SmartCoat: Request to join the Industrial Advisory Board

Introduction

Microbial inoculants are increasingly important in sustainable crop production, as beneficial bacteria and fungi enhance plant growth and resilience through mechanisms such as nutrient mobilization, stress tolerance, and pathogen suppression. They are therefore explored as alternatives or complements to conventional agrochemicals. Seed coatings and granular inoculants are particularly attractive delivery methods because they place microorganisms directly at the soil interface, enabling early plant-microbe interactions while requiring lower application rates and fitting into existing practices. However, widespread adoption is limited by formulation challenges, since microorganisms are highly sensitive to stresses during formulation, storage, and application, and survival does not always guarantee field efficacy. Current coating technologies, designed for chemical agents, often fail to protect living microbes, leading to reduced viability and activity. Moreover, the current bacterial strains often fail to deliver consistently in the field due to sensitivity to environmental stressors or insufficient plant colonisation. The industrial strains are often limited to ‘usual suspect genera’, leaving an untapped potential in microbial genera. 

Therefore, this project aims to address these shortcomings by (i) developing next-generation biodegradable formulation systems for microbial seed coatings and granules and (ii) identifying new promising bacterial strains.

Goals

The overall goal of SmartCoat is to develop a formulation process for biodegradable microbial coating formulations that improves the viability, stability, and bioactivity. The project aims to identify new microbial strains for plant growth promotion and/or biocontrol purposes. The project will generate new knowledge on how material composition, coating architecture, processing conditions and microbe–material interactions influence microbial survival and plant performance. Ultimately, SmartCoat should enable stable and performant seed coatings and granulates for microbial inoculants that support sustainable crop protection, plant resilience and productivity.

Objectives: 

• Develop a biodegradable carrier platform for microbial coatings, including binders, fillers, active ingredients and optional protective additives. 
• Select, isolate and characterize new microbial strains with a focus on plant growth promotion under abiotic and biotic stress conditions and bioactivity. 
• Evaluate promising biodegradable microbial formulations in seed coating and granular applications.

Request

To foster broader interaction with the industry, the project partners are looking for companies that wish to be involved in the Strategic basic research (SBO) part of this ICON-project (performed by the 3 research groups of UGent) as part of an advisory committee. More specifically, the project partners are searching for industrial actors who have expertise and/or interest in novel bacterial strain discovery for these applications, biodegradable polymers for seedcoating or granular applications and/or biostimulants and biopesticides.

During the industrial advisory board meetings, a two-way dialogue between the researchers and the user field involved remains essential to achieve the targeted knowledge transfer from scientific research to concrete applications. The primary role of companies during the project is: 

• to assist the research from an economic point of view;
• to provide feedback and guidance on the project results within the SBO-part.

The Advisory Board is open to all interested European companies, including companies established outside the Flemish region. 

Important notice: Companies that wish to be involved in the SBO part of this ICON project, will need to be Catalisti member. For more information on membership and membership fees, please contact Dieter Ruijten (druijtencatalisti.be (druijten[at]catalisti[dot]be)). The following requirements apply during the project implementation (2027): 

• All commercial members of the advisory committee are required to make a monetary contribution of minimum € 250/year in the case of an SME or minimum € 1000/year in the case of a large enterprise. This obligation does not apply to Catalisti INNOVATE and ENGAGE members.
• A commitment to a substantive contribution and a time investment to participate in bilateral consultations with the project executors and/or meetings of the advisory committee.

How to reply to this request

Please send an email before 13 July 2026 to Dieter Ruijten (druijtencatalisti.be (druijten[at]catalisti[dot]be)) with Martijn Roosen (mroosencatalisti.be (mroosen[at]catalisti[dot]be))  in cc, and briefly describe your interest and potential contribution to the project. After submission of your offer, you will be contacted for more information on the project contents, and a Letter of Intent and Questionnaire will be provided to join the Advisory Board of the project.