Research
Scientific research is a very important activity of the G-Env Team. Its academics devote half of their time to it; in addition, the team welcomes and supervises doctoral students. This activity provides the team with expertise that benefits students in various disciplines.

The scientific orientations of the G-ENV team are based on three axes structuring its research and teaching activities:

  • Analysis of the functioning of tropical continental ecosystems. Ecosystems, particularly tropical forest ecosystems, play a major environmental role: biodiversity reservoir, complex interactions with the climate, regulation of major hydrological cycles, etc.
  • Analysis of management practices and strategies for managing the environment and tropical ecosystems based on the link between social and management sciences and environmental sciences
  • Evaluation of environmental management systems and associated policies, particularly for the management and governance of tropical ecosystems. This work focuses more specifically on the actual conditions of implementation, and their effective contributions to better ecological performance...
To develop this research, G-ENV relies on three main external research partners:
  • the "Montpellier Recherche en Management" (MRM) laboratory, which brings together all of Montpellier's strengths in the field of management science research,
  • the "Knowledge, Environment, Society" (SENS) research unit, which studies "the societal dimension (including social, economic, political and cultural issues) of current environmental dynamics".
  • the "Functional Ecology and Biogeochemistry of Soils and Agro-Systems" (Eco&Sols) research unit, which seeks to better understand the ecology of tropical and Mediterranean agro-ecosystems.

The teacher-researchers of the G-Env team are involved in three research units:

Montpellier Research in Management (MRM) Montpellier Research in Management (MRM)

"Montpellier Research in Management" Laboratory

Montpellier Recherche en Management (MRM) is a research unit whose main supervisory body is the University of Montpellier, and whose secondary supervisory bodies are the University of Perpignan and AgroParis Tech.
It was created in 2011 by grouping together all the Montpellier Management laboratories. MRM was created with the ambition of bringing together all Montpellier's strengths in management research.

Today, MRM is made up of some 220 members, including 112 permanent professors and 105 doctoral students and research engineers.
As a management laboratory, it is primarily affiliated with the Ecole Doctorale Economie Gestion de Montpellier (EDEG, ED n°231). MRM is the coordinating laboratory for LabEx Entreprendre.
    The Disciplinary Groups correspond to the major fields of Management Sciences: Accounting and Society, Entrepreneurship, Finance, HRM, Marketing, Organization, Strategy, Information Systems.
    The Transversal Axes correspond to the University of Montpellier's three main management research themes: health management, agri-food management, and responsible management and practices.
MRM is the leading management science team in southern France, and one of the first in France.
Its scientific structure is based on two principles: disciplinary groups and cross-disciplinary axes.

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 by the MSE "Management Stratégique de l'Environnement" team focuses on strategic environmental management. The aim of this research is to identify the forms of strategic environmental management implemented both in companies and in territorial management systems. The aim is also to analyze the design of strategies by actors specialized in environmental management, and to develop new ways of assessing the ecological performance of management systems and associated policies. It also aims to develop theoretical and practical innovations in the field of accounting to equip inter-organizational management of ecological systems, and to develop research into environmental foresight. This research is 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 (SENS) Knowledge, Environment and Society (SENS)

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

The "Savoirs, Environnement, Sociétés" Joint Research Unit - UMR SENS - focuses its research on the societal dimension (including social, economic, political and cultural issues) of current environmental dynamics. It brings together researchers, teacher-researchers, engineers, technicians and PhD students from three institutions: CIRAD, IRD and Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. The distinctive feature of this team is its multidisciplinary approach, 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 (modeling and computing).

The UMR SENS scientific project is based on two observations. The first is the accelerating and increasingly complex tensions between the development trajectories of societies and the transformations of nature. The second is the changing expectations of societies, expressed through changes in individual behavior, the logic of pooling and patrimonialization, and mobilization in the face of injustices exacerbated by environmental crises. The aim is not only to analyze these social issues, with a particular focus on rural societies in the South, but also to propose and support the emergence of new forms of governance.

In addition, the members of UMR SENS adopt a reflexive approach aimed, on the one hand, at embedding their research, training and international partnership activities in a science-policy-society dialogue, and on the other hand, at focusing attention on the co-construction of knowledge linking environment and society.

The UMR pursues these objectives through four themes:
- Dynamics of practices, belonging and landscapes
- Environmental ethics and justice: issues and practices
- Governing nature and resources
- Construction and uses of environmental knowledge

Contact :
alexandre.gaudin @ agroparistech.fr
Functional Ecology and Biogeochemistry of Soils and Agrosystems (Eco&Sols) Functional Ecology and Biogeochemistry of Soils and Agrosystems (Eco&Sols)

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, Institut Agro Montpellier 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 :
raphael.manlay @ agroparistech.fr