International Innovation Hub: launch of a project to support innovation ecosystem structuring in West Africa

Institutional news 7 October 2025
On 6 October 2025, barely a year after its founding during the second Assises MedVallée, the International Innovation Hub (IIH) launched its first collaborative project with academic and innovation support players in three West African countries: Benin, Ivory Coast and Senegal. Eleven partners, meeting at the Maison des Relations Internationales in Montpellier during the Euro-Africa Montpellier Biennale, signed the collaboration agreement, under the patronage of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, which is providing financial support for the project, and the Mayor of Montpellier and Chair of the Montpellier Méditerranée Metropolitan Council Michaël Delafosse, in the presence of two UN organizations, FAO and IFAD.
CIRAD CEO Elisabeth Claverie de Saint Martin signs the collaboration agreement with the partners © S. Della Mussia - CIRAD

CIRAD CEO Elisabeth Claverie de Saint Martin signs the collaboration agreement with the partners © S. Della Mussia - CIRAD

Food systems face complex challenges: malnutrition in all its forms, food and nutrition insecurity, environmental and health impacts, climate change, and so on. More than ever, to address those challenges, scientific expertise must work alongside grassroots players' initiatives, to build innovations tailored to local requirements. 

However, particularly in the global South, there are obstacles to such approaches: a lack of financial, material or human resources, limited access to technology, limited institutional capacity to support start-ups and entrepreneurs, insufficient links with markets, etc.

An International Innovation Hub for sustainable food systems

To help overcome those obstacles, academic players from Montpellier, the broader Montpellier Métropole region and the international organization CGIAR, boosted by the MedVallée initiative, joined forces to found an International Innovation Hub, with the aim of fostering entrepreneurial innovation in association with research, for sustainable global food systems. Scientific cooperation with the global South on farming and food issues has been in Montpellier's DNA for decades, with the establishment of organizations such as CIRAD, CIHEAM-IAM.M, IRD, the Institut Agro Centre for Tropical and Mediterranean Studies and CGIAR, organizations federated under the banner of the Agropolis International association. 

The hub is intended to build on its founding members' experience (see box) to step up cooperation between organizations working to support innovative entrepreneurship, make research results and scientific expertise more easily available to project leaders, mobilize funding for innovation in favour of socioecological transitions, and share experiences. 

The Euro-Africa Montpellier Biennale, an initial step towards structuring the hub in West Africa

At the request of the International Innovation Hub and thanks to support from the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty as part of its programmes of cooperation between academic organizations, delegations of innovation players from Benin, Ivory Co and Senegal took part in an exchange programme during the Euro-Africa Montpellier Biennale, from 6 to 10 October.

Representatives of Un organizations also attended the event, which aroused considerable interest. The programme included sharing of methods and tools, tours of research infrastructures and meetings with innovation players from the local area and further afield who came to present their initiatives through the "Jeunes Entrepreneurs d’Afrique" (young African entrepreneurs) programme led by Montpellier Méditerranée Metropolitan Council. The event was the first step towards structuring the International Innovation Hub with West Africa. However, the hub has no intention of stopping there: it is already involving players from North and East Africa in its discussions, with a view to opening up to those regions.

About the International Innovation Hub

In association with the MedVallée initiative, Montpellier Méditerranée Metropolitan Council, players in the Montpellier University Innovation Cluster and CGIAR have joined forces around an International Innovation Hub intended to accelerate sustainable transformation of food systems in the global South and throughout the world. In associating organizations across different countries, the hub hopes to build the partners' capacity in terms of innovation support and the societal impact of research. Under the aegis of the steering committee, Agropolis International is leading the group of players involved in the hub: 

  • CIAT-Bioversity Alliance
  • CGIAR
  • Montpellier Méditerranée Metropolitan Council
  • CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development)
  • Institut Agro (French Institute for higher education & research in Food, Agriculture & the Environment), Montpellier school
  • INRAE (French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment)
  • IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)
  • CIHEAM-IAMM (International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies - Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier)
  • University of Montpellier​​​

West African partners in the project to support structuring and capacity building among innovation players:  

  • Abomey Calavi University / Agricultural Science Faculty - UAC/FSA (Benin)
  • Institut national polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny / Ecole Supérieur d’Agriculture - INP-HB/ESA (Ivory Coast)
  • Sine Saloum El-Hâdj Ibrahima University NIASS - USSEIN (Senegal)
  • Gaston Berger University, Saint Louis / incubator - UGB (Senegal)
  • Délégation Générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide des Femmes et des Jeunes (general delegation for rapid entrepreneurship among women and young people) - DER/FJ (Senegal) 
  • Afric’Innov (Senegal)

Find out more: https://www.agropolis.fr/International-Innovation-Hub 

See also