Construction and animation of a National Hub: Insights from the French National Hub
The collaboration between the French National Hub and the already existing French Network of Scientific and Technical Expertise on Soils fosters knowledge sharing and coordinated efforts for sustainable soil management.
The objective of the EJP Soil program is to enhance the contribution of agricultural soils to key societal challenges and promote climate-smart sustainable soil management as the appropriate response from farmers, stakeholders, and citizens to these societal challenges. To achieve this goal, the program relies heavily on active stakeholder engagement and the need to establish interactions between research and development and stakeholder concerns.
For this reason, from the very beginning of the program, EJP Soils partners were encouraged to establish "National Hubs" in each country to bring together key players in soil management at the national level. The purpose was to consult with them on the activities of the EJP program and ensure that national activities are coordinated with EJP activities.
Most countries have therefore established these National Hubs specifically for this purpose. However, in France, the French National Hub was established within an existing national soil stakeholder network. Created in December 2016, the French Network of Scientific and Technical Expertise on Soils (RNEST) aims to promote the sharing of experiences, interactions, and coordination among French research, development, and innovation (RDI) actors in soil-related fields. Its goal is to inform public policies and facilitate the transfer of knowledge and tools to concerned users, such as farmers, political decision-makers, and land-use planning actors.
RNEST is led by organizations representing national soil RDI key players, including the French ministries responsible for agriculture, environment, and higher education and research, which co-chair the network. Additionally, three national agencies, a research institute, a research alliance, the national association for soil science, and two agricultural organizations are part of the network.
Expanding the National Hub and collaborative benefits
When EJP SOIL started in 2021, it became evident that the most efficient way to establish a National Hub was to build on these organizations, which were already accustomed to working together. In addition to these actors, three organizations were invited to join the National Hub to strengthen the representation of farmers and private actors in the field of agriculture.
After the first few years, the group agreed that expanding the National Hub to include other stakeholders would be beneficial in fulfilling its missions. Therefore, in 2022, members of the RNEST expert committee were officially invited to join the National Hub. This committee consists of 32 experts with diverse and complementary expertise profiles, including pedology, economics, biogeochemistry, and various sectors of activity, such as academic research, the private sector, farming, local authorities, and associations. The committee had already been regularly consulted and kept informed about EJP SOIL topics, making its integration into the National Hub relatively straightforward.
Building on an existing network, with pre-existing trust and collaboration among members, enabled the rapid establishment of the French National Hub and allowed French stakeholders to contribute to and learn from the EJP SOIL program's outputs from the project's inception. It also appears to promote a sense of ownership and belonging to the EJP SOIL National Hub, making it easier to facilitate interactive dialogues among members, especially when expressing positions regarding agricultural soil management.
Additionally, opportunities for members to meet are not limited to meetings dedicated solely to EJP SOIL. While the National Hub meets once or twice a year to discuss EJP SOIL activities, RNEST members also meet regularly in various configurations to discuss other soil-related topics at regional, national, or European scales.
All these factors contribute to the dynamism of the network and the seamless integration of its members into other research initiatives related to soils at different levels, such as the "Soil Deal for Europe" mission at the European level.