martelli
- Claudio Marzadori
- Michele Mattetti
- Elisa Michelini
- Andrea Monti
- Leonardo Nanni Costa
- Francesco Orsini
- Gianluca Palli
- Francesca Patrignani
- Massimiliano Petracci
- Antonio Prodi
- Noura Raddadi
- Meri Raggi
- Claudio Ratti
- Stefano Rizzi
- Valda Rondelli
- Silvio Salvi
- Giuseppina Schiavo
- Fabio Sgolastra
- Francesca Soglia
- Francesco Spinelli
- Marco Tartagni
- Stefano Tartarini
- Patrizia Tassinari
- Annalisa Tassoni
- Daniele Torreggiani
- Attilio Toscano
- Paolo Trevisi
- Roberto Tuberosa
- Davide Viaggi
- Giulio Visentin
Staff hired with project funds
Researchers
- Giulia Ballotta
- Massimiliano Curcio
- Matteo Francia
- Libero Guerrieri
- Giulia Guidotti
- Giulia Maesano
- Giuseppe Mancuso
- Martina Mazzon
- Dario Mengoli
- Giulio Demetrio Perulli
- Luca Sciullo
- Carla Giuditta Vecchiato
Research Fellows
- Enrico Andreani
- Chiara Antonioni
- Giovanni Buonaiuto
- Alberto Ceccacci
- Valerio Coppola
- Maichol Dadi
- Ana Cristina De Aguiar Saldanha Pineiro
- Filippo Maria Dini
- Santolo Francati
- Cristiano Franceschini
- Giuseppe Glave
- Naod Thomas Masebo
- Francesco Mazzulla
- Giovanni Maria Poggi
- Roberta Romano
- Cecilia Sepe
PhD students
- Oumaima Afif
- Giuseppina Balzano
- Riccardo Colleluori
- Maria Vittoria Graziosi
- Enrico Masi
- Faisal Nazir
- Mirko Piani
- Antonella Scarafile
Departments involved
- Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences - BiGeA
- Department of Chemistry "Giacomo Ciamician" - CHIM
- Department of Industrial Chemistry "Toso Montanari" - CHIMIND
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering "Guglielmo Marconi" - DEI
- Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering – DICAM
- Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi" – DIFA
- Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences – DIMEVET
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering – DISI
- Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences – DISTAL
- Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology - FaBiT
- Department of Statistical Sciences "Paolo Fortunati" – STAT
The work carried out to date by the university research teams in this project includes:
- research to make agriculture more sustainable, reducing the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers and favouring natural methods to keep crops healthy. An approach combining agroecology, careful management of the agricultural environment and the use of advanced technologies was chosen to minimise environmental impact
- study of genetic diversity in plant, animal and microbial species of agricultural interest in order to safeguard it and exploit it for the development of sustainable production systems
- development of tools and strategies for the collection, utilisation and modelling of animal breeding data to verify increased animal resilience against climate change through genetic improvement, pasture management, adoption of feeding strategies capable of reducing pollutant emissions, use of 'circular' feeds with a reduced environmental impact, and improvement of energy and performance efficiency of livestock farms
- research for the valorisation of agro-food chain waste and by-products to obtain molecules and biopolymers with a high added value and a high technological potential for re-use in agriculture, biofuels and bioenergy
What activities are in progress?
- experiments to collect data on the characteristics of major animal and plant species, such as disease resistance, meat quality, sustainable stable characteristics, corn root structure and fruit quality
- optimisation of protocols to genetically modify fruit plants and cereals
- pollination studies, to identify natural substances capable of attracting pollinators to plants and promote their production
- realisation of the first protocols for the chemical and biotechnological extraction of phenols, proteins, lipids from agro-food waste, optimisation of procedures for the chemical, electrochemical and biotechnological valorisation of residues to obtain molecules and biomasses for the preparation of new products for agriculture, biofuels and bioenergy, use of lignocellulose waste for the preparation of bio-based monomers and polymer-based bio-composites
- identification of so-called 'precision agriculture' technological solutions to reduce fossil energy and water consumption, in order to contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change