The VIB center for Plant Systems Biology is a world-leading research center in the field of plant biology. Central themes of research are plant metabolism, growth and development, Interaction of plants with the environment, bioinformatics and integrative biology, translation from models to crops and from lab to field and implementation of breakthrough technologies such as single cell and spatial omics.

The Crop Genome Engineering Facility (CGEF), part of the VIB center for Plant Systems Biology, operates maize and soybean transformation and gene editing platforms that can be accessed by academic labs and by companies. In addition, CGEF performs cutting-edge research to facilitate plant regeneration and to improve CRISPR delivery.

ILVO, the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, is an independent scientific research institute of the Flanders Government aimed at generating knowledge for more sustainability in the agriculture, fisheries and agrifood sectors. ILVO has extensive expertise in open field phenotyping and is our partner for managing and executing trials in the field. 

The Agro-Incubator is part of EMPHASIS-Belgium, the Belgian research infrastructure for plant phenotyping. EMPHASIS Belgium forms a national node of EMPHASIS-Europe which aims to expand and upgrade critical phenotyping infrastructure and provides access to infrastructure and data for researchers and industry. EMPHASIS-Belgium also engages with the Belgian phenotyping community and organizes training and outreach.

EMPHASIS, the European Research Infrastructure for Plant Phenotyping, is a distributed research infrastructure that provides access for researchers from both academic and commercial settings to advanced plant phenotyping facilities across Europe. The VIB Agro-Incubator provides services and partnership as one of the EMPHASIS facilities, as part of the Belgian Node of EMPHASIS. Beyond access, EMPHASIS provides other services to support innovation in plant science, crop improvement, and sustainable agriculture. The EMPHASIS Coordination Office is based at the Agro-Incubator.

Together with VIB’s Biotope startup incubator program, we provide accommodation and support to young entrepreneurs working on the future of sustainable agriculture and food production. The Biotope project strengthens Flanders’ top position in biotech applications for agribusiness and the food industry.