Speaker
Description
The agroecological transition is not only a technical and environmental challenge but also a societal transformation driven by the decisions, interactions, and values of actors across agri-food systems. While technological and ecological innovations are essential to address climate change, biodiversity loss, food security, and rural sustainability, their successful development and implementation depend on the behaviours, motivations, capacities, and interactions of farmers, industries, policymakers, rural communities, consumers, and other stakeholders.
This position paper argues that the social sciences are indispensable to the development, implementation, and impact of research infrastructures (RIs) supporting agroecological transitions. By investigating the social, economic, behavioural, institutional, and cultural dimensions of decision-making, social sciences provide evidence to understand how innovations are adopted, adapted, or resisted across diverse territorial, socio-economic, and governance contexts. They also identify synergies and trade-offs within social-ecological systems, assess barriers to innovation, support participatory governance, and evaluate societal impacts.
Building on the Horizon Europe INFRA project AgroServ (Integrated Services Supporting Sustainable Agroecological Transition), the paper shows how integrating social and behavioural sciences into RIs complements biophysical and technological research through transdisciplinary transnational access (TNA) services. Four strategic contributions are identified: (i) strengthening multi-actor communities by revealing diverse values, perceptions, and pathways for consensus; (ii) delivering tailored socio-economic services that assess perceived costs and benefits, societal impacts, and decision-making under uncertainty; (iii) supporting the design and implementation of Living Labs through participatory approaches enabling knowledge co-creation; and (iv) enhancing societal readiness for innovations by fostering stakeholder engagement and co-design of place-based and value chain-specific knowledge and innovation systems.
We conclude that integrating social and behavioural sciences into agroecological RI is not merely complementary to biophysical and technological research but key to understanding human decision-making, designing socially robust innovations, and promoting equitable, context-sensitive, and sustainable agroecological transitions across Europe and beyond.
| Are you participating to the "AnaEE Environmental Rising Star Award "? | No |
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