The Centre of Excellence for Plant-Environment Interactions (CEPEI) is an international research centre created to maximize the synergies between the Plant Biotechnology and Genomics Centre (CBGP, UPM-INIA) of Madrid (Spain), the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of Beijing (IGDB) (China) and the Shanghai Centre for Plant Stress Biology (PSC) (China), two Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) centres.

CBGP, UPM-INIA (Madrid, Spain) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IGDB (Beijing, China) and the PSC (Shanghai, China) to establish this new joint international Centre of Excellence on Plant-Environment Interactions (CEPEI).

The UPM Vicerrector for International Affairs indicates that “CEPEI is a paradigm of the new generation of research and innovation initiatives launched by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Technical University of Madrid, UPM) in its 20-year track history in China. It aims at world-class, balanced and institutionally ingrained cooperation between Spain and China, able to jointly address global challenges”.

Prof. Jian-Kang Zhu, director of PSC said that “The excellent collaborative research projects granted in this first call are a clear illustration of the enormous potential of this joint venture between Chinese and Spanish researchers”. He added that “we believe that the synergistic environment of CEPEI will not only favours the development of outstanding scientific research to tackle global needs in agriculture, but will also enable unparalleled international training for the next generation of scientists”.

Prof. Weicai Yang, Director of IGDB said "The outstanding collaborative research projects granted in this first call combine excellence of world class experts from China and Spain to tackle key problems in agriculture. We are excited to see the three-way collaboration materializes in forms of highly competitive projects and we look forward to seeing fruitful outcome". He added, "We hope CEPEI will become an excellent Sino-Spain model of academic cooperation".

Prof. Antonio Molina, Director of CBGP (UPM-INIA) and Scientific Director of CBGP-SO program, declares that “CEPEI initiative and these collaborative research projects granted are examples of the firm commitment of CBGP (UPM-INIA) for enhancing the international collaboration and science of excellence, and the innovation and translational biology, which are the key axes of our program of excellence CBGP-SO”. Dr. Molina acknowledges “the excellent collaboration of the IGDB and PSC Directors and researchers in launching this ambitious CEPEI program, and the collaboration of the UPM Asia Delegation in Shanghai”.