Pieter Spanoghe is a professor and has been head of the Research Group on Plant Protection Chemistry at Ghent University since 2012. The research group, as part of the Plant and Crop Department, is highly skilled in the analysis of pesticide residues in crops and environment (soil, water and air), and the study of effects and possible side effects
and human and environmental risk assessment in the use of pesticides. Since 2019, Pieter Spanoghe is and was coordinator of three Horizon2020 projects: Euraknos and Eureka. These multi-actor projects aim to increase dissemination by establishing a digital central European agriculture platform where practice-oriented knowledge objects and results of agricultural and forestry research are stored in open access for a long time.

BOF base funding will be used in three ongoing lines of research:

1. The Pressure of Plant Protection Products on Biodiversity. This research is led by PhD student Michael Raimondi and is a continuation of the finished two-year project DECALPE in which the biodiversity hatch was insufficiently highlighted.

2. The use of image analysis in the early detection and treatment of drought stress and plant diseases in the context of Integrated Pest Management. This research is led by doctoranda Eline Eeckhout and is a continuation of her almost finished project CLIMABIS.

3. Researching ways to improve the collection of high quality practical knowledge objects and its exploitation on the farm and in the forest by training and education. This research is planned for starting PhD student Eduard Mauri and is complementary to the Horizone Europe EU-FarmBook project.