International Innovation Hub

Food systems face complex challenges : malnutrition in all its forms, food and nutritional insecurity, environmental and health impacts, climate change, and more. To address these challenges, more than ever, scientific expertise must be able to combine with the initiatives of local stakeholders to foster innovations adapted to local needs.
 
Nevertheless, particularly in developing countries, these approaches encounter obstacles : lack of financial, material, and human resources, restricted access to technology, limited institutional capacity to support startups and entrepreneurs, and insufficient connections to markets.
 
To help overcome these obstacles, academic stakeholders from Montpellier, the Metropolitan Area, and the international organization CGIAR, fueled by the MedVallée dynamic, have joined forces to create an International Innovation Hub, with the goal of stimulating entrepreneurial innovation connected to research for sustainable food systems on an international scale.
 
Indeed, scientific cooperation with countries of the Global South on agricultural and food issues has been part of Montpellier’s DNA for decades, with the establishment of organizations such as CIRAD, CIHEAM-IAM.M, IRD, the Tropics and Mediterranean Center of L’Institut Agro, and CGIAR, all federated within the Agropolis International association.
 
Building on the experience of its founding members, this Hub aims to strengthen cooperation between structures supporting innovative entrepreneurship, make research results and scientific expertise more accessible to project leaders, mobilize funding for innovation in support of socio-ecological transitions, and share experiences.
 
Under the aegis of the steering committee, Agropolis International leads the collective of stakeholders involved in this initiative.