INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE DRY AREAS

Their core work

ICARDA is an international agricultural research centre headquartered in Beirut, specializing in crop improvement and sustainable farming systems for dryland environments. In H2020, they contribute deep expertise in cereal and legume genetic resources, genebank management, and genomics-driven crop evaluation. Their work bridges traditional biodiversity conservation with modern data science — building databases, applying machine learning to variety testing, and enabling FAIR data standards for plant genetic resources across Europe and beyond.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

ICARDA's early H2020 work (2017–2018) centred on field-level agroecology — intercropping systems, land use planning, climate resilience, and decision support modelling. From 2019 onward, the focus shifted decisively toward genomics, phenomics, and digital management of plant genetic resources, with three of their five projects involving genetic data infrastructure. This represents a clear move from applied agronomy toward data-intensive crop science and biodiversity informatics.

ICARDA is building strength in digital plant genetic resource management — expect future work combining genomics, AI, and genebank data systems for climate-resilient crop development.

How they like to work

ICARDA participates exclusively as a partner, never as coordinator in H2020, which reflects their role as a specialist contributor bringing dryland crop expertise into European-led consortia. With 101 unique partners across 31 countries from just 5 projects, they operate in very large consortia and maintain broad international connections. This makes them easy to integrate into new projects — they are experienced team players accustomed to multi-partner coordination.

Remarkably broad network for their project count: 101 unique partners across 31 countries, averaging 20 partners per consortium. Their reach spans well beyond Europe, consistent with their international mandate for dryland agriculture research.

What sets them apart

ICARDA brings something rare to European consortia: decades of expertise in dryland crop varieties (especially wheat, barley, and food legumes) from regions most affected by climate change. While European partners provide genomics infrastructure and data platforms, ICARDA contributes irreplaceable germplasm knowledge and field experience from arid and semi-arid environments. For any consortium working on climate-resilient crops or global food security, they are a natural bridge between European research and the world's most water-stressed agricultural systems.

Highlights from their portfolio

• AGENT
  Largest funding (EUR 532K) — activating genebank networks with FAIR data standards, genomics, and bioinformatics for wheat and barley collections.
• INCREASE
  Combines food legume genetic resources with blockchain technology and citizen science — an unusual and forward-looking approach to biodiversity conservation.
• InnoVar
  Highest single grant (EUR 539K) — applies machine learning and genomics to modernize European crop variety testing systems.