Methodology

36 months, 4 partners, 8 outstanding researchers/experts and 6 work-packages divided into 19 tasks covering the whole project duration

Quails and Camelina Cake

The Argento project consists of 6 interlinked work-packages, lasting 36 months. To achieve all its goals, the Argento consortium consist of 4 research units, with different and highly integrated skills/activities:

  • UNIBO (coordinator) will focus on agronomic trials, camelina cake production and integrated environmental and socio-economic impacts assessment;
  • UNIPD will focus on quail feeding trials to monitor apparent nutrients’ digestibility, health status, feed-choice, production performance and the physico-chemical-sensory traits of the derived healthy eggs and meat;
  • UNIPI will focus on agronomic trials, environmental impact assessment and antioxidant analysis;

The whole Argento consortium consists of 8 outstanding researchers/experts with well-documented previous experience on the type of the activity to be conducted within the project, and this would permit an easy achievement of final Argento goals. Furthermore, in order to increase the diffusion of the knowledge arise in the Argento project 2 PhD students, 1 rtd researcher and 6 research fellows will be involved in the Argento research team.

The Argento partners will actively take care of their training and development by involving them in project meetings and by favouring contacts among the participants of the different teams. All four Argento Research Units will interact with each other through regular meetings to exchange information on the results and organise dissemination activities.

This collaboration will help to meet the goal of developing sustainable feeds for economically profitable, environmentally sound, and high health poultry products. The Argento project is part of the research activities funded by PRIN, Research Projects of Relevant National Interest 2017 , Prot. 2017LZ3CHF (MIUR).


Each of ARGENTO research unit is leading of at least one WP focused on the specific skills of the research team involved.

 

In particular:

  •  UNIBO is leader of WPs5 (Environmental, economic and social impact assessment) & WPs 6 (Project coordination and dissemination activities);
  • UNIPI is leader of WP2 (Field study on new camelina lines and optimization of the agronomic management to improve seed yield and quality);
  • CNR-IBBA is leader of WPs1 (Improvement of camelina seed quality by gene engineering);
  • UNIPD is leader of WPs 3 (Tests on quail feeding diet based on the new camelina lines with improved seed quality) & WPs4 (Physico-chemical and sensory analyses). 


A part from WP leadership each partner is involved, with different roles, in different tasks.