Due to the recent pesticide ban in Europe, crops are suffering from the diseases caused by insect transmitted viruses. In particular, aphid-borne Pea Enation Mosaic Virus (PEMV) causes serious yield loss in pea (Pisum sativum), an important source of protein. Although some PEMV resistant pea genotypes were identified, resistance genes are not cloned, and the infection process and the mechanisms of symptom development are not understood at a molecular level. Recently, Partner 1 has screened a collection of 240 Pisum genotypes, conducted Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) and identified a locus involved in quantitative resistance to the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, a major pest of pea and the vector of PEMV. There was no strong-effect resistance gene that prevents the aphid to feed on peas, hence the aphid can inoculate the virus to all the genotypes. To identify pea genes that are involved in PEMV transmission, within-host propagation and symptom development, we propose to screen the collection of 240 pea genotypes, completed with some known PEMV resistant and susceptible genotypes, for partial or total resistance against PEMV. We will evaluate PEMV spread and symptom development after aphid inoculation and conduct several GWAS to identify pea genes involved in the resistance to different steps of the infection process. In the same time, we will evaluate the virus induced changes in pea biology using transcriptomics and also in aphid-plant interactions by monitoring aphid performances and feeding behaviour. The identified genes and pathways involved in virus infection and pea-virus-aphid interactions will be examined by functional analyses. The project will identify multiple genes that are involved in virus infection and contributes to understand the mechanisms of viral infection including transmission and its effect on plant-aphid interactions.

The use of robotics in agriculture appears as a lever capable of supporting the necessary reduction of the environmental impact of human activities, while maintaining production levels compatible with a growing world population. The necessary reduction of chemical products indeed requires the development of new tools for agriculture, allowing to increase the frequency of treatment without requiring an increased manpower. In addition, the arduousness and the repeatability of agricultural activities brings a difficulty of recruitment. Such a lack of manpower can be offset by the deployment of machines with a high level of autonomy, reducing the hardness of the work. As a result, more and more robotic solutions are emerging in the field of agriculture, making agricultural robotics an growing industry. Nevertheless, the degree of maturity still limited requires human supervision, sometimes depreciating the efficiency of such robots. As a result, the development of new agricultural machines, whose level of autonomy can be adjusted, and using an energy source that respects the environment is a valuable asset in the context of the transformation of agriculture. The Sabi-Agri company was created in 2007, in such a context. It aims at proposing new electric, modular and agile agricultural machines, currently controlled manually but easily compatible with automation. The joint laboratory aims to develop the autonomy of this type of agricultural vehicles. It proposes to implement several robotic behaviors, as well as adaptation mechanisms to select and adjust these behaviors according to the task to be performed and the context of evolution. The main objective is to develop a versatile control architecture, allowing the vehicle to work autonomously in interaction with humans. Tiara will lead in particular research on decision making processes (IA) for the on-line reconfiguration of basic robotic behavior. Indeed, the diversity of the situations encountered, as well as the variability of the interaction conditions between the robot, its implement and the environment, requires the use of several robotic approaches, to allow the robot to guarantee the safety and precision of the work achieved. This research will have to account for human actions, both with respect to the decision-making processes, but also in real time. To this end, the control architecture will integrate aspects of collaboration with the human (cobotics), with particular attention to the dialogue between Man and robot. The constitution of the joint laboratory is considered in a progressive way, by first putting in place several elementary behaviors already tested on other types of robots (tracking of multi-sensor trajectory, pursuit of vehicle or pedestrian, ...) , in order to bring a first level of assistance to the vehicle within 1 year. This first step will then provide a hardware and software architecture for the development of decision-making processes integrating human behavior, providing a high level of autonomy after 2 years and capacity for reconfiguration and autonomous decision after 4 years. years. This vision will also allow the aggregation of additional behaviors in year 2 and 3, according to the needs in the field, as well as the automation of embedded tools, through generic research conducted on mobile manipulation in natural environments. Given the maturity of autonomous navigation approaches, this last component is the culmination of robotics in agriculture, in order to concretely implement a precision farming, capable of considerably reducing the impact of human activity on the environment.

Radical SAM enzymes are arguably the largest and most functionally diverse enzyme superfamily with more than 500,000 enzymes predicted to be involved in more than 80 different types of biochemical transformations. These metalloenzymes catalyze chemically challenging reactions some of them having no counterpart in synthetic chemistry. Among them, the B12-dependent radical SAM enzymes are one of the major groups. They have been shown to catalyze diverse reactions including methyl transfer or ring formation in the biosynthesis of various natural products such as antibiotics and bacteriochlorophyll. The main objective of the Cob4SAM project is to obtain an integrated mechanistic and structural view of these emerging biocatalysts by investigating key representative B12-dependent radical SAM enzymes and combining advanced biochemical, spectroscopic and structural approaches.

The CONVERGENT project aims to co-construct and evaluate a new strategy for the prevention of tick-borne zoonoses among highly exposed forestry professionals. In a highly controversial context of increasing incidence of Lyme disease, and low acceptability of preventive measures, the question arises as to how to improve the effectiveness of prevention. We hypothesize that one solution lies in enabling people to adopt an active stance in the co-production of new scientific knowledge on this risk, and in the co-construction of prevention practices with specialist researchers. This hypothesis will be tested in three phases. An exploratory phase will involve 8 focus groups with 40 forestry professionals recruited in the Grand Est region by the DHDA association. This phase is necessary to gain access to their social representations of nature and disease, but also to build the following phases of the project. A transformative phase will involve these 40 professionals in (i) an immersive participatory research internship at the Laboratoire Tous Chercheurs, and (ii) an action research workshop aimed at co-developing new prevention practices. An evaluation phase will consist of drawing up and distributing a questionnaire addressed to participants in the previous phases, as well as to a control population of ONF agents working in the Grand Est region. This project, positioned at the crossroads of social psychology, biology, epidemiology and ecology, and supported by the CiTIQUE national participatory research program, aims to provide new, concrete solutions to the problem of tick risk prevention. Thanks to the CiTIQUE and DHDA networks, these solutions can be tested on other scales and with other populations. Over and above the theoretical knowledge they will provide on the comprehensive and psychosocial approach to tick risk, they will also constitute an innovative example of interdisciplinarity around a current, complex and controversial health issue.

There is substantive evidence that the prevailing silo approach in public policy is threatening the materialization of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, approaches to research SDG interactions are in its infancy, and available ones fail to adequately incorporate the social and governance dimensions, which are instrumental in the implementation of sustainable development models. Likewise, managing real world SDG problems requires strong stakeholder engagement approach to find solutions matching countries capacities and their socioeconomic-physicalgovernance contexts. SDG-pathfinding aims to bridge some of these gaps, and develop novel tools and capacities support a sustainable development pathway for African countries that is adapted to the local contexts and priorities. We will pursue this goal by adopting a strong interand trans-disciplinary approach to: 1) Analyze multi-level governance structures and path dependencies; 2) Develop and test an innovative, online and participatory SDG scenario policy tool to support the development of inclusive and bottom up narratives and transformation pathways; and 3) Foster exchange and knowledge sharing to promote social learning and drive the change in mindsets required to match our ambitions for sustainability. We will implement our approach in two African SDG from hotspots from Senegal and South Africa. SDG pathfinding is an experiential and fully participatory process, and will engage participants through living labs in defining their desirable futures, anticipate potential trade-offs, and co-designing solutions within the chosen sustainability pathways. Main innovations: 1) the integration with a governance framework to unpack impediments and enablers for SDG implementation; 2) a flexible integration of the different participatory tools; 3) suitable to support the localization of the SDG agenda, and 5) can be implemented online approach in situations where face-to-face meetings are not possible.