The International Hellenic University (IHU) is Greece’s first public university where programs were taught exclusively in English and was first established by Law in October 2005 (based in Thessaloniki). In 2019, IHU was re-established by Law, according to which, the initial IHU was merged with three Technological Education Institutes the:
1.Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki
2.Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia
3.Technological Educational Institute of East Macedonia and Thrace
It is now home to 9 different Schools comprising 32 Departments with campuses at 7 different cities in Northern Greece (Thessaloniki (Thermi and Sindos), Kavala, Serres, Drama, Katerini, Edessa, Kilkis and Didymoteicho). It has about 53.000 undergraduate students and approximately 3.000 postgraduate students. The Department of Agriculture belongs to the School of Geosciences (Thessaloniki) of the IHU. This is originally established by the founding law 1404/83, the 1983, as the evolution of similar Departments that operated the 1973-1974. About 3,000 students currently study in the Department, the majority of which following the Plant production specialization. It is located at Sindos, near the industrial zone of Thessaloniki, a base of many Seed Companies, having a large experimental farm, allows field experimentation for applied agricultural research combined with agricultural practice.
Role in the Legume Generation project
The Department of Agriculture of IHU is involved in the Legumes Generation project and will provide its facilities for field experiments and laboratory equipment for lentil agronomic and quality evaluation of the lentil germplasm resources and lentil breeding. Also, it will serve as a location for lupin evaluation experiments. It will provide expertise in agronomic evaluation of lentils germplasm, plant breeding of promising accession in the 5-year program with final aim the delivery of lentil improved lines. It will coordinate the activities related to WP4 for boosting the breeding in lentil crop across Europe in collaboration with the other involved partners (IPK, UPM, UB, KEY Institute, ESKUSA) and all the other partners. In collaboration with the established network of seed companies and network with the Greek Gene Bank will offer a very good dissemination in Greece and will participate actively in the dissemination and exploitation activities of the whole project. The team of IHU brings high expertise in agronomic evaluation of plant genetic resources, plant breeding, physiological measurements on field basis and seed quality analysis to be able to successfully fulfill the work plan. Also, it includes agricultural economists with a high expertise in Agricultural entrepreneurship and economic analysis
