CIHEAM Montpellier hosted the annual conference of the SHERPA (Sustainable Hub to Engage into Rural Policies with Actors) project on 31 January and 1 February 2023, titled "CO-CREATING RURAL ADVENTURES".

With less than a year to go before the end of this project, which started in 2019, the aim of this meeting was to allow the 90 participants to share, once again, the experiences and knowledge gained from the operation of the 41 multi-actor rural platforms at the science-society-policy interface set up under the project. Established in 17 countries in two waves, starting in 2019 for the first ones and in 2022 for the most recent ones, these platforms have developed a vision of the future of their territory over the next 20 years and worked on local opportunities and challenges. These contributions, formalized in nearly 80 position papers, have fed into the reflections of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, in particular for the elaboration of the "Long-term vision of rural areas", the main lines of which were presented by a representative in Montpellier.

CIHEAM Montpellier very engaged in SHERPA

CIHEAM Montpellier has been leading two platforms, the first in the Southern region and the second in the Mediterranean Pyrenees.

As of 2019, the actors of the SHERPA platform in the Southern Region have organized their reflection in three cycles: the first cycle focused on formalizing the long-term vision for the rural areas of the Southern Region; the second was devoted to defining the desirable future for these rural areas by 2040, taking into account the issues, challenges, and opportunities; finally, the third cycle concerned the development of rural territories in the context of climate change. These three cycles have resulted in productions that are available online.

The multi-actor platform of the Pays Pyrénées Méditerranée, structured in 2022, is engaged in a reflection more focused on the issue of the territorial food economy, as the Pays has been conducting a Territorial Food Project for several years. It is in a "position paper" focused on the transition towards resilient and sustainable food chains that the platform's reflection took shape in November 2022.

CIHEAM Montpellier has also made a substantial contribution to the SHERPA project in terms of scientific monitoring and capitalizing on the platforms productions, notably by helping to draft three position papers.

What's next?

The participants in the 2023 annual conference started to think about how to maintain the activity of these multi-actor platforms after SHERPA's end. They have indeed proved to be original contributors to local debates on territorial projects and are able to help national and European actors to think about the evolution of public policies in favor of rural territories.

For the Pays Pyrénées Méditerranées, it is in another project, GRANULAR, coordinated by the CIHEAM Montpellier, that the collaboration continues. This four-year multidisciplinary and transnational project aims to generate new data sets and methods to understand the characteristics, dynamics, and drivers of rural areas. With this new knowledge and the creation of a rural compass, GRANULAR will help rural actors to design territorially appropriate policies for territorial development.

More information on the SHERPA project and the work of the SHERPA multi-actor platforms

Sherpa - Rural-ScienceSociety-Policy Interfaces- SHERPA (ruralinterfaces.eu)

Acteurs du projet SHERPA à l’IAMM : Samuel FERET, Jean-Pierre ROLLAND, Tristan BERCHOUX, Mélanie REQUIER-DESJARDINS