ARCH: European Agricultural Research
towards greater impact on global CHallenges

Joint EIARD-SCAR Strategic Working Group

Notes –DRAFT

9th Meeting of the Joint SWG

Date:Wednesday 9th September 2015

Venue:Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture in Berlin

Main decisions and conclusions

1.Patricia, Jill and Morag to contact AKIS and examine interest for a joint workshop on EIP

2.Comments to Philippe’s discussion paper Towards an effective “orchestration” of global Agricultural Research (AR + ARD) investments Governance to be sent to Philippe.

3.Patricia will contact the chair of the SWG Bioeconomy and invite a member to the next ARCH meeting to explore joint interests.

4.Jill, Morag and Patricia will prepare for the AKIS meeting in October which Jill will attend.

5.Alex to draft a 2 page document on Impact and Excellence for the Co-chairs to send to SCAR and possibly others

6.Alex to draft a communication from Co-chairs to Robert-Jan Smits about ARCH support to ProIntensAfrica which can also be used to inform SCAR.

7.Alex will examine the extent to which ARCH comments have been included in the SCAR reflection paper.

8.Next ARCH meeting: The Coordination Team will identify an appropriate date late November or early December in Brussels

1.Introduction by Host and Co-chairs

Welcome, adoption of the agenda

The participants were welcomed by the host Siegfried Harrer, BLE. A short explanation of the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BundesanstaltfürLandwirtschaft und Ernährung, BLE) within the scope of business of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) was provided (see

The Co-chairs thanked Siegfried for organising this meeting place in Berlin which resulted from the interest in holding the meeting back to back with PLATFORM meeting.

A list of participants of this meeting is to be found at the end of these notes.

The agenda, as circulated prior to the meeting, was adopted with a few small changes to the timing of the different points.

Comments and follow up to the notes from the last meeting

Maurizio from Finland has agreed to discuss by mail future meetings with the group with the view to a possible alternative to a physical meeting. However, many prefer a physical meeting even though resources are a constraint.

“Everyone to check the ARCH website and send comments to Siegfried and Alex”: There have been several comments and these have been addressed so that the ARCH website has been updated and improved thanks to Siegfried. Some photographs have been added thanks to CIRAD.

The Coordination Team has produced an ARCH folder has been uploaded onto website at the foot of the first page of the ARCH website and can be printed from there.

Alex will contact Hans-Jörg to get a status of the meeting in Milan on 15th October(done).

There were no further comments to the Notes from the 8th meeting which are now final and on the website under the“Member Area”.

2.Discussion of members’ papers

Alex introduced the session and what we aim to get out of these discussions emphasising that the discussions should aim at identifying areas which ARCH can support and concrete ways of doing so as well as expected outputs of any interventions. How can ARCH make a difference?

The planned paper “Linking with the Food Industry” has been postponed as Lance O’Brien will be retiring shortly.

The suitability of EIP for Africa and vice versa

Patricia introduced her paper which provides ideas of common interest at a strategic level. She guided the discussions which may be summarised as:

  • Define EIP to make sure that we talk about the same concept.
  • What makes the EIP in Europe functional?
  • What might make it functional in Africa? Given still large groups of non-organized farmers, a non-functioning extension services, CGIAR centres not always reaching out to NARS, etc.
  • At farmer's level, there is not much synergy between Africa and Europe. At level of thematic groups: yes.
  • EIP is tailor made for Europe but is still not proven.
  • We cannot export this mechanism to Africa, but we may identify best practices that may be to the benefit of Africa, and vice versa as Africa (CORAF/WECRAD) is already implementing Innovation Platforms. IP are also investigated in other regions like potato at CIP.
  • Suggest a possible joint workshop with AKIS – possibly an initial small meeting with 2 -3 persons form AKIS and 2-3 from ARCH (Jill, Patricia and Morag).ARCH members will contact Co-chairs Krijn and Anne for exchanging ideas. Jill will attend next AKIS meeting in October.

Development Impact and Research Excellence

Alex introduced his paper and guided the discussions which may be summarised as:

  • AR focusses on excellence and ARD focusses on impact (but what is excellence and what is impact). However, this is an extreme situation since also AR more and more focuses on societal impact as well.
  • Impact: A marked effect of influence.
  • Impact may be positive and negative, so impact is not only desirable.
  • Excellence: well executed science that cannot be measured (only) by number of publications.
  • Impact and Excellence on publication and for other objectives. CGIAR has been very active on Impact Assessment.
  • It is not Excellence versus Impact, but they are a continuum.
  • Both terms are at different levels: all science needs to be excellent, but impact can be scientific, social or economic impact.
  • Research is becoming more multi-disciplinary making impact more difficult to assess
  • Timeframes are different: impact can be within the life time of the project but often only becomes apparent at a much later stage. It also means that projects are hardly ever evaluated for impact (allowing possible opportunism in ex-ante impact assessment or during the project proposal phase). If impact is considered within the lifetime of a project, the impact may be biased towards easy-to-measure effects like yield.
  • “Research into Use”launched by DFID, UK in 2006, has considerable experience
  • Contribution (did any research contribute to an effect) or attribution (can any effect be ascribed to specific research) is an issue.
  • But is there actually a problem? Maybe to select proposals and to enable high-ranking publications from African partners.
  • What can ARCH do?
  • Draft a two page summary in context (What is impact?What is excellence? Is there a problem? Put this in context).
  • Report a synopsis to SCAR.

Towards an effective “orchestration” of global Agricultural Research (AR + ARD) investments Governance

This paper, by Philippe, was not introduced or discussed and could perhaps be discussed in the future. Any comments are very welcome and should be sent to Philippe.

3.Linkages to other Strategic Working Groups

Bioeconomy

Introduction by Patricia Wagenmakers

The SWG on Sustainable bio-resources for a growing bio-economy is redesigning agriculture and forestry. Since this is a global issue, there are several potential linkages with ARCH. SCAR launched its Foresight on the Bioeconomy, DG Research is studying their contributions and a conference is planned next spring in the Netherlands, organized by the SWG. Besides, Germany has a national strategy on bioeconomy. Switzerland has a green economy strategy which is similar to bioeconomy although may be a little distant from agriculture.Other member states are less pronounced.

ARCH will contact the chair and invite a member to the next ARCH meeting to explore joint interests.

AKIS 4th Mandate proposal

Introduction by Patricia Wagenmakers

The proposal for the 4th AKIS Mandate has been circulated. ARCH is mentionedin connection with international cooperation. AKIS has planned deliverables such as a toolbox and an adapted EIP Agri approach for Africa. This is obviously an area where ARCH has to contribute.

Jill will attend the next AKIS meeting in Brussels on 6th and 7th October and will ensure ARCH interests are considered. To be prepared by Jill, Patricia, Morag. Possibilities for ARCH contribution to AKIS to be circulated to the ARCH group.

4.Consultative support from ARCH

ERA Net CoFund

See some general details e.g. Supports public-public partnerships including joint programming initiatives between Member States. Duration minimum 5 years and basically aiming at preparing and implementing co-funded joint calls similar to ERA Nets. EC contribution 33%.

Call likely to be published early 2016 for project implementation 2017meaning that ERA Net project partners will have to mobilise budgets in 2018

IntensAfrica

Huub Löffler provided an update of the process.

ProIntensAfrica may go for an ERA NET Co-Fund possibly as a stepping stone to an Article 185. There may be other consortia being established.

  • How can ARCH help to support the call? Maybe by facilitating the process to come to a common proposal.
  • French position: French Ministry of Research is interested to participate in the Co-Fund, but are not interested in a next phase of ERAfrica. It is on the table without budget, but Philippe asked for 5 M€.
  • CIRAD intends to participate in the programme or in supporting the ministry (at own expenses).
  • Germany Min Food and Agriculture: They are in favour of supporting and participating, with a tabled (but not yet approved) budget of 3-5 M€ (depending on the length of the activity: more or less 1 M€ per year). Also BMBF (education and research) is interested, but they are involved in ERAfrica, while the future of ERAfrica is still under discussion (some parties advocate a stand-alone call).
  • BMBF (education and research) is also interested, but budget is still open and they will support either ERAfrica, or the Co-Fund.
  • Swiss: no huge interest, especially not in light of the ongoing Swiss-EU discussion on their bilateral contract on research collaboration (depending on renewal, Swiss has been kicked-out of the SCAR).
  • Austria: Karla will discuss the topic again and report back as appropriate.
  • The Netherlands failed to bring it under FACCE, as it was ranked very low by industry. They will organise a meeting between Ministries EZ, BuZa and NWO on a short term.
  • Suggestion Alex: draft a communication from Co-chairs to Robert-Jan Smits about support of ARCH and to inform SCAR. The same letter can be used to raise national interest.
  • Siegfried suggeststhat ARCH plays a facilitating/coordinating role, and offers to organize a workshop to divide tasks and get things going.
  • ARCH members should encourage ministries to allocate a budget

ProIntensAfrica will be invited to the ERAfrica meeting planned to be held in Germany on 5th and 6th October. There could well be another workshop a couple of weeks later which ARCH can support or even organise.

HLPD

The next meeting is in Addis, Ethiopia in March 2016. Philippe will participate as a member of the Expert Group. There is unlikely to be anything extra for ARCH.

5.Information about participation of ARCH members in meetings and inputs from members

PLATFORM Event – 10th – 11th September

The Coordination Team will participate.

Patricia presented the ppt she intended to make at the PLATFORM meeting. There were a few comments provided as improvements. Members can also use the ppt as inspiration for interventions they may have to make. It can be found on the website under the members’ area. In addition, it will be posted under “PLATFORM Annual Event 2015” on the PLATFORM website (see

4th SCAR Foresight Study – 8th October

ARCH has submitted comments to the report and the 7-page “Reflection paper“. These will be presented in Brussels on 8th October with Commissioners from RTD and AGRI present.Alex has been invited to participate as he has been involved in process.Jill and Paul will also participate. There may be opportunities to reinforce ARCH comments and also to find new ARCH members. Alex will examine the extent to which ARCH comments have been included in the reflection paper.

Consultation on the “Role of Research in Global Food and Nutrition Security”

See

ARCH submitted comments to the on-line survey run by Steering Committee of the EU Scientific Programme for Expo Milano 2015. The next step is presentation of final discussion paper in Milan on 15th October when two Commissioners will attend. This will involve a presentation of a recommendation document that proposes some results and sets the scene for actions to be taken after the Expo.

After the meeting Hans-Jörg has informed that it is JRC who is managing the invitations centrally. He has received the updated ARCH distribution list which he will forward.

EFARD Annual Technical and Business meeting 23rd – 24th November 2015 in Brussels

Introduction by Philippe Petithuguenin

Philippe will attend meeting.

There is a draft EFARD Discussion Paper: Mapping European Agricultural Research and Development Landscape on Nutrition”. However, there is not yet an English version of the paper. ARCH would like to comment the paper once available.

The paper does not look broadly at nutrition for mainly ARD projects have been taken into account. ARCH will offer to add the AR research as well.

Agricultural research and innovation conference in Brussels on 26th – 28th January 2016 - “Towards a long-term strategy for European agricultural research and innovation by 2020 and beyond”

See

A workshop was held on 19th June in Milan to launch the discussion. A background paper was prepared for this. This was followed by an On-line survey until 3rd July and now there are plans for a large conference in January 2016. There is no programme yet but Alex will track developments as this may provide an interesting opening for ARCH.

6.New ARCH activities and studies

Several ideas were suggested although some were only ideas at this stage and no concrete action was agreed. These topics could be discussed more concretely either by mail or at the next ARCH meeting.

  • ARCH should look at the possibilities of a joint meeting/workshop with AKIS regarding EIPs.
  • ProIntensAfrica is very interested in linking up with ARCH in the development of the IntensAfrica Consortium and preparation of the proposal.
  • It may be of interest to develop the idea of getting CG Scientists to spend some time at a European institution.
  • Bioeconomymeeting to be discussed with SWG Bioeconomy on potential ARCH contribution.
  • Collaboration with the private sector.

7.Next meeting

In Brussels late November or early December (10.00 - 16.30)

The next meeting could be in connection with other meetings such as the EFARD meeting 23rd – 24th November 2015 or the SCAR Plenary on 9th December in Brussels. The Coordination Team will identify an appropriate date.

8.Any other business

Both Morag Webb and Huub Löffler are now on the distribution list and it is hopeful that they are active on ARCH in the future.

A discussion about ARCH indicated that there is a need for ARCH to increase in numbers perhaps to Eastern European countries and to Nordic countries.

The option of not being an independent group but rather affiliated to other groups was discussed. However, ARCH would only be relevant for other groups in part of their business.

9.Close of meeting

The Co-chairs closed the meeting after a short round of comments “Take home messages” including

  • There is still a lot of work to do.
  • The meetings short papers are useful. ARCH is very important for SCAR.
  • Good that ARCH is willing to help ProIntensAfrica with a workshop in October and constructing a consortium
  • A little worried about the future of ARCH – lack of resources
  • Impressed by ARCH’s development
  • Lots of food for thought
  • Still a divide between Public research and private users
  • Good with concrete and specific conclusions
  • Good to reach out to other groupings.

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