The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) was created in 2010 to understand how agriculture and food security are vulnerable to current shocks as well as how agricultural systems will respond to climate change and other socioeconomic drivers in the years ahead. These challenges defy analysis at a single scale, within a single discipline, or by only a single model. AgMIP therefore connects experts, models, scales, scenarios, computational systems, and analysis methods to enable integrated assessment and decision support tool development empowered by a collaborative community working to be greater than the sum of its parts.

AgMIP is devoted to improving resilience and societal outcomes by providing state-of-the-art scientific findings that inform stakeholder decisions. To date, AgMIP research has emphasized the development of new, cutting-edge models, tools, and methods; substantially advancing our understanding of model strengths, weaknesses, and uncertainty while also developing new approaches for data integration and transdisciplinary modeling frameworks. Emphasis now turns toward the application of these tools and frameworks to address one of the biggest challenges of our day: leading a sustainable agriculture transformation and ensuring that the agriculture sector and food security are resilient to climate change.

AgMIP’s 7th Global Workshop will be held Tuesday-Thursday, April 24-26, 2018 at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in San Jose, Costa Rica. The IICA partnership and venue provide an excellent opportunity for synergistic exchange on agricultural systems and outcomes. IICA endeavors to provide support to all the countries of the hemisphere to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the agricultural sector; strengthen agriculture’s contribution to the development of rural areas and the well-being of the rural population; improve agriculture’s capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change and make better use of natural resources; and improve agriculture’s contribution to food security. The overlaps in mission and vision, and the beauty of the surrounding region make IICA an ideal venue for the convening.

The program offers an exciting mix of innovative research results as well as work sessions to organize agricultural modeling research and applications that address key challenges articulated by agricultural decision-makers. There are opportunities for groups to organize and/or join in Side Sessions on Monday, April 23 and Friday, April 27.

Workshop Goals:

1. Demonstrate how AgMIP can help address major global and national challenges including the Sustainable Development Goals and climate change mitigation and adaptation planning
2. Convene the agricultural modeling community and share AgMIP vision, latest findings, activities, and focus areas
3. Identify opportunities for major stakeholder-driven efforts related to Next Generation Tools, Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments, and Sustainable Farming Systems
4. Bolster AgMIP Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean
5. Plan AgMIP activities and outputs for the years ahead

These goals are accomplished through three major workshop elements:

1. Engagement with the Community – Presentations of priority stakeholder needs, current state-of-the-art science, cutting-edge research topics, and applied assessments by participants around the world will make the 7th AgMIP Global Workshop a prime destination for top researchers in the field to share their work and learn from others. The workshop also provides a unique opportunity for policymakers and stakeholders to engage directly with leading international experts. This will ensure that AgMIP continues to be driven by the findings and application experiences of its expert community.
2. Development of Core AgMIP Themes – in 2015, AgMIP committed to advance research to enable outcomes in three overlapping areas or pillars. These include:
   
   Sustainable Farming Systems Modeling – Key messages from linked multi-model methods assess the impact of agricultural and policy interventions to meet resilience, adaptation, and mitigation targets of communities, districts, and nations. Presentation and work sessions will allow for comparison with other approaches, and consideration of supply chains or value chains that also need to evolve if productivity gains are to translate to improved livelihoods of farmers. 
   
   Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments – Advances in multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-model linkages to address current and future challenges will be presented, with a particular focus on connecting biophysical and socioeconomic information to food security and nutrition metrics that are critical to future planning. Work sessions will provide the opportunity to contribute to improved assessment protocols, prioritize current challenges and future scenarios to address, and collaborate in implementation planning to ensure timely impact by the community of researchers.
   
   Next Generation Data, Models, Tools and Knowledge – Topics to be covered will include data discovery, harmonization, and use; big data; machine learning; model improvement; and online tools to improve decision support and accessibility to research results. Work sessions will advance coherence in approach and the transfer of best practices, to enable better access to existing data and tools, as well as prioritization of next developments.
3. Planning the next phase of Research and Regional Applications – Groups will convene to prioritize and organize the next phase of research, including further contributions to each of the Core Themes above to ensure that theoretical advances are making their way into applications that improve the information base for stakeholder decisions.

Benefits of participation for various attendee personas

	•	Funders: Propose research agenda that addresses challenges and topics of interest; hear from leading scientists about where substantial advances and decision support is possible; inform the types of scenarios that will be of greatest interest for future climate and sustainability assessments; support continued research into accurate, multi-model, multi-scale, multi-disciplinary information in support of a wide number of applications.
	•	Stakeholders: Interact with world experts in agricultural models; learn how model evidence helps guide applications to specific challenges faced in agrarian communities world wide; help shape future AgMIP research priorities; identify leading partners and methods who can inform decision-making processes in your region; better understand the strengths and limitations of agricultural models; help shape scenarios of future agricultural systems.
	•	Steering Council Members: Guide the AgMIP leaders in setting the agenda for future activities that connect research and applications with stakeholder needs.
	•	AgMIP Research and Region Activity Leaders: Share major results with the broader community; convene participating researchers (and prospective participants) to set research activity agenda for coming year(s); help shape major themes and solidify roles in climate and sustainability assessments.
	•	Senior researchers: Disseminate research findings; join in the planning and execution of AgMIP activities and major assessments where a contribution can be made; propose new initiatives; and establish new partnerships and collaborations.
	•	Graduate Students: Share your research findings with a large and interested community, learn about cutting edge studies and broader context for applied agricultural modeling; potentially link up with new collaborators and broader related efforts; explore options for continued study and work beyond graduation.

Side sessions will take place on the day before (April 23rd) and the day after (April 28th) AgMIP7. These side events will comprise of workshops, training sessions, round tables, and general discussions that have been organized by the side event leaders. If you wish to organize a side session, please contact The AgMIP Organizing Committee