#CIRAD had the pleasure of participating in the DeSIRA-LIFT
conference, organized by the European Commission on the theme: "Boosting Agri-Food Research and Innovation Cooperation for Sustainable Impact at Scale."
This major event brought together researchers, policymakers, development partners, private sector actors, and civil society from #Europe, #Africa, and beyond to explore how research and innovation can drive the transformation of agri-food systems toward greater #sustainability, #inclusiveness, and #resilience.
Key takeaways from the conference discussions:
1️⃣ The crucial role of partnerships: Climate change, biodiversity loss, demographic shifts, and food insecurity require collaborative, multi-stakeholder approaches and co-designed solutions.
2️⃣ A shared ambition to transform food systems: #DeSIRA initiative and
projects funded by it illustrate those collective efforts, uniting the #EU,
private sector, research, civil society, and farmers, able to deliver real
and measurable impact.
3️⃣ #Innovation at scale and across systems: A central theme was the need to move beyond isolated success stories to foster "intelligent innovation ecosystems" that enable context-specific solutions to scale at local, national, and global levels. #Research and innovation play a pivotal role in this effort, generating evidence, identifying barriers, and building capacities.
4️⃣ Expanding the role of research beyond knowledge production. CIRAD and its partners highlighted the importance of research to:
👉 Capitalise on successes and failures to foster collective learning;
👉Bridge research and action by generating actionable, relevant knowledge;
👉Anticipate and prepare for future challenges through foresight;
👉 Strengthen science-policy interfaces to guide informed decision-making.
5️⃣ Rethinking investment and financing: The conference underscored the need for innovative financing mechanisms, including blended public-private
funding, and emphasized the importance of long-term investments that go
beyond typical project cycles to achieve impact.
Moreover, agroecology at the center of system transformation, there was a
strong call for launching a Team Europe Initiative on Agroecology Research
and Innovation at Scale, recognizing #agroecology as a guiding framework for redesigning value chains, empowering local actors, and delivering essential public goods such as biodiversity and climate resilience.
CIRAD remains fully committed to supporting these shared objectives and to promoting inclusive, partnership-driven research that enables the transformation toward resilient and sustainable agri-food systems. As such, it will support stronger synergies and linkages between Team Europe Initiatives and Horizon Europe R&I partnerships in the field of agroecology and sustainable food systems.
Ministère chargé de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères Leonard Mizzi Inese Rozensteine
