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Roger Genet: "Finding a place in Europe and on the global stage is a major challenge for AllEnvi »

08/12/2011 - Article

There are ever more groups of research organizations in France, with the clear aim of boosting clarity. What place does AllEnvi, a national environmental research alliance of which CIRAD is a founding member, occupy in this landscape? Answers from Roger Genet, AllEnvi President and Director General of IRSTEA (Institut de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l’environnement et l’agriculture, formerly CEMAGREF).

AllEnvi was founded almost two years ago. How has the alliance developed and what are its aims?

Roger Genet: AllEnvi is one of the five national research alliances set out in the national strategy for research and innovation. It is also probably the only one that was based on a proposal from the research organizations themselves. This is why we feel it responds to a need for better coordination in the agro-environmental field; The alliance has twelve founding members (eleven research organizations, including CIRAD, and the Conférence des présidents d’universités) and fifteen associate members, including Agreenium, ANSES, CNES and INRIA.
The alliance serves to coordinate all the agro-environmental research players on a national level. Its founding members are represented on every structural level: on its Board, which comprises the principals of the universities and Directors General of the organizations, in the twelve thematic groups, in the two transverse groups (infrastructure and planning) and in the three support groups (Europe, promotion and communication). In all, it involves more than 250 scientists.
The aim is to ensure programme and operational coordination of systemic environmental research. The alliance also has the intention of looking beyond strictly discipline-centred approach and come up with answers to the main societal issues: food, water, sustainable territorial development, and global change. However, AllEnvi does not replace its members. It ensures greater clarity as regards environmental research, on a national and an international level, since the real target is Europe, where the research of tomorrow is being built.

How do the thematic groups operate, and what is their role?

R.G.: The thematic groups comprise scientific experts engaged in debating the key issues at the frontiers of science, in each field concerned. Each group is led by two founding organizations, so as to go beyond institutional visions and work from a transverse perspectives. CIRAD leads two groups: GT1 ( agro-ecology and soils) and GT2 ( food and diet). The proposals made by each group as regards research programming and infrastructures are compiled and discussed, and each year, the alliance submits its research priorities to the government and funding bodies - ANR, ADEME, ANSES, etc.

What is the alliance's current position on the global stage, particularly as regards concerns in developing countries?

R.G.: Research alliances are now key players in the landscape, capable of associating and organizing the scientific community as a whole to work on each of the main issues: health, energy, the environment, and communication technologies. They are therefore increasingly called upon to blaze a trail for French research in terms of international cooperation. This was proved once again at the last Franco-German summit of research ministers in Berlin on 13 October, at which AllEnvi was asked to coordinate joint programmes with our German peers in the Helmholtz association, in the environmental field.
As regards developing countries, the AIRD, for instance, is quoted in our agreement as a players in boosting collaboration, while CIRAD's role and its global presence in the agro-environmental field makes it a legitimate player on the international stage, and indeed capable of spearheading the alliance's operations on a global level.

Interview by Elsa Bru