Professor Eva-Mari Aro and Her Research Group Become Partners in an Australian Centre of Excellence

The research group was selected to be a part of Australian plant biology Centre of Excellence, Plant Energy Biology. The centre is led by Professor A. Harvey Millar from the University of Western Australia

Australian Research Council (ARC) has selected the Centres of Excellence for 2014–2020. From 103 applications, only 12 centres were chosen to be part of the programme.

The selection process emphasised the international contacts of the Australian Centres of Excellence. Eva-Mari Aro’s research group is the only group that represents Finnish research in the selected Australian Centres of Excellence.

–I’m looking forward to inspiring research collaboration and researcher exchange both with the Australians and with the other European and American plant biology research groups that are part of the programme, says Eva-Mari Aro.

Aro’s laboratory at the University of Turku has become one of the most internationally recognised centres of photosynthesis research. During the past few years, the group has concentrated on researching how the photosynthesis process could be harnessed to produce clean, carbon dioxide free energy.

At the University of Turku, Eva-Mari Aro leads the Centre of Excellence of the Academy of Finland, Integrative Photosynthesis and Bioactive Compound Research at Systems Biology Level (2008–2013). During the new Centre of Excellence programme of the Academy of Finland, Aro will also be the head of a new Centre of Excellence from 2014 to 2019. She will lead the Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology of Primary Producers at the University of Turku and the University of Helsinki will also be a partner in the centre. In addition, Aro was selected as an Academy Professor for the period of 2014–2018.

Further reading:

>> ARC Centres of Excellence (pdf)

Text: Jussi Matikainen
Translation: Mari Ratia
Photo: Hanna Oksanen