"Montpellier Research in Management" Laboratory

Resulting from the regrouping of all the Montpellier forces in the field of management science research, i.e. 250 researchers (165 permanent and 80 doctoral students) MRM is organised according to a double principle of disciplinary groups and transversal axes:

• The disciplinary groups correspond to the major fields of Management Sciences: Accounting and Society, Entrepreneurship, Finance, HRM, Marketing, Organisation, Strategy, Information Systems
• The axes correspond to the three main research themes of the University of Montpellier in the managerial field: health management, agri-food management, responsible management and ecological transition.

Since September 2011, MRM has been the coordinating laboratory of the LABEX "Entreprendre", of which AgroParisTech is one of the tutelles. It also holds the Chair of Management and Responsible Entrepreneurship, whose mission is to develop research, training and development activities on the themes of responsible management and entrepreneurship.

The MRM - Strategic Management group focuses on four themes:

• strategic management of alliances and coopetition
• strategic management of innovation
• strategic management of the environment
• strategic management of supply chains.

The research carried out within the MSE "Strategic Environmental Management" team develops innovative research issues around globalisation strategies and strategic environmental management and mobilises the analytical frameworks and tools of management sciences in the service of the social and environmental goals of organisations. It focuses on strategic capabilities to improve environmental management. This approach gives a central place to the notion of environmental result, as well as to the power relations, alliances, contestations or devices in play that prevent or favour its formation, in various organisational contexts at the interface between companies, public institutions and NGOs. This research is particularly interested in

• identifying the forms of strategic environmental management implemented in companies, NGOs, as well as in territorial management systems,
• analysing and/or supporting the design of strategies of actors specialised in environmental management,
• develop new forms of theoretical and practical evaluation of the ecological performance of management systems and associated policies,
• develop theoretical and practical innovations in the field of accounting to equip inter-organisational management of ecological systems,
• developing research in environmental foresight, aimed at designing and analysing forms of strategic mobilisation of the long-term future for environmental action.
• They are largely based on socio-anthropological methods and various forms of research-intervention.

Contact :

Dr Maya LEROY
Responsible for the team MSE "Strategic Management for the Environnement", Group Strategic Management, MRM 

maya.leroy @ agroparistech.fr

"Knowledge, Environment and Society" research unit- SENS - 

The "Knowledge, Environment and Society" joint research unit - SENS - was created in January 2021. It is the result of the meeting of three groups: CIRAD researchers from the research unit GREEN (Management of Renewable Resources and Environment), IRD researchers and teacher-researchers from AgroParisTech, Montpellier Sup Agro and IIAM from the research unit GRED (Governance, Risk, Environment, Governance), and academics from the Department of Ethnology (teaching team) of the UPVM formerly within the CERCE team (Centre d'Études et de Recherches Comparatives en Ethnologie) of the LERSEM (Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherches en Sociologie et en Ethnologie de Montpellier).

At the end of 2018, on the basis of long-standing collaborations, these collectives defined together the scientific project of this new research unit. It brings together more than fifty permanent members - researchers, teacher-researchers, engineers, technicians - and about forty doctoral students. The particularity of this team is its multidisciplinarity, both within the social sciences (anthropology, economics, geography, sociology, law, political science) and between the social sciences, the life and environmental sciences (agronomy and ecology) and the sciences and technologies (modelling and computer science).

The evolution of society's expectations and the aspirations of the research community have led us to structure the research unit around the following general objectives, giving priority to rural societies in the South:

1. To produce knowledge on the mechanisms underlying the relationships and tensions that constitute the society-environment nexus
2. To support social and institutional initiatives and innovations aimed at sustainably influencing the trajectories of ecological and social systems at different scales
3. To consolidate reflexive approaches to our role as scientists with regard to the complexity of the phenomena studied, their ethical and political dimensions, and the necessary co-construction of knowledge and practices geared towards sustainability.

The research unit's objectives are based on four themes:

• Dynamics of practices, belonging and landscapes
• Environmental ethics and justice: issues and practices
• Governing nature and resources
• Construction and uses of knowledge on the environment

Contact :

Georges SMEKTALA
Lecturer

georges.smektala @ agroparistech.fr

Research Unit "Functional Ecology and Biogeochemistry of Soils and Agrosystems" (Eco&Sols)

Eco&Sols is a joint research unit with 70 permanent staff members involving INRAe, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro and CIRAD.

The aim of the work conducted at Eco&Sols is to improve understanding of the role of soil and plant organisms, as well as the interactions between them and with their environment, in biogeochemical cycles - mainly C, N and P cycles - within soils and agro-ecosystems.

The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C) and nutrients (N and P) are mainly studied in Mediterranean and tropical agrosystems. The different components of the soil (clay particles, aggregates, pores, etc.), the plant (roots, stems, leaves, fruits) and the atmosphere are studied in these cycles. The nature of biotic and abiotic determinants of C and nutrient fluxes is studied in various agronomic contexts subject to climatic and land-use changes. The whole range of supporting and regulating ecosystem services, their trade-offs and the resilience of agro-systems to climatic or land-use changes are taken into account.

The research objectives are based on the notion of ecological engineering. These goals are the control of C, N and P flows in order to achieve sustained and sustainable production of tropical and Mediterranean agro-ecosystems with low-input levels. The work is based on the comparison of technical itineraries integrating the following agronomic practices:

• management of organic and mineral inputs: forms and methods of application
• introduction of high-performance genotypes (plants, symbiotic organisms)
• use of multi-species stands (of perennial or annual plants) (with different methods of association and exploitation)
• other agro-ecological practices (no-tillage and sowing under plant cover (SCV), organic farming, agroforestry, RCW (ramial fragmented wood), zaï, etc.).

The UMR's research is based on observation, experimentation and modelling in functional ecology, plant ecophysiology and soil biogeochemistry. The scales of study in the laboratory or in the field range from the microsite/organism to the plot/population and even beyond to the multi-plot or regional scale. The research work is carried out thanks to research projects funded by various donors (e.g. research institutes, the French National Research Agency (ANR), foundations, the French Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the European Union and numerous partnerships. Eco&Sols is structured into 3 research themes and 2 cross-cutting axes.

Contact :

Dr Raphaël MANLAY
Lecturer

raphael.manlay @ agroparistech.fr