Behavioural, Ecological and Socio-economic
Tools for Modelling Agricultural Policy

Between 27 and 29 March 2023, the 97th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society (AES) took place at the University of Warwick, UK. The three-day event showcased various presentations from leading experts, poster presentations, as well as workshops on bio-economic modelling, the Green Revolution, uptake of low-carbon practices by farmers and more.  Dr. Alena Schmidt at the AES Conference Amongst the participants was BESTMAP's partner Dr. Alena Schmidt...

In order to evaluate the efficacy of agricultural policies in European farmlands, it is essential to comprehend the environmental effects of these policies, particularly those of measures like organic farming or agri-environmental schemes (AES). Against this background, we are happy to announce the launch of our latest social media campaign #BESTMAP_Research. The campaign will aim at creating transparency towards the project, as well as to inform on our scientific results and approaches to...

While we are eagerly looking forward to all of the results we have on our 2023 agenda, we would like to take a moment and look back at the BESTMAP most prominent achievements from 2022.  Are you curious to know what BESTMAP has achieved in the past year? Take a look at our 2022 highlights video, where you will find some of our greater accomplishments.  

Between 21 and 25 of November 2022 a joint meeting titled "Ecology and Evolution: New perspectives and societal challenges" was held in Metz, France, where BESTMAP’s partner Dr. Michael Beckmann of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) participated. The event was organised by the The Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Continental Environments (LIEC), University of Lorraine, CNRS and other labs in northeastern France working in the fields of ecology and evolution....

On 14 November 2022, BESTMAP’s partners at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food of Catalonia (DARP) organised a dedicated workshop aiming to create a forum for interested parties from the Department to take action in the participation and management of various European projects, to get a better overview of the project’s ecosystem and the existing funding and cooperation possibilities. DARP is actively involved in a large number of European projects, among...

A recent BESTMAP-derived paper published in the Ecological Applications journal, suggests that landscape-level heterogeneity of agri-environment measures improves habitat suitability for farmland birds.  Conducted by the BESTMAP partners and leading experts Stephanie Roilo, Jan Engler and Anna Cord of the Dresden University of Technology, along with Tomáš Václavík of Palacký University Olomouc, the study questions the effectiveness of the main tools...

A newly-published paper, providing a spatial classification approach for identifying archetypal patterns of agri-environmental potential in Europe based on machine-learning clustering is now available in the Environmental Research Letters journal. Titled "Archetypes of agri-environmental potential: a multi-scale typology for spatial stratification and upscaling in Europe," the study is fully supported and conducted by the BESTMAP team of experts, amongst whom are the project...

BESTMAP had the pleasure to attend the fourth ESP Europe Conference between 10 and 14 October 2022 in Crete, but also online. The conference - hosted by the University of Patras and Harokopio University of Athens and running under the theme "Ecosystem services empowering people and societies in times of crises" - brought together a total of 417 participants - including 302 on-site attendees - from 50 countries, of which only 32 were European ones. Amongst the participants of the...

Between 5 and 7 October 2022, the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE), together with MIND STEP project partner, Thünen Institute, as well as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Humboldt University, jointly organised a seminar titled Greenhouse gas emissions in the EU agriculture and food sector - potential and limits of climate mitigation policies and pricing instruments. The event took place in Berlin, Germany where representatives from the three...

The 6th European Congress of Conservation Biology titled "Biodiversity crisis in a changing world" took place between 22 and 26 September in Prague, Czech Republic. Amongst the leading experts who attended the symposium were the BESTMAP partners, Stephanie Roilo, Anna Cord (TU Dresden) and James Bullock from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. The project was presented with an insightful and informative session on the impact of the regional context on the effectiveness of...

While actively working towards transforming the future design and monitoring of EU rural policies, BESTMAP is very happy to say that our first ever Summer School on modelling policy impacts on ecosystem services and biodiversity was a huge success! It aimed to draw upon developed methods and experiences from the project, operating in five case studies across Europe. The BESTMAP consortium The event was hosted by Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic, between 12-16...

The IALE 2022 European Landscape Ecology Congress took place between 11-15 July. Originally scheduled as an in-person event in Warsaw, Poland, later it was changed to an online meeting due to the Russian invasion and the need to help refugees arriving in Poland. Under the conference motto "Making the future, learning from the past" international scientists and experts exchanged their views on landscape ecology as the transdisciplinary platform linking past, present and future. At...

A newly published article in the Land Use Policy journal investigates ways for the implementation of agri-environmental schemes (AES) to foster sustainable farming practices that can contribute to the conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate change mitigation and adaptation.  Leading specialists in this area, amongst whom BESTMAP partners - Anne Paulus, Michael Beckmann (UFZ), Stephanie Roilo & Anna Cord (TUD), are authors of this paper. They conducted the study by...

The 6th edition of the European Congress of Conservation Biology in Prague (ECCB)  will take place in Prague, Czech Republic between 22 and 26 August, where leading international scientists and experts will gather to discuss and exchange knowledge on the "Biodiversity crisis in a changing world." Amongst the congress participants is BESTMAP’s partner Stephanie Roilo (Dresden University of Technology, Germany), who will have a dedicated presentation titled "Does...

BESTMAP is beyond happy to announce that the project will be attending the 17th annual Social Simulation Conference (SSC2022), which will be held at the University of Milan in Italy between 12 and 16 September 2022. We are also glad that our paper "An agent-based model of UK farmers’ decision-making on adoption of agri-environment schemes" by Chunhui Li, Meike Will and  Birgit Müller, Nastasija Grujić, Jiaqi Ge, Arjan Gosal and Guy Ziv , has been accepted to be...

Understanding the environmental impacts of agricultural policies, including measures such as agri-environmental schemes (AES) or organic farming, is a crucial step in assessing their effectiveness in European farmlands. Scientific models play an important role in quantifying such impacts, especially on biodiversity and ecosystem services provided by the agricultural landscapes. In that context, BESTMAP is happy to once again invite you to the project’s first Summer School on modelling...

MIND STEP: "They say it's all about the journey and not the destination but in the MIND STEP project, we are equally excited about the process as we are about the end results. And we are pleased to say that in the past couple of months, we have made great progress." In November 2021, the MIND STEP team attended a seminar coordinated by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC), the leader of our WP1 that designs the conceptual framework for the whole project....

On 13 and 14 September 2022, BESTMAP’s third General Assembly (GA) meeting will take place. Hosted by the BESTMAP partners at the Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, the GA will gather members from all the BESTMAP partnering institutions. As the BESTMAP consortium is formed by experts from various backgrounds and environmentalists and with caution to preserve the environment from pollution, we are organising this year's #BESTMAP_GA in a hybrid format. ...

On 12 and 13 May the Agrimodels cluster, formed by the three sister projects BESTMAP, AGRICORE and MIND STEP, gathered in Basel, Switzerland for a one-day BESTMAP-organised hybryd workshop. The event was hosted by the BESTMAP partners from the University of Basel and the purpose of the gathering was to discuss the linking of agent-based models (ABM) with computational general equilibrium (CGE) or partial equilibrium (PE) models. Representatives of the three AGRIMODELS Cluster...