At the kick-off meeting, Pascaline Pierson (Arvalis), Simone project coordinator, accompanied by Work Package Leaders, Niamh Power (Munster Technological University), Emmanuelle Gourdain (Arvalis) and Judith Wirth (Agroscope) outlined the project's main objectives and target audience, and theand innovative methodologies that will be used to achieve them.
Driving agroecological transition
If we want to speed up and scale up the agroecological transition of farming systems, it is essential to redesign research and innovation processes to make them more inclusive and impactful. This open and innovative approach is at the core of the SIMONE project. Led by Arvalis in collaboration with 11 partners, seven living labs across North West Europe will be set up to strengthen transnational cooperation, enable learning and exchange between regions, and bridge gaps between them.
Thanks to its expertise and daily proximity with farmers and industry operators, ARVALIS, the National Technical Institute for Arable Crops in France, will ensure SIMONE stays operational and transfer-focused.
Project contributions and beneficiaries
In this video filmed at the kick-off meeting on the 21st and 22nd of February 2024 at Nancy, France, Pascaline Pierson, the coordinator of the SIMONE project, outlines the contributions to the three main beneficiaries: farmers, regional actors and researchers. SIMONE aims to improve territorial resilience and strengthens research and innovation capacities by developing on-farm innovation and smart solutions in cooperation with regional actors.
Engaging Living Labs: Work package 1
The role of work package 1 is to contribute to the engagement of Living Labs within and between regions and to the definition of regional agroecological objectives. Therefore, Niamh Power, a researcher at Munster Technological University in Ireland and leader of WP1, discusses the need for the social sciences to structure and sustain the Living Labs and to create synergies between them.
Systemic solutions and performance: Work package 2
In work package 2, simulators will be developed to identify systemic solutions and estimate their performances. Emmanuelle Gourdain, head of the Digital, Methodological, and Experimental Equipment Department at Arvalis and pilot of the WP2, describes the innovative design approach for agroecological solutions simulators that will involve farmers in its development aside from technical experts.
On-Farm Experiments: Work package 3
Finally, work package 3 focuses on evaluating a set of agroecological solutions by farmers on their own farms. Judith Wirth, head of the Weed Science in Arable Crops Research group at Agroscope and WP3 leader, highlights the importance of supporting on-farm experiments. Unlike the standardized on-station experiments, on-farm experiments have a greater impact farmer adaptation and practical implementation.
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Pascaline Pierson, Coordinator of SIMONE project and Manager of Arvalis' Saint-Hilaire-en-Woëvre experimental station