CAPGENES

Their core work

CAPGENES is a French private company specializing in genetic improvement of sheep and goats, operating at the intersection of applied animal breeding and research. They develop and manage breeding programs for small ruminants, contributing industry-level expertise and real-world genetic data to scientific consortia. Their work covers both the practical side of livestock genetics — selecting animals for better performance — and increasingly technical domains like genomic selection and mathematical modeling of animal traits. As an SME embedded in the French sheep and goat sector, they bring field-grounded knowledge that academic partners in large EU consortia typically lack.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their earlier H2020 work (iSAGE, 2016–2020), CAPGENES focused on the broader system level: sustainability assessment, socio-economic analysis, demographic trends, consumer behavior, and the impact of climate change on European sheep and goat farming. By their second project (SMARTER, 2018–2023), the focus had shifted decisively inward — toward the animal itself, specifically genomic selection, mathematical models, feed efficiency, health trade-offs, and predictive biology. This is a clear trajectory from system-level sustainability thinking toward molecular and quantitative genetics tools applied to breeding decisions.

CAPGENES is moving from broad sustainability research toward precision genetics — future collaborations are most relevant for projects combining genomic tools, animal performance modeling, or data-driven breeding optimization in small ruminants.

How they like to work

CAPGENES has participated in both projects as a consortium partner, never as coordinator, suggesting they prefer to contribute domain expertise within larger collaborative structures rather than lead administrative management. Their 60 unique partners across 17 countries — from just two projects — confirms they operate inside large, pan-European research consortia. This makes them a well-networked specialist contributor, not a narrow bilateral partner.

With 60 unique consortium partners across 17 countries from only two projects, CAPGENES is embedded in broad, multi-actor European research networks. Their collaboration footprint is disproportionately wide for their size, reflecting the large consortia typical of RIA-funded livestock research.

What sets them apart

CAPGENES occupies a rare position as a private SME genetics company — not a university, not a research institute — with direct operational experience managing sheep and goat breeding programs at industry scale. This gives them something academic partners cannot easily replicate: live breeding populations, real performance data, and direct relationships with farmers and producers. For a research consortium working on genomic selection or livestock sustainability, CAPGENES provides the applied validation layer that keeps research grounded in practical breeding reality.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SMARTER
  The largest-funded project for CAPGENES (EUR 185,625), it targets the cutting edge of small ruminant genetics — combining genomic selection, mathematical modeling, and predictive biology to breed simultaneously for efficiency, resilience, and welfare.
• iSAGE
  A cross-European sustainability assessment of sheep and goat production spanning socio-economic, climate, and consumer dimensions, demonstrating CAPGENES's capacity to contribute to system-level analysis beyond pure genetics.