Societal Impact Statement Plant breeding for agroecological transition (AET) holds the potential to transform agriculture by fostering crop diversification and empowering farmers through collaborative, inter‐ and transdisciplinary research. By adopting a systemic, co‐learning approach, we can deepen our understanding of the complex interactions between plant diversity, management practices and socio‐ecological contexts. Achieving this transition requires responsible governance to co‐design cropping systems and ensure sustainable, safe and resilient agricultural systems with healthy nutrition. Embracing these integrative practices will not only advance plant breeding science for the transformation of sustainable food systems but also strengthen food security, safety and resilience in the face of pressing environmental and societal challenges. Summary This opinion paper advocates for a transformative approach to plant breeding to support the agroecological transition (AET), essential for addressing global challenges such as biodiversity loss and climate change. It emphasizes the need for inter‐ and transdisciplinary, collaborative and inclusive research to enhance plant and crop diversity while empowering farmers. Key strategies include co‐designing agroecological systems with stakeholders, leveraging crop inter‐ and intraspecies diversity and establishing responsible governance. The participatory approach encourages collaboration between farmers and researchers to co‐develop solutions that enhance crop inter‐ and intra‐species diversity within cropping systems. Through responsible governance, we aim to ensure inclusivity, participation and equitable access to knowledge at individual and institutional levels. In addition, researchers and institutions must collaborate with farmers to co‐design systems that prioritize context‐specific solutions, sustainability and diversity. Enhancing plant diversity for AET requires plant breeding tailored to diverse agroecological contexts and farming needs, supported by collaborative networks, participatory methods and appropriate experimental and modelling tools. We conclude with a call for inter‐ and transdisciplinary training to better prepare future researchers in plant breeding for AET.

Les demandes sociétales en faveur d’une recherche à la fois responsable, orientée vers la résolution de problèmes et ayant un réel impact, couplées aux crises globales du climat et des inégalités, poussent les organisations de recherche à repenser leurs stratégies d’impact au-delà des indicateurs de performance académiques basés sur les publications scientifiques. Certaines de ces organisations mènent des recherches appliquées et tentent d’évaluer les effets concrets de leurs activités. C’est le cas des institutions de recherche agricole, dont la mission est d’améliorer les performances des systèmes éco-agro-alimentaires dans toutes les dimensions de la durabilité. Pourtant, ces évaluations restent souvent centrées sur des lignes de recherche spécifiques et des indicateurs de performance classiques, sans réelle réflexion sur les théories du changement permettant d’évaluer les impacts. Ces évaluations privilégient généralement les mesures quantitatives, se concentrant sur des questions comme « quels bénéfices pour un dollar investi ? » et les résultats tangibles de la recherche (publications, brevets, technologies, événements), au détriment de la compréhension de l’appropriation de ces résultats par les acteurs, des changements de comportements associés, et des mécanismes sous-jacents. Ce biais est accentué par des mécanismes de financement qui favorisent des projets à court terme, avec des cadres logiques portés sur les résultats, plutôt que sur les changements comportementaux et l’impact en tant que tel. Une vision plus large est donc nécessaire pour appréhender la recherche sous l’angle de son impact, au niveau des organisations et de l’écosystème de recherche dans son ensemble.

How could we know if agricultural development interventions make contributions to sustainable development goals (SDGs)? Genetically engineered (GE) crops are celebrated as a class of technological interventions that can realize multiple SDGs. But recent studies have revealed the gap between GE crop program goals and the approaches used to assess their impacts. Using four comprehensive reviews of GE crop socio-economic impacts, we identify common shortcomings across three themes: (a) scope, (b) approaches and (c) heterogeneity. We find that the evaluation sciences literature offers alternative assessment approaches that can enable evaluators to better assess impacts, and inform learning and decision-making. We recommend the use of methods that enable evaluations to look beyond the agronomic and productive effects of individual traits to understand wider socio-economic effects.

The article aims to highlight local norms that affect seed security and to assess their coexistence with national and international legal orders. It is based on the results of an empirical study conducted between 2018 and 2021 in two villages, located respectively in the Centre-West region of Burkina Faso and the Fatick region of Senegal. The article shows the extent to which i) the local norms of these villages are based on rules of reciprocity, alliance and filiation that structure the local production and circulation of seeds, and ii) these local rules reveal an interdependence between object and subject, nature and culture. It then highlights the issues of coexistence of these norms with the national laws of Burkina Faso and Senegal, in particular the 2006 Plant Seeds Act in Burkina Faso and the 1994 Registration of Varieties, Production, Certification and Trade of Seeds or Plants Act in Senegal. Inspired by international models, these laws organize a seed sector focused on cross-border exchanges. They exclude farmers who practice mass selection and use non-certified seeds from the status of seed breeder, producer and seller. Solutions are proposed to encourage collaboration among all actors. The Crop Diversity Commons is identified as a relevant conceptual framework to discuss the recognition of a community of rights and the interdependence between humans and plants, from the perspective of sustainable global seed security.

« Le droit a tout changé ! ». Cette citation extraite d’un entretien avec un habitant de la périphérie de Yaoundé en janvier 2023 se rapportait à l’histoire d’un arbre auquel les villageois étaient attachés et qui fournissait plusieurs services (écorces, fruits, ombrage, lieu de discussion) qu’aucun ne pouvait refuser à quiconque, ni même la personne qui avait installé sa maison à côté et l’avait peut-être même planté. L’achat de la parcelle par un citadin a transféré de jure la propriété de l’arbre à cette personne qui désormais, en vertu des règles du droit positif camerounais, peut en disposer à sa guise et même le couper s’il le veut, sans qu’aucun dans le village ne puisse s’y opposer. Au-delà de la nostalgie émanant de la citation ci-dessus, celle-ci soulève plusieurs questions : 1

AbstractEstablishing linkage among data of diverse domains (e.g. biological, environmental, socio-economical, and geographical) is critical to address complex multidimensional issues such as food security or sustainable agriculture. The complexity of this challenge increases with the level of heterogeneity of the data but also with the social context of production of datasets, a dimension usually less considered. Building on the experience of a transdisciplinary project on the diversity of crop diversity management systems in West Africa (CoEx), this chapter reflects on the importance to better account for agency for more meaningful, responsible and efficient plant data linkage. The chapter addresses sequentially the cognitive and political challenges related to data work and the way they could be addressed simultaneously within the same social unit. To do this, we rely on the concept of community of practice (CoP) which gained enormous popularity in relation to data and knowledge management. More than simply a social mechanism for community knowledge management, we show in this contribution that CoP needs to be approached as a social experiment and a terrain of collective situated learning in order to address each challenge and their linkages with respect to data work.

The article aims to highlight local norms that affect seed security and to assess their coexistence with national and international legal orders. It is based on the results of an empirical study conducted between 2018 and 2021 in two villages, located respectively in the Centre-West region of Burkina Faso and the Fatick region of Senegal. The article shows the extent to which i) the local norms of these villages are based on rules of reciprocity, alliance and filiation that structure the local production and circulation of seeds, and ii) these local rules reveal an interdependence between object and subject, nature and culture. It then highlights the issues of coexistence of these norms with the national laws of Burkina Faso and Senegal, in particular the 2006 Plant Seeds Act in Burkina Faso and the 1994 Registration of Varieties, Production, Certification and Trade of Seeds or Plants Act in Senegal. Inspired by international models, these laws organize a seed sector focused on cross-border exchanges. They exclude farmers who practice mass selection and use non-certified seeds from the status of seed breeder, producer and seller. Solutions are proposed to encourage collaboration among all actors. The Crop Diversity Commons is identified as a relevant conceptual framework to discuss the recognition of a community of rights and the interdependence between humans and plants, from the perspective of sustainable global seed security.

Un colloque intitulé « Pour une recherche et une innovation responsables » s’est tenu le 15 janvier 2021. Organisé par un groupe de travail interinstitutionnel (universités, instituts de recherche, grandes écoles), il visait à réinterroger le rôle et les pratiques de la recherche. Les tables rondes couvraient des thèmes liés à la fois aux finalités sociétales de la recherche pour un meilleur alignement avec les défis du développement durable, aux défis concrets de la gestion de sites et des comportements individuels et collectifs pour diminuer le coût environnemental et sociétal de la conduite des travaux de recherche et enfin aux défis d’apprentissage et de gouvernance de la recherche et de l’innovation pour que les savoirs viennent accompagner des changements de pratiques à l’échelle de l’ensemble des acteurs concernés. Ce texte propose de relire cette conférence à la lumière d’une grille d’analyse macro/micro/méso qui offre un moyen d’appréhender les différents niveaux d’action qui ont été évoqués pendant cette conférence, parfois au sein d’une même table ronde. Le niveau macro a surtout été couvert dans les deux premières tables rondes qui ont fait émerger le constat que les normes globales qui désormais guident la recherche ont fortement évolué. Il a souvent été fait référence au niveau micro pour parler de la multiplication d’initiatives prises par les chercheurs, individuellement ou collectivement, pour diminuer l’impact de leurs recherches sur l’environnement. Le niveau méso est finalement celui qui a le plus occupé les débats avec une série d’instruments, d’outils et d’initiatives pris par différentes organisations pour essayer à l’échelle de collectifs plus larges, de prendre en charge certains défis, gérer d’éventuelles tensions entre injonctions contradictoires venant du niveau macro et ainsi aider à faire bouger les lignes et à engager davantage la recherche vers des pratiques responsables.

Workplace surveillance is a classic management activity in public and private organizations. Employers have long used various surveillance methods in different forms to ensure workplace safety and product/service quality, enhance process efficiency, reduce transactional cost, training and safeguarding organizational interests. Technology advances have generally facilitated surveillance and created new opportunities for electronic monitoring in government. But it has also intensified the surveillance context of the work environment, which can have negative impacts on employee satisfaction, motivation, and job performance. This chapter examines advances in digital surveillance as well as the research on the ethics and implications of digital workplace surveillance for employees' privacy, motivation, and performance. Special attention is given to how innovative surveillance techniques that are changing the workplace environment. Based on this review, the chapter suggests future research.

This paper rethinks the governance of genebanks in a social and political context that has significantly evolved since their establishment. The theoretical basis for the paper is the commons conceptual framework in relation to both seed and plant genetic resources. This framework is applied to question the current policy ecosystem of genetic research and breeding and explore different collective governance models. The concept of crop diversity management system (CDMS) commons is proposed as the new foundation for a more holistic and inclusive framework for crop diversity management, that covers a broad range of concerns and requires different actors. The paper presents a multi-stakeholder process established within the context of the two recent projects CoEx and Dynaversity, imagining possible collective arrangements to overcome existing deadlocks, foster collective learning, and design collaborative relationships among genebanks, researchers, and farmers’ civil society organizations involved in crop diversity management.

Different norms, rules and practices organize the exchange of germplasm to address broader global challenges such as advancement of science and innovation, food security, sustainable agriculture or global equity. Some of these institutions are now embedded in various treaties and national regulations. This chapter claims that these regulations are not as successful as they could be because they fail to effectively integrate the complexity of the exchange environment. In order to better understand how exchange could be improved, it is important to go beyond a legalistic approach to exchange and look at the broader socio-technical context in which these exchanges take place. By developing an analytical framework that includes several dimensions beyond the regulatory one, this contribution creates the foundation for a more comprehensive approach that acts upon the relationship between germplasm and the diversity of institutional logics, germplasm and its resource system, and germplasm and its social environment.

Collaborative research practices in the field of plant genetic resources must follow the principles of fairness and equity as defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). In this context the concepts of fairness and equity generally refer to the substantive and procedural dimensions associated with sharing the benefits of this research. But neither term is clearly defined by these international treaties, and the meanings attributed to the concepts vary among different societies. This paper looks at the question of how to account for the diversity among value systems when conducting research that implicates diverse stakeholders and respects the requirements of fairness and equity. We incorporated an auto-ethnography method developed as part of a multi-stakeholder network involved in research projects on plant genetic resources in West Africa. A theatrical device was used as a framework for testing the principles of fairness and equity, helping us to collectively identify feelings of injustice, and explore the conditions for making collaborative research practices more ethical in ways that respect the perspectives of different stakeholders. In an environment of extensive political and socio-cognitive inequality, this approach makes it possible to explain the criteria relating to interactional justice and expectations in terms of socio-political and socio-emotional benefits. It also invites us to consider the principles of fairness and equity in a framework of ethical competence that goes beyond international directives.

The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent scientific body focused on assessing the state of the world's ecosystem services and biodiversity. IPBES members agreed in 2017 that a review of the Platform's first work programme should be undertaken by an independent panel examining all aspects of IPBES' work – including implementation of the four functions of IPBES; policies, operating principles and procedures; governance structure and arrangements; communication, stakeholder engagement and partnerships; and funding mechanisms.The review found that for IPBES to have its anticipated transformative impact:All four functions of IPBES (i.e. assessment, knowledge generation, policy support, capacity building), with better communication, must be significantly strengthened, integrated and delivered together;The policy aspects of IPBES work need to be strengthened and greater emphasis needs to be placed on the co-design and co-production of assessments;A more strategic and collaborative approach to stakeholders is needed; andIPBES must develop a more sustainable financial base.Given those changes, IPBES, as an embryonic boundary organization, can become the key influencing organization in the global landscape of biodiversity and ecosystem services organizations, helping thus to catalyze transformative change in the relationship between people and the rest of nature.EDITED BY Patricia Balvanera

This genomics global governance research study presents the dynamics and the evolving nature of salient challenges that global genomics initiatives encounter in designing new models for data management, exchange, and collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and countries. Using a multiple case study approach, we assessed and compared organizational responses across diverse genomics initiatives. The richness of a comparative qualitative analysis clearly shows the complexity addressed by genomics initiatives and, importantly, expands current studies by moving beyond an open versus property regime dichotomy. Although we identify some common themes, fundamental differences emerge in the way genomics initiatives set goals, manage heterogeneity, define resources, devise governance, and enable data sharing. Such differences demonstrate the ongoing processes of adapting governance structures, management processes, and organizational design solutions that are implemented in response to different social, technical, and policy environments. We find that genomics initiatives largely benefit from and are shaped by the engagement with large communities of scientists to rethink and design shared rules and guidelines for data exchange and use. Our study provides direct guidance to future global genomics initiatives, but it also offers a benchmark for research in the omics field broadly, both in terms of design and methodological approaches to understand the emerging forms of scientific governance and innovation ecosystems.

This chapter deals with the mechanisms for generating and allocating benefits under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (the Treaty). We claim that, despite innovative approaches and mechanisms foreseen under the Treaty to reflect the collective nature of the crop innovation process and the interdependence among actors and countries with regard to crop genetic resources, the existing benefit provision mechanisms do not fully address the high heterogeneity of actors and resources revolving around the Treaty commons. By looking at the benefit provision mechanisms and the way they address the various needs and values of the whole range of actors involved in the conservation, use and exchange of crop genetic resources, this chapter tries to assess how heterogeneity, in its multiple forms, is considered and managed within the Treaty commons. We first describe the different types of heterogeneities that are present with the global commons established by the Treaty (see the 'Introduction' section). We then analyse the various inadequacies in dealing with these heterogeneities within the current redistribution mechanisms that constitute the design of the multilateral system (see the 'Heterogeneity dimensions in the Treaty' section). We conclude by suggesting that heterogeneity in the Treaty commons could be managed through new brokering mechanisms. Rather than hierarchical patterns of authority or standardized contractual tools and centralized enforcement mechanisms, as experienced in the case study of the Treaty, we suggest that a brokering mechanism dedicated to assessing cooperative behaviours could help better address equity dilemmas (see the 'The current shortcomings of the different mechanisms for benefit generation and allocation under the Treaty' section).

Le concept d'open source applique aux semences vegetales a un avenir prometteur. Ce concept inverse la logique du systeme de propriete intellectuelle pour une ressource renouvelable que l'on rend disponible en la sortant du domaine exclusif de la propriete intellectuelle. Aujourd'hui, les instruments juridiques font encore defaut pour etablir un cadre legal complet. Toutefois, le concept d'open source, que l'on pourrait traduire ici par licence libre et ouverte, engendre au fil du temps une masse critique d'utilisateurs et de soutiens qui entraine une legitimite sociale grandissante. A terme, cette legitimite pourrait renforcer le pouvoir juridique. L'extension future a d'autres materiels dans differents contextes doit etre reflechie en s'appuyant sur les experiences actuelles de semences sous licences libres et ouvertes conduites aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et en Afrique.

Application of the open source concept to seeds has a promising future. It reverses the logic of the intellectual property system with a renewable stock of open source material kept outside the exclusive intellectual property realm. Legal defensibility may currently be uncertain, but as open source builds a critical mass of practitioners and supporters, wider social legitimacy could strengthen the legal power. Future extension to other subject matter and settings is discussed on the basis of lessons learnt from current open source seed implementation experience in the US, Europe and Africa.

Regime complexes are arrays of institutions with partially overlapping mandates and memberships. As tensions frequently arise among these institutions, there is a growing interest geared to finding strategies to reduce them. Insights from regime theory, science and technology studies, and social network analysis support the claim that “boundary organizations”—a type of organization until now overlooked in International Relations—can reduce tensions within regime complexes by generating credible, legitimate, and salient knowledge, provided that their internal networks balance multiple knowledge dimensions. Building on this argument, this article offers an ex ante assessment of the recently created International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Results from our network analysis of IPBES point to clear improvements compared with similar organizations, although major deficiencies remain. The contribution of this article is threefold. Methodologically, it introduces new conceptual and technical tools to assess the “social representativeness” of international organizations. Theoretically, it supports the claim that international organizations are penetrated by transnational networks and, consequently, that the proliferation of institutions tends to reproduce structural imbalances. Normatively, it argues that a revision of nomination processes could improve the ability of boundary organizations to generate salient, credible, and legitimate knowledge.