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Research Collaborations Between Agronomy and Plant Genetics: Historical Trajectories and Innovation Pathways
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://universityofsussex.zoom.us/meeting/register/PaeqlBwUT0eGwVYNQqoUTg
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Abstract:
This study explores how interdisciplinary research collaborations and divergences between agronomy and plant genetics reflect differing visions of innovation. Adopting a historical approach, I trace the evolution of these collaborations in the French research institute INRAE from the 1970s to the present, within the genome editing debate.
Based on 20 interviews, a review of scientific and strategic documents, and participant observations, this research highlights key trends. While agronomy-genetics collaborations are expected to expand for the agroecological transition, they remain confined to specific fields. Over time, genetics and plant breeding have shifted towards molecular approaches and upstream selection, whereas ecophysiology and systems agronomy have followed distinct paths. Since the 1990s, ecophysiology and quantitative genetics collaborations have strengthened, while those between systems agronomy and genetics declined.
Despite contrasting reductionist and systemic paradigms, these fields share overarching principles, interpreted differently. The agroecological transition is shaped by tensions between a life sciences approach focused in substitution promises (Joly, 2010; Goulet et al., 2023) and a systemic approach emphasizing broader agricultural redesign (Wezel et al., 2009; Vanloqueren & Baret, 2009; Levidow et al., 2013). These tensions remain central to ongoing debates on the role of genome editing in the agroecological transition (Nogué et al., 2024).
Bio:
Alice Dupré la Tour is a postdoctoral researcher in management sciences and science and technology studies at LISIS, INRAE, where she studies scientific and technical trajectories in the selection of cultivated plants. With a background as an agronomic engineer, she first worked in supporting an agricultural sector and later at LESSEM, INRAE on projects for developing local seeds for revegetation. In her doctoral thesis, she explored the values of environmental restoration, engaging in a dialogue with life sciences that she continues to develop in her current research.