D1.3 – Report on agroecological research development

Through the mapping of projects, programmes and institutions (PPIs) involved in agroecological research in Europe at different levels (National, Transnational and European), this deliverable aims i) to assess how agroecology (AE) is understood and perceived by research planners and designers; ii) to characterize research on agroecology in terms of implementation of agroecological elements; and iii) to evaluate the role of current AE research, assessing if it is conform to the dominant regime or if it promotes transformation of current agri-food systems.
The deliverable is organized in four sections: 1. Introduction where the reasons that led to this study are explained; 2. Methodology with the description of the four-step methodology carried out in the study. They are: a. Creation of a database on PPIs (3/2021 – 10/2021) to collect principal data and information related to PPIs; b. Launch of three surveys (4/2021–3/2021) (for the coordinators of the identified projects, the leaders of programmes, and researchers involved in agroecology) using information collected in the previous step; c. Data analysis and evaluation (2/2022 – 5/2022) to understand connections among European countries through, a Social Network Analysis (SNA), and identify how agroecology is used by scientific community and implemented in funding programmes at European, Transnational, and National level. d. Reporting (5/2022 – 6/2022). This section also describes the structure and information contained in the final version of the database on PPIs released together with this deliverable; 3. Results where the main results obtained from the SNA and the three surveys are reported and discussed; 4. Conclusion and recommendations where lessons learned and recommendations for future research agendas to better strengthen AE and its transformative role in Europe are provided. A summary of these recommendations is given in box 1 at the end of the deliverable.