Project start date
01/03/2025
Project end date
30/11/2025
Summary
The ‘GreenAgro’ project aims to identify the prerequisites and potential for future cooperation between universities in three countries (Germany, Armenia, Kazakhstan) as part of joint explorative measures to tackle the major challenges of ‘climate - biodiversity - agriculture’. The long-term goal is to establish a stable partnership in research, teaching and innovation in order to make important contributions to the green transformation of the agricultural sector in the participating countries and at the same time to strengthen the scientific locations and innovative strength of the partners. The project comprises an online phase to develop joint concepts, an on-site phase to explore local potential in the three countries and a concluding workshop to finalise a ‘Strategic Roadmap for the GreenAgro Research Network’ in Stuttgart. This roadmap defines the objectives, priorities, roles of the partners and future measures of the new research network, such as funding applications for follow-up projects.
Introduction
Our shared environment is facing a triple crisis: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution (see UNEP, theme of UNEA-6 in 2024). The land use sector (agricultural production, processing, distribution) alone contributes to 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The issue of food security and sustainable, climate- and biodiversity-friendly land use and agriculture is also becoming increasingly important globally (Sachs et al. 2023; Deprez et al. 2021). For the first time, the agricultural sector was at the centre of the global climate protection agenda at COP28 in Dubai in 2023. Additionally, we are facing new challenges: Europe has been shaken by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine for almost two years. The war has not only hit Russia's neighbours and the European Union hard but is also jeopardising global food security. Armenia and Kazakhstan are countries that are not only severely affected by the environmental crises, but also by current developments in geopolitics. These countries are dependent on Russia in many respects, while also being exposed to the growing influence of China as the second regional superpower. At the same time, Armenia and Kazakhstan, as well as the European Union and Germany, have the opportunity for new and intensified collaboration, which science should also make use of. As part of joint exploratory measures between the participating universities in the three countries of Germany, Armenia and Kazakhstan, an initial exploratory project entitled ‘GreenAgro’ aims to identify the prerequisites, potential and priorities for future research cooperation. The long-term goal is to establish a stable and sustainable partnership in research, teaching and innovation that makes important contributions to the green transformation of the agricultural sector in the participating countries and at the same time strengthens the structures, capacities and resources of all partners involved.
Project goals
The objective of our project is to investigate the potential for establishing a new research network between the University of Hohenheim (UHOH) and universities in Armenia and Kazakhstan on the topic of ‘Green Transformation of Agriculture’ (GreenAgro Research Network) and to undertake exploratory measures (exploratory trips, online and face-to-face workshops). The new research network will provide the partner universities with improved access to the networks in teaching (e.g. to the European League for Life Sciences and the European Bioeconomy University) and in research (e.g. to the research programmes and networks of Germany and the EU). The partners will jointly develop a future strategy for the network with the aim of identifying development prospects and planning initial joint funding applications. The project also seeks to enhance networking among the stakeholders and pool interests and existing knowledge in order to create synergies for future research projects. Young scientists will play a special role in this endeavour. In the future, the research network will also be open to other countries in the region. The Armenian and Kazakh partners have expressed a strong interest and are willing to also collaborate with institutions in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in setting up the network.
