The Syngenta-UPC Business Chair (www.catedrasyngenta.upc.edu) was formally established in July 2013 and is focused on the innovation and improvement of best management practices in pesticide application. The Chair consolidates the collaboration started some time ago between Syngenta and the UPC through the Agricultural Machinery Group (UMA), and includes training activities, research, transfer, and dissemination tasks for the agricultural sector. In terms of training and in the context of the European Directive on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides, UMA, in collaboration with Syngenta, has held numerous theoretical-practical courses in recent years, training over 1,500 professionals in the field of best management practices in pesticide application and regulation and calibration of sprayers. This collaboration does not end with training activities, however. Other projects have been also organized, dealing with specific problems in different areas and circumstances, such as improving application techniques in greenhouses, and a project in collaboration with the Government of Aragon aimed to preserve the quality of the waters of the Ebro basin. In the extension field, the Chair organizes and carries out different workshops and specialization courses in the context of “training the trainers”, a concept explicitly mentioned in the Directive on Sustainable Use. After two years of implementation of the Chair, the balance is certainly very positive and it is an example of the mutual benefit provided by collaboration between the professional world and academia.
