More than €350k awarded for OU research helping farmers adapt to the climate crisis

Dr Kevin Collins, Senior Lecturer in Environment and Systems, has secured a €359,000 award from the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation, Horizon Europe, for his part in a project to help farmers across the EU’s 27 member states and the UK adapt to the climate crisis.

The School of Engineering & Innovation researcher will co-lead the monitoring, evaluation and learning process for the ClimateSmartAdvisers project with colleagues from the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands.

The project will run from 2023 to 2030. It will focus on developing a network of advisory services to support farmers to innovate and make the changes necessary to maintain agricultural production in a changing climate. The project builds on Dr Collins’ previous Horizon 2020 research project AgriLink with now retired OU Professor Andy Lane and Dr Chris Blackmore. AgriLink also developed a new OpenLearn teaching module on Living Labs.

Dr Collins said:

“ClimateSmartAdvisers is a fascinating project focussing on improving farm advisory services. It will accelerate farmers’ adaptation to the climate challenges ahead to farm more sustainably and ensure food supplies.

“Instead of evaluating the different farming initiatives when they end, our role will be to assess their performance in real-time, evaluating and learning from what works and what doesn’t. This will help farmers and advisors adapt and have the greatest possible impact on transitioning to climate-smart farming.”