Interdisciplinarity: lessons learnt from ProfiCrops
Swiss agriculture is facing serious challenges: stronger
competition due to trade liberalization and an ever changing policy context. Developing solutions for farmers requires an approach allowing for increased complexity. Agroscope‘s three research stations (ARS) launched three Agroscope research programs (ARP) in 2008. ProfiCrops (ACW, 2008) aims at contributing to a competitive cropping sector.
Researchers from all ARS were invited to commit to the four ProfiCrops transversal pre-defined topics. No
additional resources were made available. Several added- values were achieved: creation of new partnerships,
introduction of novel topics and approaches (e.g. product differentiation), think-tank workshops, increased
transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary synthesis writing.
• Large topics and lack of stakeholder planning integration
• Weak integration into Agroscope’s innovation and communication processes
• High expectations
• ARP’s relevance dis-similar among ARS
• Unrealistic assumptions about participation
• Unclear interdisciplinarity purpose and monitoring.
Agroscope has decided to further promote program
research. Lessons learnt have been integrated into the next generation of ARPs starting 2014: i) more focused topics, ii) cooperation of minimum two Agroscope institutes, iii) clear separation of program research from other R&D activities, iv) allocation of specific resources to programs, v)
prerequisite of third party(ies).
ACW. 2008. ProfiCrops: Neue Wege für einen zukunftsfähigen Pflanzenbau in der Schweiz unter liberalisierten Marktbedingungen. Programmbeschrieb. ACW, 8820 Wädenswil. 15 pp.
www.proficrops.ch
Anna Crole-Rees and Lukas Bertschinger, Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil, 8820 Wädenswil
ALP- Haras
ACW ART
ProfiCrops: www.proficrops.ch
NutriScope: www.nutriscope.ch
AgriMontana: www.agrimontana.ch
