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VALOR partners meet for the project's first Annual General Meeting
30 Mar 2026

VALOR partners meet for the project's first Annual General Meeting

From 24 to 25 March, 2026, the VALOR consortium came together for the project’s first Annual General Meeting in Wageningen, the Netherlands bringing partners from across Europe to share progress, present new research, and discuss the next steps for the project. Over two days, the meeting combined ecological, economic and social research, reflecting VALOR’s interdisciplinary approach to understanding pollinators and their importance for ecosystems, agriculture and society.

The first day focused on sharing progress across tasks, presenting new research developments. The meeting opened with a welcome from the project coordinator Tom Breeze (University of Reading) , who introduced the agenda and objectives. Afterwards, partners presented work on plant response diversity and pollinator interaction networks, landscape-level modelling of pollination services, and the economic impacts of pollinator shifts on agricultural land use and farm-level value. Discussions also covered the social and cultural value of pollinators, non-monetary pollination services, and work with stakeholders to co-develop value narratives in VALOR’s focal regions. Updates were also shared on identifying key European pollinators and on the crop pollination dependence database, highlighting how much global food production depends on pollination. The day concluded with two parallel discussion groups: VALOR Work Package leaders met to discuss the overall direction of the project and next steps, while Early Career Researchers (ECRs) explored how the project can better support their activities.

The second day shifted the focus towards tools, impact and collaboration. Bethan Henderson (UNEP-WCMC) presented insights from a user needs study on pollinator-related tools, conducted in collaboration with the RestPoll project, and introduced the ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure) tool, followed by breakout discussions on how the tool could be further developed. Further discussion focused on VALOR’s work on impact, communication and dissemination, followed by practical approach discussion on how to make project results more accessible and impactful for different audiences.

Research presented during the second day also included early insights from Yujie Zhang (Wageningen University) on how post-farm value chain actors engage with the topic of wild pollinators. To support this research, stakeholders across feed, food, bio-based material, energy and medical value chains are encouraged to participate in the ongoing survey. 

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Additional presentations explored the importance of pollinators for health, nutrition and diets in Europe, as well as the economic consequences of pollinator decline for agriculture, food trade and economic welfare across countries.

The meeting also welcomed several pollinator-related projects. Jeroen van der Sluijs presented the sister project Butterfly, Adam Vanbergen presented AGRI4POL with a focus on pollinator-friendly agriculture, Astrid Newmann presented ProPollSoil and the importance of soil for pollinators, and Alexandra Klein presented the RestPoll project and its newly established, fun corner on the project's website: e-learning platform. The meeting concluded with Tom Breeze, who presented cross-project synergies and collaboration opportunities, highlighting how different projects can work together to increase impact.

Overall, the first VALOR Annual General Meeting marked two intensive days of discussions, collaboration, and knowledge exchange. Thank you to the participants and Wageningen University for hosting and organising the event. We invite readers to visit the gallery to explore highlights from VALOR’s first Annual General Meeting. 

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Presentations during the VALOR AGM were delivered by: