© INRAE, Bertrand Nicolas

Isabelle Litrico is the new Scientific Director of Agriculture at INRAE

After heading the Plant Biology and Breeding Division from 2020 to 2024, Isabelle Litrico is now Scientific Director of Agriculture at INRAE, a role she is committed and happy to take on with her significant experience in multiple disciplines and working with numerous partners.

Published on 22 January 2025

Isabelle Litrico joined INRAE in 2006 and was rapidly given managerial responsibilities in addition to her research career. Through this experience she has acquired in-depth knowledge of the Institute and its stakeholders that she can apply as she carries out her new responsibilities. 

Sustainable, multiperformance agricultural systems

The Scientific Director of Agriculture: an important link in the continuum connecting stakeholders on the ground and public policy makers.

Given the challenges that concern society as much as they mobilise researchers in food security and the environment, the role of scientific director of Agriculture, for Isabelle, is “a strategically important link in the continuum connecting stakeholders on the ground and public policy makers”. She takes over from Christian Huyghe. In operational terms, the key focus of Isabelle Litrico’s mandate is to address the high expectations of society and stakeholders by producing the highest level of knowledge possible and optimising its impact to ensure that agriculture can ensure food security, an income for farmers, and meet environmental challenges.
This approach to agriculture is part of the INRAE2030 strategic roadmap that Isabelle Litrico will help lead during her four-year term with INRAE’s scientific divisions, in coordination with the Directors of Environment and of Food and the Bioeconomy, along with the Deputy Director General of Science and Innovation, under the supervision of the CEO of INRAE.

An interdisciplinary and multi-partnership background 

Isabelle Litrico is well versed in finding connections between different fields and approaches thanks to her beginnings in genetics and population ecology and her time at the Plant Biology and Breeding Division. 
As the head of this division, for example, she helped develop the INRAE2030 strategic roadmap and took part in its implementation in the research units. She has also led this community in mobilising individual approaches and skills to contribute to the agroecological transition.
With as many as 44 research units, the division brings a rich and diverse range of expertise and savoir-faire to the study of a large number of plant species. This diversity has allowed her to get to know many INRAE partners and take part in decision-making processes.

Mini CV

50 years old

  • Career

2025-present: Scientific Director of Agriculture at INRAE
2020:                Director, Plant Biology and Breeding Division (BAP) INRAE
2019:                 Deputy Director, BAP Division

2014-2019:       Deputy Director of the Multidisciplinary Research Unit for Grasslands and Forage Crops – URP3F (Lusignan)
2014-2018:       Scientific Head of the Biotechnology Laboratory - URP3F
2007-2009:     Head of the Genetic evolution of grassland populations team - URP3F

2018-present:  INRAE Research Director
2006:                INRAE Researcher
2006:                Post-doctoral research at INRAE / University of British Colombia (Canada)
2005:                Temporary research and teaching associate at Université Paul Valéry (Montpellier)

  • Education

2016:  Accreditation to supervise research, Université de Poitiers
2004: PhD in Population Biology and Ecology, Université de La Réunion
2001:  DEA (post-graduate degree) in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Université Montpellier II

  • Awards

2023: Named Officer of the Order of Agricultural Merit
2017:  Named Chevalier of the Order of Agricultural Merit

  • Expertise

Chair of the Permanent Technical Committee on Plant Breeding (CTPC) (since 2024)
Member of the Institut Agro scientific committee (since 2022); the steering and technical coordination committee (CPCT), the ministerial Phosmet phase-out plan (since 2022) and the programming committee of the Biological Systems Department (BIOS), Cirad (since 2019)
2022-2024 Director of the national research programme for Advanced Plant Selection (SVA) led by INRAE.

Learn more

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PRESS RELEASE - A strong demand from public authorities, agriculture professionals, and society in general, all over Europe, has spurred collaborative research in order to accelerate the agroecological transition. To face a challenge of this magnitude the joint declaration of intent “Towards a Chemical Pesticide-free Agriculture” aims to rethink the way research is carried out and develop new common research and experimentation strategies, not just at a national level, but throughout the whole continent. This declaration was signed today by 24 research organisations from 16 European countries. Driven by the French Institute INRAE and its German counterparts ZALF and JKI, this unprecedented endeavour has brought the European research community together around this ambitious vision of an agriculture free of chemical* pesticides. The declaration, formalised on 23 February at the Paris International Agricultural Show, with support of the french Mnistries in charge of Agriculture and Research, in presence of Amelie de Montchalin, The French State Secretary of EU Affairs, establishes a European research alliance, aiming to build a scientific roadmap that will soon be presented to the European Commission, as a contribution to the European Green Deal.

23 February 2020

Agroecology

Montpellier Declaration: “Make Our Planet Treed Again”

PRESS RELEASE - Over a thousand experts from a hundred countries meeting in Montpellier, France, for the 4th World Congress on Agroforestry called for a ‘transformative change’ to tackle the disastrous impacts on our planet of the global food system*. Agroforestry, they agreed, was crucial to that effort. The event was organized by CIRAD and INRA, in partnership with World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Agropolis International and Montpellier University of Excellence.

26 December 2019