INRAE sets out 15 research and innovation challenges for 2025–2030
French national research institute INRAE has announced 15 research and innovation challenges forming the next phase of its INRAE2030 roadmap, targeting concrete solutions for the agricultural, food, and forestry sectors over the next three to five years.
The announcement was made by Philippe Mauguin, INRAE CEO, and Carole Caranta, Deputy Director General of Science and Innovation. The challenges are designed to address what the institute describes as “growing climatic, agricultural, health, and environmental crises” and the urgent need to transform agricultural, food, and forestry systems.
Reinforcing the 2030 roadmap at its halfway point
Since the INRAE2030 strategy was launched in 2021, the institute’s work has been structured around five major scientific priorities (SPs) and three transdisciplinary general policy priorities. All eight remain in place for 2026, with the 15 new challenges intended to sharpen focus as the roadmap reaches its midpoint.
The institute states its commitment to “using science as a powerful transformative tool for promoting food sovereignty, environmental sustainability, and population health,” with solutions directed at socio-economic stakeholders, industry partners, and public authorities.
The six core themes
The 15 challenges are organised under six broad themes:
• Adapting agriculture and forestry to climate change
• Sustainably managing water resources, soils, and biodiversity
• Transitioning towards low-carbon agricultural and food systems
• Adopting the One Health approach to animal and human health
• Developing the bioeconomy and biotechnologies
• Using digital technologies and artificial intelligence to support transitions
Challenges by scientific priority
The challenges are distributed across INRAE’s five scientific priorities as follows:
SP1 – Global changes and associated risks: Characterising and deploying genetic resources; new tools for managing water resources; forest dieback: from forest monitoring to renewal.
SP2 – The agroecological transition and food system transformations: Innovations for integrated crop protection; new monitoring and vaccination approaches for animal health; low-carbon agricultural and food systems; innovations to improve the sovereignty of the plant protein, fruit, and vegetable industries; transforming dietary regimes; international trade in agricultural and food products.
SP3 – An efficient circular bioeconomy: Bolstering French and European biotechnology leadership; developing the bioeconomy within regions.
SP4 – One Health: Promoting global approaches to health at regional scales; promoting health via microbiome-based dietary innovations.
SP5 – Transitions via data science, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies: Using artificial intelligence to accelerate the transfer of agricultural innovations; accelerating the development of agricultural equipment for the agroecological transition.
Partnership-based delivery
The challenges are transdisciplinary, drawing on the expertise of INRAE’s 14 scientific divisions, and will involve agricultural technical institutes, private companies, start-ups, regional and national authorities, and international partners. They are described as structured projects with “clearly stated objectives and well-defined deliverables.”
INRAE is also coordinating Agralife, a programme agency through which stronger European and international cooperation will be channelled alongside the new responsibilities being assigned to French national research organisations.
For food scientists, challenges in SP2 and SP4 – particularly those addressing dietary transformation and microbiome-based innovations – are likely to be of direct relevance to product development and public health research agendas in the near term.
For more information, visit: www.inrae.fr
