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Activity Funded

Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development

Instituto Mediterrâneo para a Agricultura, Ambiente e Desenvolvimento

Reference
UIDP/05183/2020
Project Start Date
2020-01-01
Project End Date
2024-12-31
Principal Investigator
Scientific Area
Agricultural sciences
Funding Program
Concurso de avaliação no âmbito do Programa Plurianual de Financiamento de Unidades de I&D (2017/2018) - Financiamento Programático

Abstract

10.2 Summary in English for general dissemination purposes Med is a large Unit covering a broad research spectrum and results from the fusion of the former units: ICAAM–UÉvora, CEBAL, in Beja, MeditBio–UAlgarve, and the UÉvora branch of CIBIO. Its large size and heterogeneity favors trans- and interdisciplinary approaches. The Unit focus is on the Mediterranean context and particular challenges, not least resources use and climate change. The Unit’s Mission is the promotion of the sustainability of ecosystems and food security as contribution towards territorial cohesion and human wellbeing. This means optimizing management to enhance the resilience, productivity and profitability of the Mediterranean pastoral, agri-food and agri-technology value chains while delivering environmental and social benefits. It also means ensuring the preservation of nature and landscape, and rural vitality. The aim is both to increase excellence in research and to contribute with solutions to the sustainability of agroecosystems, the environment and thesupporting territories. Interaction with stakeholders and an increasing number of multi-actor projects, is key for identifying research needs and for securing dissemination of applicable results. The Unit’s has 5 main goals to: 1) improve resources use efficiency , making agriculture more competitive and ensuring that resources are maintained or even improved for future generations; 2) improve the sustainability of the food system, considering all dimensions of the food chain and the preservation of the Mediterranean diet; 3) assure biodiversity conservation and landscape multi-functionality as a differentiation factor of the territory and a form of insurance for the future; 4) promote organizational capability, governance mechanisms, and inclusive development, enhancing competitiveness and cohesion; 5) identify pathways towards resilience and adaptation under known climate change scenarios. The heterogeneity in research competencies is explored in 8 Thematic Lines: 1) Portuguese Olive Sector; 2) Viticulture and Enology; 3) Horticulture; 4) Animal Production and Health; 5) Montado; 6) Irrigated Agriculture; 7) Biodiversity; 8) Rural Dynamics and Governance. The Unit is organized in 9 Research Groups: 1) Plant Genetics and Biotechnology, 2) Plant Protection, 3) Animal Biosciences, 4) Soil, Water and Climate, 5) Farming Technology and Energy Efficiency, 6) Food Science and Technology, 7) Applied Ecology and Conservation, 8) Landscape Dynamics and Management, 9) Biodiversity and climate change. The Unit aims to be on the forefront of international research debate and actively involved in discussions on research strategies. Internationalization is strongly supported, by funding activities to promote international linkages and attracting international researchers. The many H2020 and other European projects, on-going and already approved, as well as, the networks the Unit or its researchers belong to, document and create the conditions for this internationalization. 10.3 Summary in English for evaluation Mediterranean regions around the world share warm and dry summers, and mild and wet winters. Climate does constrain development, with generally low primary productivity limiting yields. The combination of wet winters and dry summers create disproportionate fire risks. But Mediterranean regions also host some of the most biodiversity rich hotspots of the planet and harbor some of the oldest and culturally richest civilizations. The complexity and diversity of Mediterranean regions, now exposed to dangerous climate change, pose enormous challenges for science and society at large but they also offer some opportunities. MED will embrace those challenges by promoting scientific excellence together with coordinated and strategically informed research programs to increase the odds that opportunities are correctly identified and explored. Owing to its geographical location, MED will be positively biased towards developing research and networking around the Mediterranean basin. However, such biases will not exclude global views on questions and problems addressed. MED’s declared mission is to conduct research aiming at promoting the sustainability of ecosystems and food security, towards territorial cohesion and human wellbeing. This means optimizing management to enhance the resilience, productivity and profitability of the Mediterranean pastoral, agro-food and agro-technology value chains to contribute to economic growth, while delivering environmental and social benefits and ensuring the preservation of nature and landscape, as well as rural vitality. The aim is both to increase excellence in research and to contribute with solutions to the sustainability of agro-ecosystems, the environment and the supporting territories. Interaction with stakeholders is key for identifying research needs and for securing dissemination of applicable results. To achieve this mission, we outlined 5 grand objectives: 1) Improve resource-use efficiency, making agriculture more competitive and ensuring that resources are maintained or even improved for future generations; 2) Improve the sustainability of the food system, considering all dimensions of the food chain and the preservation of the Mediterranean diet; 3) Assure biodiversity conservation and landscape multi-functionality as a differentiation factor of the territory and a form of insurance for the future; 4) Promote organizational capability, governance mechanisms, and inclusive development, enhancing competitiveness and cohesion; 5) Identify pathways enabling fostering of resilience and adaptation under known climate change scenarios. Research in MED is organized in 8 Thematic Lines (each coordinated by a chairperson): 1) Portuguese Olive Sector: boost quality and notoriety of olive groves and olive oil production mainly from Portuguese olive varieties, increasing competitiveness of the sector; 2) Viticulture and Enology: optimize management strategies to improve the efficiency and productivity of Alentejo vineyard and enhancing wine quality, addressing the plant and its environment (soil and climate), the wine and the technology and the market and consumption; 3) Horticulture: increase the rationality in the use of water and plant nutrients, and the efficiency in production through waste reduction and recycling, and reducing the use of pollutants; 4) Animal Production and Health: optimize animal production by the rational use of natural resources, the adaptation of species/breeds to a changing environment and production systems, taking in account both animal and human health, and food quality and safety; 5) Montado: optimize sustainability and support adaptive management of the Montado, by combining its different components and integrating ecosystem services, products' added value, landscape multifunctionality, and better informed public policies, ultimately reducing the loss in tree canopy density and total area; 6) Irrigated Agriculture: support a strategic use of the available irrigation water and facing climate change trends, by assessing water availability and productivity, soil and water conservation; 7) Biodiversity: increasing knowledge on how biodiversity is linked to ecosystem functioning, and the resulting ecosystem services, and support conservation actions to reduce the impacts of human activity and climate change; 8) Rural Dynamics and Governance: contribute to innovation and adaptive management, and to link agriculture with other farm and non-farm activities. Developing research in the European Mediterranean poses some specific challenges. The region lags behind other European counterparts owing to limited funding and structural normative inefficiencies. Overcoming the shortcomings requires, firstly, greater concentration of critical mass. Secondly, a reorganization of research management to privilege problem-oriented over disciplinary-oriented research. Thirdly, research funding needs to be boosted by several orders of magnitude. Therefore, the vision for MED is to become a new vibrant international research hub covering multiple fields of research in topics that are both priorities for research and development in the Mediterranean and for which local anchors of research excellence exist. Researchers are organized in groups, composed by specific competence clusters, and each researcher may contribute to several Thematic Lines. Core funding supports exploratory projects, which are selected through an internal call, according to their innovation, interdisciplinary and contribution to the goals of the Unit. Internationalization is strongly supported. Core funding is particularly dedicated to activities promoting international linkages and projects, and attracting international researchers. The many international networks and European (H2020) projects we belong to, on-going and already approved, document and create the conditions for this internationalization.

Institutions

Main Institutions

  • Instituto Mediterrâneo para a Agricultura, Ambiente e Desenvolvimento (MED/Uévora)
  • Universidade de Évora (Uévora)

Other Institutions

  • Centro de Biotecnologia Agrícola e Agro-Alimentar do Alentejo (CEBAL)
  • Universidade do Algarve (UALg)

Funding 775.207,25 €

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Portugal

775.207,25 €