The third Baltic Sea Region Symposium and Postgraduate course of the ScanBalt Agrobiotechnology network (AB-RMS) was organised in Hotel Rossija, St. Petersburg, on June 25 – July 1, 2007. It was jointly funded by NordForsk and NOVA. This time, the focus was on “Applied and fundamental aspects of responses, signalling and developmental processes in the root-microbe systems”. The organisers were academician Igor Tikhonovich from All-Russia Research Institute in Agricultural Microbiology (ARRIAM), Pushkin, and the AB-RMS network coordinator, academy professor Jari Valkonen from the University of Helsinki. The keynote lecture was given by professor Alfred Pühler from the University of Bielefeld, Germany.
 
A total of 34 PhD students and 26 teachers/senior scientists from 14 countries actively participated in the symposium by giving lectures and presenting posters. The lecture programme was followed by 37 additional PhD students and 6 senior scientists from four Russian universities and five research institutes. Hence, a total of 71 PhD students and 32 senior scientists representing 14 nationalities benefited from the activities.
 
The annual symposium and PhD course is the most important forum for the dialogue of knowledge providers in the AB-RMS network that includes ca. 30 universities and research institutes within the Baltic Sea region. The AB-RMS network is closely associated with a research programme (MOP-TOP, NKJ project no. 122) that includes all Nordic and Baltic Sea region countries and aims to enhanced control of the soilborne potato mop-top virus.