30 November – 1 December 2022
The Hague, The Netherlands
14 partners from 9 countries in Europe (AT, CZ, FR, DE, HU, IT, NL, ES, UK) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission came together in The Hague on 30 November 2022 to mark the start of the five-year research project BrightSpace.
The kick-off meeting was hosted by the project coordinating partner, Wageningen Economic Research.
Attendees included representatives of all BrightSpace partners, noted experts in agricultural policy and impact assessment, and representatives of the European Commission.
EC Officers Matthias Leonhard Maier and Eduardo Gonzales Otero presented expectations from the EC’s policy perspective and insights on project management/monitoring respectively.
At the meeting partners and invited experts discussed how the project can address current challenges to policymakers in the EU.
Former EC DG Agri officer Tassos Hanoitis, member of the project advisory board of Brightspace, gave a thought-provoking presentation about expectations on modelling and new uncertainties to be taken into account.
INRAE director, Hervé Guyomard discussed the science perspectives of relevant trends and policy domains in the long term in his plenary presentation.
Networking with other projects also took place: project coordinator Tamas Krisztin from IIASA presented the LAMASUS Horizon Europe programme funded project and analysed complementarities with BrightSpace. Linkages with the MIND STEP H2020 project with coordinator John Helming from Wageningen Economic Research were also discussed.
In parallel sessions followed by a plenary panel discussion partners revisited objectives and expectations to reconfirm the relevance of the Brightspace project in the current research and political environment, and identified specific topics to be addressed in the first year of the project.
