Sustainability and competitiveness of European agriculture are intrinsically related to the efficient use of water, fertilisers and Plant Protection Products (PPP), for optimizing plants needs while minimizing the environmental impacts. The joint effort of minimizing wastewater, and optimizing use of nitrogen-and phosphorus-based fertilizers and PPPs is aligned to the so-called Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in the context of the circular economy, where issues such as efficiency and resilience of water use are mandatory. Based upon the premise the more you know the better you can manage, reliable decision-making systems and fertigation and water quality feedback controllers demand cost-effective, robust, low-maintenance and accurate sensor data. It is very important to evaluate the suitability of the circulating water in closed or semi-closed soilless systems and of the irrigation and drainage water in soilgrown cultivation, mainly in terms of macronutrient concentrations (NPK), salinity and contamination by PPP. So far, the available sensors technology does not meet these challenges for on-site monitoring. Therefore, AGRISENSUS will focus on the research and development of an effective integrated and sustainable monitoring and control system with innovative ion selective sensors for nutrients and bio-based sensing of PPP for optimal water and nutrient supply and reuse, minimizing the effects on the environment. In order to validate the developed technologies and demonstrate their applicability, four case studies (demonstrations) convering several types of crop production systems from greenhouses to open-field agriculture in various climatic regions will be addressed. The appropriate handling of these data as inputs in an easy-to-use decision support system fosters the design of an improved fertigation Model Predictive Controller (MPC), which incorporates robustness and fault-tolerant features, as it can meet both the crop needs and the grower yield/costs expectations. The new sensors will lead to worldwide new markets for European water technology sector, thus strengthening the competitiveness and growth of SMEs and related companies. Achieving the implementation of this project requires a trans-disciplinary team and involvement of multi-actors. This proposal builds on the extensive experience, competence and early work conducted on optical fiber-based sensors , biosensors , water policy models, plant nutrition , smart irrigation scheduling and robust control. With the sensors, the growers will have information about the input and output water quality, and can evidence-based decide on how and when to irrigate and fertigate, and on whether the costly task of cleaning is advisable before disposal. As a result, significant increase of water and fertilizer use efficiency is obtained (expected < 50%), longer and economic reuse cycle for the drainage water is achieved, and pollution of surface and ground waters by fertilizers and PPP is prevented or significantly reduced.

Project main question: ”How does the intensification of agroforestry practices can contribute to sustainable agricultural production and food security in West Africa ?”. Objectives and approach: Agroforestry is a form of “alternative” agriculture which provides multifunctional environmental, economic and social solutions to sustainably contribute to food and income security, while directly mitigating climate change by buffering micro-climate variations. Tree density in parklands depends on balancing crop yield decline, due to competition with trees for vital resources, with advantages provided by trees, according to the social, economic and environmental weights priorities that farmers give to parklands. Parkland management also depends on the user access facilities that are under the control of State and customary institutions governing rights on land and natural resources. Consequently, to maximize their adoption, RAMSESII aims at providing Innovative Scenarios for Managing Sustainable Intensification (ISMSI) of agroforestry parklands that are co-built with Senegalese and Burkinabe stakeholders on the four most common parklands in Africa. A first group of participants works on diagnosis of their dynamic drivers. A second group works on modelling processes controlling tree impacts on farm provisioning and income, associated crop and environment. A third group works on intensification scenarios proposed by farmers at farm scale. To help farmers to select “the best” scenarios, a bio-economic model provides scenario impacts on farm income and environmental performances. Another participative approach at territory scale provides realistic arrangements of parkland and tree governance that favour and sustain farmers who intensify their parklands. A fourth working group uses previous group results in order to co-build with stakeholder’s strategies of ISMSI diffusion at national and sub-regional (West Africa) scales as well as indicators to monitor their impacts.

There is a real need today to train experts in the whole process of fish immunity with a comprehensive understanding of how such an expertise could be beneficiary for both food production in fish farming and for human health. With this aim in mind, we propose to train 15 promising young scientists, through a combination of individual research projects, collaborative efforts and coordinated training, thereby providing a strong theoretical / knowledgebase and competencies in relevant laboratory-based techniques. The research objectives of the training are the following: • Understand the genomic, cellular and developmental basis of the fish immune system • Understand the diversity of immune strategies in different groups of fish, either of aquaculture importance or of easy manipulations in the laboratory. Note that the diversity of farmed fish species is still increasing and is much higher than for all other groups of farm/domestic animals. Efficient and cheaper vaccination remains a key priority for sustainable development of fish farming, in particular to limit the use of antibiotics as much as possible. • Develop new in vivo imaging strategies in fish models, not only to describe the behaviour of fishs, the behaviours of the cellular actors of immunity, but also to dissect the molecular basis of immunity to the main infections affecting fish aquaculture, and to propose new fish models to study human infectious diseases. • Develop original mathematical and modelling tools, to analyse both the wealth of data generated, and to inform the development of models with which to understand immune processes, and tools to understand the pathological basis of human infectious diseases This training frame is by design interdisciplinary, involving scientists from very different fields of biology (structural biologists, imagers, immunologists, geneticists), as well as mathematicians, programmers and modellers. We have made a particular effort to ensure that the proposed training frame be intersectorial, to maximise the possibility that the spin-offs of such a scientific program will reach the patient through the fostering of dedicated business enterprise initiatives. The programme will involve both technical training, so that all recruited PhD students reach a common level of expertise allowing real interdisciplinary collaborations, and complementary / transferable skills enabling the development of successful scientific careers - in both the academic and industry spheres. Importantly, recruited PhD students will also be trained to communicate their work, not only to their peers, but also to the general public, since we recognised the critical importance of informing and raising the scientific awareness of the general public. This will be achieved through scientific articles, communication and outreach events, Wikipedia articles, a MOOC and serious games. To our knowledge, this is the first European network set to meet the challenges outlined here, and we believe that the proposed programme will contribute to the training of future European leaders in this interdisciplinary field.

Although eradication has traditionally been the goal for many infectious diseases, it is not achievable for vector-bone diseases for which multiple epidemiological compartments (urban and sylvatic vector species, domestic and wild hosts, human populations) co-exist and interact in a changing environment. Additionally, although control or preventive measures are available, this may not ultimately impact the success of a programme and lead to the reduction of disease burden. Consideration of socio-economic and cultural factors affecting the livelihood and well-being of farmers and animal breeders can be important incentives for participation or non-compliance. Biological understanding of disease epidemiology is therefore as important as socio-economic considerations of farmers, limitations of stakeholders and communities’ engagement, assessment of attitudes and expectations of the end-users, evaluation of technical tools (diagnostic tests, vaccines, trained staff) and surveillance and control measures. The assessment of these factors should guide the strategic planning and surveillance and control of vector-borne disease programme implementation. Therefore, we present the MAKEDA project (Multi-Actor Knowledge on surveillance and control of Emerging vector-borne animal Diseases in Europe and Africa), regrouping key researchers with expertise on animal and zoonotic vector diseases from leading institutes in Africa and Europe. The MAKEDA project aims at establishing an integrated One-Health approach to characterize emergence and outbreak drivers of vector-borne diseases affecting livestock along an Africa-Europe transect, raising awareness among stakeholders and farmer communities of risks and good practices for surveillance and control, preparing and anticipating current and emerging threats. The originality of the MAKEDA project will be achieved by merging unconventional approaches for surveillance and control of vector-borne diseases (sociological methods, participatory modelling and epidemiology) with classical epidemiological, entomological and microbiological studies to optimize actions in challenging environments. It also owes its originality in contributing towards controlling and monitoring animal diseases by deploying great efforts to integrate numerous inter-sectorial actors into the One Health paradigm and considering of high importance continuous assessment of impact pathway with partners and end-users. To this purpose, the MAKEDA project will link research, national and international animal and public health organizations, and farmer organizations in Europe and Africa to develop. The broad inclusion of experts from animal diseases epidemiology and surveillance, risk modelling and analysis, vaccine development and control strategies, health economy, applied social sciences to livestock disease management and the upstream inclusion from the planning of the project and experiments to implementation and dissemination of the results will ensure involvement of various animal health actors and beneficiaries of the project.