Congratulations and thank you to the new members!
On March 5 and 6, the new Community Advisory Board (CAB) has been elected during the FAIRagro Community Summit – here is all you need to know!
FAIRagro is a community-driven initiative and pursues a variety of approaches to involve the community in the further development of a FAIR data future in agrosystems research and to work together with its diverse stakeholders. A key component of this is the Community Advisory Board (CAB). It assumes a valuable strategic and advisory function by evaluating the status and progress of FAIRagro and formulating recommendations for the design and further development of services and infrastructures on the way to a FAIR research data future in agrosystems. research.
The Members
Here we present the nine members for the Community Advisory Board. We are delighted that we have been able to recruit these renowned scientists and data experts for the Community Advisory Board’s second term of office.
Prof. Dr. Anne-Françoise Adam-Blondon
INRAE (French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment)
Prof. Anne-Françoise Adam-Blondon is Director of URGI (Unité de Recherche Génomique-Info) at INRAE (French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment) in Versailles, France. She also serves as Head of Node of ELIXIR France and Deputy Director of the French Institute of Bioinformatics (IFB), where she coordinates national bioinformatics activities and represents France within the European ELIXIR infrastructure for life-science data.
Her expertise covers plant genomics, bioinformatics, data integration, semantic interoperability, and the design of federated and interoperable information systems supporting FAIR data practices in life-science research. Until 2026, she played in addition a key coordinating role in national research infrastructures, including the scientific coordination of the Biological Resource Centre for Cultivated Plants (BRC4Plants) within the French Network of Biological Resource Centres for Research in Biology, Agronomy and Environment (RARe) infrastructure.
Dr. Emily Clark
European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute EMBL-EBI
Dr. Emily Clark leads the Genome Analysis Team at EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). She is actively involved in European research infrastructures, including ELIXIR, and has played a key role in European initiatives such as EuroFAANG, supporting large-scale, interoperable genomics data resources for livestock and aquaculture. Trained in life sciences, data science and genomics enabled farmed animal breeding, she brings strong expertise in animal genomics, FAIR data practices, and international collaboration. Her work focuses on delivering strategic genomic resources and building sustainable, pan-European partnerships at the interface of research communities, data infrastructures, and policy frameworks.
Bernd Rauch
Fraunhofer-Institut für Experimentelles Software Engineering (IESE)
Bernd Rauch is Expert »Data Ecosystems« and works as a project manager and software architect at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE). He holds a degree in Computer Science from Saarland University and an Executive MBA from the Technical University of Munich. His work focuses on data spaces, interoperability, and governance-oriented architectures for distributed data ecosystems. He combines technical expertise with organizational and business perspectives to support sustainable data sharing and reuse across domains. Within the European project CEADS (Common European Agricultural Data Space), Bernd Rauch plays a central architectural and coordination role, contributing to the design of core governance and interoperability concepts for agricultural data spaces. In addition, he has led and contributed to several national and European research projects, including the Fraunhofer flagship project Cognitive Agriculture (COGNAC) and the BMBF-funded project KickStartTrustee, which addressed frameworks for trusted data sharing and data trusteeship. Through his work at the intersection of research, infrastructure development, and stakeholder coordination, he contributes to the advancement of community-driven data infrastructures in agriculture and beyond.
Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hoogenboom
University of Florida
Dr. Gerrit Hoogenboom is a Professor and Preeminent Scholar of the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Florida. He has over 25 years of experience in the development and application of crop simulation models and decision support systems. Applications range from freeze forecasting to climate variability and climate change, water resources management, biofuels, economic and environmental sustainability, and food security. Professor Hoogenboom also has worked extensively on defining Minimum Data Sets for modeling and data analytics and associated data standards and FAIR practices. He currently coordinates the development of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer, a crop modeling system that is being used world-wide by many scientists and others interested in systems analysis and decision support.
Dr. Medha Devare
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA); Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
Dr. Medha Devare is a cropping systems agronomist with expertise in agricultural research for development, microbial and molecular ecology, data and knowledge management, ontology development and semantic web application. Medha’s leadership has provided the vision for a robust, FAIR data and analytics infrastructure; she is the architect of the GARDIAN ecosystem. She has been instrumental in developing tools to realize this vision, from enabling collection of interoperable data to analysis and visualization of aggregated data, first through her leadership of CGIAR’s Open Access and Open Data Initiative, then via the Big Data Platform for Agriculture’s work on data standardization and management. Medha continues to lead data and analytics at CGIAR via large Science Programs including on Sustainable Farming and Digital Transformation.
Prof. Dr. Mark Wilkinson
Technical University of Madrid
Dr. Mark D. Wilkinson is currently affiliated with the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and holds the position of Adjunct Professor of Medical Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Over the last decade, his research has been dedicated to addressing the challenge of empowering bio/medical researchers to conduct their own data management and analysis. His extensive work has revolved around applying semantics to scientific data and the corresponding analytical services. Dr. Wilkinson possesses notable expertise in Web Semantics, Data Linking, and the application of Artificial Intelligence to significant biological data across Natural Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Information Science. His ongoing research focuses specifically on the implementation of ‘FAIR Data.’
Dr. Willem Jan Knibbe
Wageningen Data Competence Center
Dr. Willem Jan Knibbe serves as the director of the Wageningen Data Competence Center at Wageningen University & Research. He has a PhD in Physics & Astronomy and has worked for many years in various data intensive environments on scientific research and its applications, including Natural Science, Environment, Agriculture and Health. The Wageningen Data Competence Center is dedicated to advancing data science in both research and education at Wageningen University and Research and targets the development and application of expertise in data intensive methods and technology for the living environment. Willem Jan Knibbe is instrumental in promoting the development of robust research infrastructure and fostering sound data management practices within the institution and beyond.
Prof. Dr. Clement Jonquet
French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE); University of Montpellier
Dr. Clement Jonquet, PhD in Informatics is associate research scientist atNational Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (France, INRAE) at the Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics for the Environment and Agronomy (MISTEA) research unit and associate professor at University of Montpellier, associated member of the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics and Microelectronics of Montpellier (LIRMM)laboratory. He has 13 years of experience in ontologies and semantic Web research applied to biomedicine and agronomy. He works on the design and development of ontology repositories, ontology-based services especially semantic annotation. Since 2015, he gathers the national and international agronomy community around the AgroPortal initiative to build a reference vocabulary and ontology repository for agronomy, food and plant sciences.
Dr. Henning Müller
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI)
Agrotech Valley e.V.
Hof Fleming
Dr. Henning Müller arbeitet als Wissenschaftler am Deutschen Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz und ist der 1. Vorsitzende des Agrotech Valley Forum e. V. Er agiert somit an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis. Als promovierter Wirtschaftsgeograph und ausgebildeter Landwirt ist er maßgeblich an einer umfassenden Zusammenarbeit mit der Forschung beteiligt, die das gesamte Agri-Food-System in den Fokus nimmt und eine direkte Einbindung von landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben anstrebt. In diesem Kontext werden auf dem landwirtschaftlichen Betrieb „Hof Fleming“ unter seiner Federführung u.a. zahlreichen Forschungs- und Entwicklungsvorhaben durchgeführt.Darüber hinaus engagiert sich Henning Müller als stellv. Vorsitzender im Expertenbeirat zur Digitalisierung beim niedersächsischen Landwirtschaftsministerium.
FAQs about the CAB
How is the CAB set up?
The CAB consists of a spokesperson and eight community representatives, making a total of nine members. The aim is to attract experts and key players from science, politics, business and society who are relevant to FAIRagro and to unite a representative composition of the various national and international perspectives and interest groups.
The members of the CAB should fulfill the following criteria as far as possible:
- Recognized experts with national and international reputations in the fields of science, politics, business and society.
- Representing diverse perspectives and stakeholders within the agricultural systems, information technology, data science and research data management communities.
- Competence in the disciplines, scientific methods and research approaches relevant to FAIRagro.
- Connection to (inter)national networks, initiatives, institutions and projects that are relevant to FAIRagro’s mission.
The CAB is elected for 2 years at a time. The first period started in spring 2024 and ends in spring 2026, the second period ends in spring 2028.
Which tasks does the CAB take on?
The CAB assumes a valuable strategic and advisory function: it reviews the status and progress of FAIRagro and formulates recommendations for the design and further development of services and infrastructures on the way to a FAIR research data future in agrosystems research.
In addition, the CAB strengthens international networking with various interest groups from science, society, politics and business.
Specifically, the CAB also reviews use case (UC) applications and makes recommendations to the Steering Committee for the selection of future UCs.
To this end, it is planned that the members of the CAB will meet at least once a year and prepare an evaluation report including a list of recommendations.
How are CAB Members nominated for election?
Who can become a candidate for the CAB?
All experts and key players from science, politics, business and society who are relevant to FAIRagro can be nominated as candidates, including both national and international players.
Nominated candidates must not already be part of FAIRagro. All FAIRagro employees, Principle Investigators (PIs), Task Area (TA) leaders, spokespersons and all employees of FAIRagro Co-Applicant and Participant institutions are excluded from nomination.
In addition, CAB candidates should belong to one of the following CAB categories or interest groups:
- Science, Agrosystems Research,
- Science, data science and research data management as well as
- Society, politics and business, areas relevant to FAIRagro.
Further information for CAB candidates can be found here.
Who can nominate candidates for the CAB?
The entire FAIRagro community is invited to propose CAB candidates. This also includes all employees of FAIRagro Co-Applicants and Participants.
When and how can candidates be nominated for the CAB?
Nominations were possible via our Webpage prior to the election. The nomination period for the election of the 2nd FAIRagro CAB is closed.
How are the members of the CAB elected?
Who can elect the members of the CAB?
FAIRagro Community Representatives are eligible to vote. Community Representatives are members of the community who register for the FAIRagro Community Summit and are not part of the FAIRagro Plenary itself.
The FAIRagro Plenary is made up of all FAIRagro employees, Principle Investigators (PIs), Task Area (TA) Leaders and Speakers. This group of people is excluded from participation in the election.
During registration for the Community Summit (taking place on March 5 and 6 2026 in Frankfurt / M.), a distinction is made between eligible Community Representatives and members of the FAIRagro Plenary.
When and how is the CAB election conducted?
Community Representatives have received access to the CAB election when they registered for the Community Summit (March 5 and 6) and can therefore take part in the election online once.
Registration for the Community Summit is closed and has been promoted in our newsletter and here on fairagro.net.
The CAB members elected by the Community Representatives will be presented at the Community Summit (March 5 and 6) and the information on this website (www.fairagro.net) will be updated accordingly.
Any questions? We are happy to help you! Please e-mail to: cab_fairagro@listserv.dfn.de
Who are the CAB Members of the first term of office (2024 bis 2026)?
For the first term of the FAIRagro Community Advisory Board, we have succeeded in recruiting nine renowned experts who will provide FAIRagro with critical and competent support. Here they are:
- Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hoogenboom (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1555-0537)
- Dr. Medha Devare (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0041-4812)
- Dr. Pierre Martre (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7419-6558)
- Prof. Dr. Mark Wilkinson (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6960-357X)
- Dr. Willem Jan Knibbe (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7177-9352)
- Prof. Dr. Clement Jonquet (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2404-1582)
- Dr. Imma Subirats (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Imma-Subirats)
- Dr. Steffen Kawelke (https://www.linkedin.com/in/steffen-kawelke-2a0306107/?originalSubdomain=de)
- Dr. Henning Müller (https://www.linkedin.com/in/henning-m%C3%BCller-b86b7a22b/?originalSubdomain=de)