Aims & Objectives of the Conference
The theme of the conference is an important one, and will provide us with the opportunity to build upon the excellent initiatives in research cooperation, that started at the 2004 conference in Braunschweig, were followed up during the Dutch Presidency of the EU and at the recent Citizen's Conference held during the Luxembourg presidency of the EU.
Rationale
The 2005 members conference will take as its starting point: the need to provide for a viable and sustainable European Agriculture - both as a productive industry and as an activity of profound societal importance.
The European agriculture policy agenda is in the process of a radical evolution, responding to non-traditional 'Agri' research drivers. Over the coming decade, these drivers will almost certainly place significant burdens on limited national research resources, programmes and knowledge delivery capacities. Policy development, both at national and supranational levels, will require a new and robust evidence base. A European Union of 25+ and the wider European family of countries will therefore need to develop new approaches to research cooperation in delivering the evidence base that will provide for sustainable and equitable policy action. The conference will seek to identify those key issues that will affect the development of a strong and sustainable research and evidence base for European agriculture policy. The sessions will cover aspects of policy drivers, tools and approaches for anticipating the future (including foresight and horizon scanning), knowledge delivery constraints and the national versus collective dilemma in 'agri' relevant research". Models of research cooperation will be discussed, including within FP7 and other international research cooperation mechanisms.