Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, was honoured in 2018 to host the 11th World Soybean Research Conference (WSRC11), organized in Europe for the first time after being held for 45 years. The conference was postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was finally decided to relocate the conference to Vienna, Austria, while the Institute remained one of the organizing institutions of this global research
event. Researchers at the Institute served as members of the International Scientific Committee and Local Organizing Committee, and were among the editors of the Book of Abstracts. The conference was held from 18 to 23 June 2023 and gathered over 700 participants from all over the world.
Researchers from the Republic of Serbia published 16 abstracts and 11 of those were authored by the researchers from the Institute. On the first day of the conference, Prof. Dr. Jegor Miladinović, principal research fellow, presided at the session titled “Innovations in Soybean Breeding”, and delivered the plenary speech “Soybean breeding in Europe: methods, sources and utilization” on the second day. Dr. Vuk Đorđević, principal research fellow, participated at a parallel session with the “Regional report from Serbia” on the largest challenges in soybean production and their potential solutions. Marjana Vasiljević, MSc. gave an oral presentation on “The role of soybean for re‐designing European cropping systems” at a parallel session on the third day of the conference.
A workshop within the EU funded ECOBREED project was held during the conference, which ended with an interactive workshop where Dr. Vuk Đorđević and Marjana Vasiljević, MSc. held presentations and organized group activity with students who were introduced to organic breeding and tools used in advanced soybean genotyping and phenotyping. Scientific contribution of the Institute was, therefore, visible through 11 abstracts, 5 oral presentations, workshop organization, one session presiding, and participation in the scientific and organizing committees of the conference. On this occasion, Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops showed and proved that it is the research nucleus and a generator of soybean research in this part of Europe.
