The European Technology Platform for organic food and farming (TP Organics) and IFOAM Organics Europe invite their members to join for an exclusive webinar on the European Research & Innovation partnership on agroecology living labs and research infrastructures that will hold on 14 March 2022, from 14:00-16:00 (CET). Participants will learn more about the partnership and how to get involved and contribute to its development progress.

The European Commission has proposed a new initiative provisionally entitled “Accelerating farming systems transition: agroecology living labs and research infrastructures” as one of the candidate European partnerships in food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment under Horizon Europe. The partnership aims to structure and support a network of living labs (LLs) and research infrastructures (RIs) that will accelerate the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe.

In the first half of the webinar, Nicolas Tinois, Chair of the new Strategic Working Group on Agroecology (SCAR-AE) as well as Susana Gaona Sáez, Research Programme Officer at DG AGRI (European Commission) will give an introduction to the partnership, the timeline and process, and will explain how partners can get engaged.

Benjamin Sanchez Gimeno, SCAR-AE Co-Chair, leader of Task Force 2 on Research & Innovations gaps and Senior Researcher at National Institute for the Agricultural and Food Research and Technology, Spain (INIA) will equally be present to report about the state of the partnership’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda.

In the second presentation part, TP Organics Members Miguel de Porras (Director at Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL Europe), Dóra Drexler (Managing Director at Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture ÖMKi) and Korinna Varga (Research Project Lead at ÖMKi) will present the preparatory CSA project ALL-Ready, which develops a new framework for the future European network of LLs and RIs that will enable the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe.

Subsequently, the second preparatory CSA project AE4EU will be presented by TP Organics Members Alexander Wezel (Director of the Department Agroecology and Environment and Professor for Agroecology and Landscape Ecology at ISARA-Lyon and Coordinator of AE4EU), Paola Migliorini (Associate Professor in Agronomy and Crop Production at University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo and President of Agroecology Europe), Luca Colombo (Secretary General at Italian Foundation for Research in Organic and Biodynamic Agriculture FIRAB), and Ulrich Schmutz (Associate Professor of Organic Horticulture and Ecological Economics at Coventry University). AE4EU aims at building a European network on agroecology to accelerate the transition towards sustainable agriculture and food systems.

The speakers will also indicate how you can contribute to the projects and partnership preparations. The presentations will be followed by an interactive discussion with the session participants.

Register here to join the webinar (free for members of TP Organics and IFOAM Organics Europe).