PIAF history

PIAF is almost 35 years old! It is one of the first "joint research units" to have been created between a University (Blasie Pascal University) and INRA, even before it had "Dual Research Unit" status.

Following the restructuring of the life sciences sector at Blaise Pascal University and the CNRS in Clermont-Ferrand, a merger took place between INRA (the Development Phenomena and Morphogenesis team led by Jean-Claude Mauget, DR INRA in Bioclimatology, now Professor Emeritus of Agrocampus Ouest) and Blaise Pascal University (the cellular energy and source-sink relationship in perennial plants team led by Professor Michel Gendraud). This merger, which was favorably evaluated on October 12, 1990, gave rise to the Bioclimatology-PIAF Associated Unit (Integrated Physiology of the Fruit Tree), whose first director was Jean-Sylvain Frossard. It was the first associated unit between INRA and a university.

Two years later, in January 1992, the PIAF expanded with the integration of a new UBP team working on thigmomorphogenesis (modification of the shape of plants by touch: e.g., the wind) with the arrival of Nicole Boyer (MCF at UBP) and Marie-Odile Desbiez (Research Director at CNRS). The idea was to bring together researchers from different but complementary disciplines around the same object, the tree. Thus, agronomists and bioclimatologists from INRA working at the whole-plant level joined forces with physiologists and biochemists addressing the same questions but at cellular levels, pioneering what would become integrative biology. The PIAF then further broadened its range, going from mechanics and thermal to functional genomics and molecular physiology. The PIAF is a "Joint Research Unit" (UMR 547) between INRA and Blaise-Pascal University since January 1, 2000. Over the years, the PIAF has also opened up to the diversity of trees, and their different uses (forestry, fruit trees, then urban or agroforestry). The PIAF has also been enriched by its disciplinary approaches, to make interdisciplinarity one of its strengths.