On March 31, 2026, Dr. Thierry Caquet, Vice President for International Policy, French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), and Dr. NISHIDA Tomoko, Vice President for international affairs, NARO signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) designating the 2026 priority topics of the Joint Linkage Call (JLC)—a mutual researcher exchange programme between two organizations—as "Gastronomy" and "Soil Science."
LOI also confirmed further commitment to collaboration in these areas and efforts to find new research areas in the future.
After the signing ceremony, both vice presidents attended the 11th Meeting of the Japan-France Joint Committee on Cooperation in Science and Technology, held in Tokyo among senior business leaders from Japan and France, where we delivered a presentation on the cooperative relationship between two organizations including research cooperation in the agricultural field.
INRAE is the largest and world-class agricultural research institute in Europe.
NARO began full-scale cooperation in 2018 following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2016.
It is expected that further strengthening research networking with INRAE will generate research outcomes that contribute to the achievement of NARO's mission in the fields of agriculture, food, and environment, as well as to the resolution of global challenges.
