Applications Invited for Agropolis Fondation Call for International Mobility

Organization: Agropolis Fondation

Apply By: 15 Sep 2022

Grant Amount: 450000 Euro

About the Organization

Agropolis Fondation is a scientific cooperation foundation dedicated to research, training and innovation at the service of stakeholders in agriculture and sustainable development. It relies on an internationally renowned scientific network, with 40 research units divided into five disciplinary fields:

• Plant biology;
• Biology of plant biotic interactions;
• Agronomy and agroecosystem management;
• Food and non-food processing sciences;
• Social sciences and agriculture-society interactions.

Its main mission is to promote the agroecological transition in tomorrow’s agriculture, through its network and its multi-stakeholder and international partnerships.

About the Grant

In 2019, Agropolis Fondation launched the call “Agriculture-based solutions” with the overall objective of promoting agro-ecological transition for tomorrow’s agricultures, notably through its 3  crosscutting axes, namely:

• Axis 1: Agriculture and climate change: adaptation and mitigation;
• Axis 2: Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;
• Axis 3: Responsible production and consumption.

Since then, the COVID-19 crisis and the recent events in Ukraine have further emphasised the need  to review agricultural models. The COVID-19 crisis has indeed  highlighted the consequences of  biodiversity loss1 , environment degradation and accelerated urbanisation2 Therefore, there is a need  to jointly consider human, animal and environmental health3

More recently, the war in Ukraine has  underlined the deep dependence of some Southern populations on cereals and other inputs produced  in Europe. In this context, agriculture, forestry and other land-use activities are seen as both the  main drivers of climate change4 and biodiversity loss5 and the basis for solutions based on the relocation of production and the development of agroecology6 at many levels on spatial, temporal  and jurisdictional scales7.  Thus, global agriculture policies are now facing major challenges: nourishing and ensuring a good  health to an increasingly urbanized world population that is expected to grow by nearly 2 billion by  2050, while responding to the major challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. The most  vulnerable populations are paying the highest price for these global transformations (climate change, strong dependence on globalisation). At the same time, there is a growing consensus on the  importance of using the “food system” approach to address various segments of food production, transformation and consumption8

. Food systems also face increasing societal demand to become  more responsible by reducing negative externalities on the environment and human health, among  others. In particular, it is a way to better understand how the aforementioned crises are challenging the notions of food democracy, food insecurity and food systems inter-dependence in a globalised  world.

Scientists play a key role in various reflections, discussions and actions which contribute to addressing the challenge of agro-ecological transition by promoting practices and solutions which preserve natural renewable resources and lead to more desirable socio-ecosystems. One way of achieving this is mobilizing research, higher education and training towards addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim is not only to show and study the ongoing transformations, but also to develop agriculture-based solutions to address the SDGs and the positive and negative nexuses between them:

• veer away from conventional or high-input agriculture towards a more sustainable-oriented model, for a stronger contribution to the agro-ecological transition;
• support scientific excellence and training to fill Knowledge-Action Gaps and co-design desirable solutions with stakeholders in agriculture;
• address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a more holistic way and not in silos9;
• promote new and/or scale up good practices (nature-based solutions, ecological intensification)and approaches for addressing the complex interactions of SDGs (e.g. sustainability science10, transformative science11, integrated, interdisciplinarity or participatory science, problems- oriented approach and solutions-driven approach).

The present CfP aims to:

• consolidate the international recognition of the network’s scientific excellence;
• grow and/or capitalise on strategic themes for the Fondation;
• strengthen or initiate partnerships of scientific excellence for the Fondation’s charter  members in hosting senior foreign researchers;
• encourage the international mobility of young French researchers (Masters, PhD students,  post-docs & young scientists) from the Fondation’s network.

Grant Size

 Up to €450k are available for this CfP which will fund two types of projects presented below. A maximum of €30k can be requested for each mobility.

• Category 1: Incoming mobility This category aims to give scientists and researchers from international, regional or national public research institutions around the world (North and South) the opportunity to work with their counterparts in the Fondation’s scientific network (preference will be given to new mobilities and to scientists who have never been to Montpellier).
• Category 2: Outgoing mobilityThis category aims to help young scientists from the Fondation’s network research units to establish links and work with their international counterparts; or to enable PhD and/or Master students supervised by scientists from the network research units to spend part of their training in international research centres. One potential type of support is envisaged:

Outgoing mobility of young scientists and PhD or MSc students (6 months maximum).

Eligibility

A submitted proposal should tackle at least one of the crosscutting axes presented in Section III.

• The lead proponent should be from one of the research units belonging to the Fondation’s scientific network (Labex Agro)12
• Scientists from research units or institutions outside of the Fondation’s scientific network can  participate as partners

How to Apply

The deadline for the ongoing first wave is 15 September 2022, 11.59 PM CET 21. All the projects must be submitted online here:

For more information Please check the Link