I work at COEXPHAL, an advisory center with over 20 years of experience in the fruit and vegetable sector, fostering a local risk-sensitive culture to climate change, with a special focus on soil management and the control of pests and plant diseases. I am a passionate research scientist with 8+ years of experience in Plant Pathology and Crop Protection, and I have a strong commitment to promoting sustainable agriculture.

A Newcastle graduate, geneticist and ex dairy farmer, Richard joined Innovation for Agriculture in 2016 to co-ordinate the Horizon 2020 project Data Driven Decisions for Dairy farmers. Advocating the welfare and economic benefits of making real time management decisions based on sensor data he was involved in other projects on antibiotic reduction (DISARM) and farm demonstration (FARMDEMO). Currently he is coordinating the UK involvement in two major projects aimed at reducing the climatic impact of livestock farming – Climate Farm Demo ( setting up a network of 130 climate demo farms in the UK – 1500 Europewide), and Climate Smart Advisors.

Head of Innovation Support Service at LAAS, coordinator of innovation projects, member of the EU CAP Network Subgroup on Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (SoIKE). I am responsible for coordinating national and international innovation projects, developing of LAAS collaboration with advisory, research and innovation institutions, representing LAAS at national and international events. I am a national coordinator in the ClimateFarmDemo project.

Branko Sikoparija, has PhD in Biology and works as senior researcher at BioSense Institute and Quality manager at Laboratory for palynology (ISO17025). He is a highly-conscientious, self-motivated and practiced researcher with a strong background in aerobiology, environmental science, ecology, entomology, modelling & forecasting. His current interests are real-time detection and identification of bioaerosols and exploring relationships between in hive products and honey bee health status.

As commercially-aware researcher, Branko Sikoparija is skilled in raising research funding and he also acted as the coordinator and principal investigator on a number national and international research projects (Ministry of Science-Serbia,, Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, SNSF-SCOPES, INTERREG-IPA, WUS-CEP&CDP+, EC-HORIZON2020, EC-HORIZON EUROPE). He coordinated the registration of Protected Designations of Origin for “Fruska Gora Lime Tree Honey”. Dr Sikoparija utilizes excellent communication skills and is very successful in developing networks and collaborations both interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary.