Governance
ARVALIS is an association created and directed by professionals in the straw cereal, potato, fiber flax, corn seed, sorghum and tobacco industries and recognized by the public authorities.
Anne-Claire Vial:
"We want an institute driven by the services provided to producers and their organizations, providing operational answers to the questions asked by farmers and their sectors. We want an institute whose technical activities are aimed at the multi-criteria performance of farms and sectors.”
The ARVALIS Board of Directors is, along with the General Assembly, the Institute's sole deliberative body. It makes major decisions concerning the orientation and evaluation of the actions carried out (program of activities, corporate project, etc.) by ARVALIS teams (organization chart) and the resources required for their implementation.
Representatives of ARVALIS member professional organizations sit on the Board of Directors. These members are divided into two colleges:
- The first college includes unions, interprofessions, and agricultural cooperatives.
- The second college is made up of organizations concerned by the Institute's work and wishing to be involved in its decisions.
The board elects an executive committee each year. It is composed as follows.
- President: Anne-Claire Vial
- Vice-presidents: Eric Thirouin and Daniel Peyraube
- General Secretary: François Jacques
- Treasurer: Philippe Heusele
- Members: Jérôme Calleau, Didier Jeannet and Pierre Pages
- Alternate members: Didier Lombart, Pascal Prevost, and Jean-Marc Schwartz
The Ministry of Agriculture and the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) of the association have representatives on the Board.
The Scientific Council
The Board is informed in its decisions by the Scientific Council, which has three independent missions:
- to review the ARVALIS program of activities to assess the relevance of scientific and methodological approaches
- to evaluate a posteriori some of the institute’s thematic areas from a scientific and technical perspective
- to make forward-looking recommendations on the major issues of tomorrow.
The Scientific Council is composed of forty members divided into four colleges: socio-economic actors (farmers, ministries, civil society, etc.), public research and higher education, private and professional "upstream" research (agri-supply; ITA "field crops"), private and professional "downstream" research (cooperatives, collection organizations, food processing industries, marketers, ITA "animals", ITAI/ACTIA).
The Scientific Council is chaired by a member of the "Research and Higher Education" college, the current chairman is Professor Bernard Bodson.