The Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research (IRZiBŻ) of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Olsztyn won EUR 2.5 million in the prestigious ERA Chairs H2020 program for the implementation of the six-year project ?Welcoming ERA Chair to Center of Excellence in nutrigenomics for optimizing health and well-being? (WELCOME2).

The WELCOME2 project continues the WELCOME project of the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), granted to Dr. Leslie Kozak in 2011 (?Nutrition and ambient temperature during early development can reduce susceptibility to obesity?). This grant in the amount of over PLN 7 million was co-financed by European funds from the Operational Program Innovative Economy.

The WELCOME2 project ?Welcoming ERA Chair to Center of Excellence in nutrigenomics for optimizing health and well-being? aims to establish an interdisciplinary center of excellence at the IRZiBŻ, which specializes in research using nutrigenomics tools to assess the impact of nutrition on the genetic predisposition to so-called diet-related diseases.

The basis for this action will be the employment of a world-class scientist and science manager, along with the establishment of a new research group, which will simultaneously provide innovative education at the interdisciplinary Doctoral School of Agricultural Sciences, run by the IRZiBŻ with the Institute of Agrophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Lublin and the National Veterinary Institute PBI in Puławy.

IRZiBŻ PAN is among the 2 Polish and 20 European winners of this prestigious grant in 2020. Projects from the ERA Chairs program are also designed to influence the development of the region where they are implemented ? both in the field of management and research ? but also to increase the projects? applicability and innovativeness. In the history of the ERA Chairs program, funds were granted to 7 Polish projects.