Final Report Summary - CRÊPE (Co-operative research on environmental problems in Europe)
According to the 2001 Science and Society Action Plan, if citizens are to become partners in the creation of the European Research Area (ERA), then they must 'be given the opportunity to express their views in the appropriate bodies'. The European system has had proposals and some practical experience along those lines. As elaborated in the 2005 GoverScience workshop and the subsequent report by Andy Stirling, 'cooperative research' has been defined as a process which involves both researchers and non-researchers in close cooperative engagement for co-building knowledge. In cooperative research, the process is as important as the outcome. The process should recognise diverse experiences, knowledge, practices and problem-definitions. Indeed, the process incorporates contending accounts of relevant and authoritative knowledge.
Cooperative research has many historical precedents, but relatively few on techno-scientific issues, especially in European Commission (EC) Framework Programmes (FPs). In previous FPs, project proposals were encouraged to involve CSOs; many did so, but often this meant simply consultation or attendance at dissemination meetings. To go beyond those limits, the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) final call invited CSOs to lead projects for building their capacity to take part in research. Thanks to that call, several CSOs are establishing and strengthening their expertise in research issues.
Going further, the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) first call invited proposals involving CSOs in cooperative research through transdisciplinary expertise and processes. Transdisciplinary expertise can simply mean multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary teams of individuals from specialist institutions, but this has limitations. Cooperative research requires transdisciplinary engagement with stakeholders and public constituencies. In this way, it aims 'to explore the driving aims and purposes, the alternative orientations, and the wider social and environmental implications of research and innovation', argues the Stirling 2006 report. In particular, this means engagement with conflicting perspectives, especially by turning them into questions that should be investigated.
Nowadays most innovations are promoted under the banner of 'sustainable development', but there are different accounts of what is to be sustained. Likewise sustainable agriculture has different accounts, so it has become an ambiguous concept - even a contentious one. Its diverse meanings were explored by a project, CREPE, in which civil society organisations led studies in cooperation with other CSOs and academic researchers. These studies analysed different accounts of sustainable agriculture and proposals for remedies. As a policy framework for sustainable development, the Europe 2020 strategy promotes resource-efficient technologies and market incentives, thus attributing sustainability problems to inefficiency. However, this prevalent diagnosis has been contradicted by experience: through a rebound effect, efficient techno-fixes have often increased overall demand on resources. European Union (EU) policy expects greater efficiency to help conserve water, yet more efficient irrigation techniques have increased financial incentives to expand cultivation and thus water usage in southeastern Spain. Likewise EU policy expects that future novel biofuels will help avoid the resource conflicts over current biofuels, yet these conflicts arise fundamentally from a drive to supply growing global markets. Market-competitive pressures on natural resources cannot be alleviated by efficient techno-fixes.
As a policy framework for reshaping agriculture, the Knowledge-based bio-economy (KBBE) links sustainability, renewable resources, economic competitiveness, research priorities and technological innovation. The KBBE has been defined as 'the sustainable, eco-efficient transformation of renewable biological resources into health, food, energy and other industrial products'. Broadening the scope of agriculture, this concept also encompasses diverse diagnoses of unsustainable agriculture and eco-efficient remedies. In the dominant account, agriculture becomes a biomass factory supplying raw materials for diverse industrial products. In agroecological accounts, by contrast, agricultural methods incorporate and enhance farmers' knowledge of natural resources, as a basis for them to gain from the value that they add. For the latter account, remedies include enhancing biodiversity in crops and cultivation methods through agroecological knowledge. This has been developed via cooperative exchanges among farmers, sometimes also with professional researchers. However, such cooperation faces many barriers, for example: there are cultural differences among potential participants; and research institutions give priority to complex, expensive and commercialisable science. So knowledge mediators have an important role in helping to overcome these barriers. Beyond the formal research system, Agricultural knowledge systems (AKS) link much knowledge relevant to sustainable agriculture and a bio-economy. Shorter agro-food chains have supplied local, organic and / or higher-quality food to more consumers. Bringing them closer to producers also builds knowledge of agro-ecological cultivation methods and consumer support for them. In Brittany, a context dominated by agro-industrial methods, some farmers have rapidly developed short food chains in the past decade. These new markets have given farmers incentives for methods reducing their energy inputs - initially for cost reduction, and later for environmental care. Already available, such methods could be implemented rapidly and at low cost; the main obstacles seem to be farmers' and institutional mindsets. In exploring divergent accounts of innovation for sustainable agriculture and a bio-economy, the CREPE project shows how each one uses similar key terms according to its different vision of the future. Different visions contend for influence over European futures.
Cooperative research has many historical precedents, but relatively few on techno-scientific issues, especially in European Commission (EC) Framework Programmes (FPs). In previous FPs, project proposals were encouraged to involve CSOs; many did so, but often this meant simply consultation or attendance at dissemination meetings. To go beyond those limits, the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) final call invited CSOs to lead projects for building their capacity to take part in research. Thanks to that call, several CSOs are establishing and strengthening their expertise in research issues.
Going further, the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) first call invited proposals involving CSOs in cooperative research through transdisciplinary expertise and processes. Transdisciplinary expertise can simply mean multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary teams of individuals from specialist institutions, but this has limitations. Cooperative research requires transdisciplinary engagement with stakeholders and public constituencies. In this way, it aims 'to explore the driving aims and purposes, the alternative orientations, and the wider social and environmental implications of research and innovation', argues the Stirling 2006 report. In particular, this means engagement with conflicting perspectives, especially by turning them into questions that should be investigated.
Nowadays most innovations are promoted under the banner of 'sustainable development', but there are different accounts of what is to be sustained. Likewise sustainable agriculture has different accounts, so it has become an ambiguous concept - even a contentious one. Its diverse meanings were explored by a project, CREPE, in which civil society organisations led studies in cooperation with other CSOs and academic researchers. These studies analysed different accounts of sustainable agriculture and proposals for remedies. As a policy framework for sustainable development, the Europe 2020 strategy promotes resource-efficient technologies and market incentives, thus attributing sustainability problems to inefficiency. However, this prevalent diagnosis has been contradicted by experience: through a rebound effect, efficient techno-fixes have often increased overall demand on resources. European Union (EU) policy expects greater efficiency to help conserve water, yet more efficient irrigation techniques have increased financial incentives to expand cultivation and thus water usage in southeastern Spain. Likewise EU policy expects that future novel biofuels will help avoid the resource conflicts over current biofuels, yet these conflicts arise fundamentally from a drive to supply growing global markets. Market-competitive pressures on natural resources cannot be alleviated by efficient techno-fixes.
As a policy framework for reshaping agriculture, the Knowledge-based bio-economy (KBBE) links sustainability, renewable resources, economic competitiveness, research priorities and technological innovation. The KBBE has been defined as 'the sustainable, eco-efficient transformation of renewable biological resources into health, food, energy and other industrial products'. Broadening the scope of agriculture, this concept also encompasses diverse diagnoses of unsustainable agriculture and eco-efficient remedies. In the dominant account, agriculture becomes a biomass factory supplying raw materials for diverse industrial products. In agroecological accounts, by contrast, agricultural methods incorporate and enhance farmers' knowledge of natural resources, as a basis for them to gain from the value that they add. For the latter account, remedies include enhancing biodiversity in crops and cultivation methods through agroecological knowledge. This has been developed via cooperative exchanges among farmers, sometimes also with professional researchers. However, such cooperation faces many barriers, for example: there are cultural differences among potential participants; and research institutions give priority to complex, expensive and commercialisable science. So knowledge mediators have an important role in helping to overcome these barriers. Beyond the formal research system, Agricultural knowledge systems (AKS) link much knowledge relevant to sustainable agriculture and a bio-economy. Shorter agro-food chains have supplied local, organic and / or higher-quality food to more consumers. Bringing them closer to producers also builds knowledge of agro-ecological cultivation methods and consumer support for them. In Brittany, a context dominated by agro-industrial methods, some farmers have rapidly developed short food chains in the past decade. These new markets have given farmers incentives for methods reducing their energy inputs - initially for cost reduction, and later for environmental care. Already available, such methods could be implemented rapidly and at low cost; the main obstacles seem to be farmers' and institutional mindsets. In exploring divergent accounts of innovation for sustainable agriculture and a bio-economy, the CREPE project shows how each one uses similar key terms according to its different vision of the future. Different visions contend for influence over European futures.
