DFG statement on real-world laboratories

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has published a statement by the Standing Senate Commission on the Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems (SKAE): ‘Real-world laboratories in agricultural, food and nutrition research: how they can be designed’. In it, the Commission outlines key conditions for the success of real-world laboratories and formulates recommendations on how this form of research and collaboration can be supported more effectively in future. Professor Dr Jana Rückert-John from the department of Nutritional Sciences played a key role in drafting the paper. She is the deputy spokesperson for the SKAE.

Real-world laboratories: research with placement partners under real-world conditions

Real-world laboratories are an approach in which stakeholders from research, the professional sector, politics, business, administration and civil society collaborate in an experimental setting. A key feature is co-design: research questions, methodologies and objectives are developed jointly. Real-world laboratories thus enable insights that are not only academically robust but also suitable for everyday use and feasible to implement.

Real-world laboratories are becoming increasingly important in agricultural, food and nutrition systems, for example in relation to the integration and marketing of legumes (pulses) or in the design of sustainable and health-promoting food environments in nurseries, schools or hospitals, for instance with regard to acceptance, cost-benefit considerations and prevention potential.

SKAE recommendations: long-term, recognised, jointly supported

• The statement outlines the central challenges facing real-world laboratories: differing interests and resources among the stakeholders involved, legal and administrative hurdles, and the significant effort required for coordination, communication and building trust. Based on this, the committee derives the following recommendations, amongst others:
  Long-term funding prospects: Real-world laboratories should be supported with a time horizon of at least ten years in order to establish robust structures and sustainable cooperations.
• New incentive and recognition systems: The work required in real-world laboratories (coordination, knowledge transfer, joint development) should be given greater weight in academic assessment and career pathways.
• Society-wide responsibility for funding: Real-world laboratories should not be funded primarily through traditional, project-based research funding structures, but rather as a joint task involving the scientific community, politics, business and society.
• Integration with foundational research and field trials: Real-world laboratories can bridge the gap between foundational research and practice; at the same time, traditional field trials should continue to be taken into account. The methodological challenge lies in combining scientific research with the open, exploratory nature of real-world experiments.

Professor Rückert-John emphasises:

“Short-term project durations and the usual academic incentive systems are proving to be ill-suited to real-world laboratories.” 
The aim of the recommendations is to further develop real-world laboratories as a central component of integrated systems research and to strengthen their impact on the transformation of agricultural and food systems.

Link to the statement

Background: DFG Senate Commission SKAE

The Standing Senate Commission on the Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems (SKAE) was established by the DFG Senate on 1 January 2024. It provides advisory services to target groups from politics, academia and society on developments in the context of the transformation of agricultural and food systems. The committee currently comprises 18 researchers from various disciplines, as well as permanent guests from research institutions.