From the first day of 2017 until the summer of 2018 a consortium gathered two research performing organizations INRA (FR) and WUR (NL) and Agroknow (GR) a private company. More than 100 stakeholders were involved in the elaboration of this roadmap through the workshops and the project methodology to build a common knowledge, foresight and recommendations to achieve this vision.
The vision of the project is until 2030 agri-food systems and businesses to produce healthy nutritious foods for all and since they use and create related knowledge, must be supported by open science-based food knowledge systems to stimulate further innovation and accelerate impact. Through this knowledge system, all researchers should be able to:
Agri-food science and innovation will benefit significantly from such a shared knowledge ecosystem. This shared knowledge will be produced and used by diverse users not only academic researchers but also farmers, the industry, extension services and citizens. A shared global data space will help to build the infrastructures that will open useful information to all these stakeholders and propel the agri-food sector forward.
The transition of the research approach towards a systemic, integrated, multidisciplinary and global approach needs to be accelerated.
These are the actions will support this transformation:
Data, information and knowledge today exist as an unconnected ecosystem, whose power will be greatly magnified if similar efforts are linked in a common approach
There is also a need to regulate database management rates whether the data are used by academic scientists, private firms or the non-profit sector, especially if data by NGOs, who cannot afford the cost of ongoing database management
The power of data produced by farmers and by land observation, which includes (but is not limited to) precision agriculture needs to be harnessed
To establish common principles and standards for data exchange, we need to start with research planning, data production – in the lab, on the field or at the observational level
Standards need to be open and shared, inter and cross-disciplinary, and co-defined with communities to ensure their adoption
The importance of Big Agricultural Sciences in the Global South must be understood. European Initiatives need to be integrated with those of G20 and G77 countries
Machine-readable means for encoding licenses for data and information and for encoding provenance of data and information will be adopted
Cornerstone is the development of the necessary skills and capacity so that all partners and stakeholders in this endeavour can achieve this endeavour can achieve this Vision 2030
You can read the final document of our Roadmap here
You can also comment and provide further feedback at eROSA Roadmap Paper [Living Document] here
*This roadmap is the main output of the e-ROSA project “e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture” funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 730988.*