Designing a research agenda for coupled innovation towards sustainable agrifood systems

CONTEXT: Researchers studying agriculture and researchers studying food share common interests in working on the sustainability of agrifood systems. Yet, they form two distinct scientific communities, which often struggle to work together due to both scientific specialization and existing disconnections between agriculture and food production standards. However, there is today a crucial need for research to generate new knowledge and innovations to meet the numerous challenges towards sustainable agrifood systems. OBJECTIVE: This paper therefore presents how two scientific communities (those of agriculture and food) collectively explored cross-community research topics, which could foster coupled innovation in agrifood systems. METHODS: Two innovative design methods - KCP and matching-building-were combined to propose a dedicated design process fostering this collective exploration of cross-community research topics. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Twenty cross-community priority research topics were thus proposed to address various sustainability challenges. These topics were designed to become common purposes for future research collaborations aiming to produce relevant knowledge to open new avenues for coupled innovation towards more sustainable agrifood systems. The originality of the 20 topics was discussed, in comparison with 25 international papers highlighting research priorities regarding food systems. SIGNIFICANCE: The originality of the paper is thus twofold: the article details the original dedicated design method used to build cross-community research topics, and presents the 20 research topics designed using this method.

Automated summary

Researchers studying agriculture and food have common interests in sustainability of agrifood systems, but often struggle to collaborate due to specialization and disconnect. This paper presents a method for exploring cross-community research topics and proposes twenty priority topics to address sustainability challenges and foster innovation.