Abstract: Research in sustainable agricultural management requires appropriate participatory processes and tools enabling efficient dialogue and cooperation to allow researchers and stakeholders to co-produce knowledge. Research approaches that encourage stakeholder participation are in high demand because they allow a better understanding of human-nature interactions and interdependencies between actors. Participatory approaches also support multiple goals of agricultural management: improved productivity, food security, climate change adaptation, environmental conservation, rural development and policy decision making. Approaches to stakeholder engagement in the field of agricultural management research are manifold. Therefore, selecting the “right” approach depends on the specific purpose and contextualized issues at stake. We analyzed ten stakeholder approaches and propose a new framework with which to identify and select appropriate approaches for stakeholder engagement. The framework consists of three components: whom to engage (i.e., stakeholder type and mandate), why to engage (i.e., research purpose: consult, inform, collaborate), and how to engage (i.e., different methodological approaches). We identified different stakeholder groups (who?): farmers, agricultural actors, land users, and policymakers; different purposes (why?): facilitate engagement process, inform stakeholders, and obtain stakeholder perceptions; and different types of engagement methods (how?): participatory field experiments, desk simulations, interviews, panel discussions and different types of workshops. The framework was applied to arrange these approaches, organize them to improve understanding of their main strengths, weaknesses and supports for identifying and selecting an appropriate approach. We conclude that understanding the different facets of available approaches is crucial for selecting an appropriate stakeholder engagement approach. ;

Abstract: The Hub management has set up and is administering an interactive web site, organized the kickoff-workshop, developed the consortium agreement with 70 partners, developed logos and templates for use by members, published four newsletters, organized seven Project Steering Committee meetings and interacted with the FACCE JPI secretariat. No Label

Abstract: In the MACSUR project, there are several grassland models in use that were designed for and adjusted with data from different climatic regions. To be able to run these modelsfor a wide geographical range, there is a need to validate and calibrate them on the same basis.Therefore, a high-quality dataset is needed, which includes a wide range of climatic conditions, management systems and other variables.Through this search 23 grassland related institutes from eleven countries were found and contacted, where 12 of them responded to the request. Nine institutes from cooler (e.g. Finland) and warmer regions (e.g. Israel) are now willing to provide their experimental data. One contributor is even planning to join the project bringing its own grassland model.These new grassland datasets cover in addition to already available ones (Fig. 1) a wide range of climatic regions for a substantiated calibration and validation of the models. Data supplied by the institutes have been checked for internal consistency and cast into a common format. The data have been passed on to WP L2 (Model intercomparison on climate change in relation to livestock and grassland). No Label