Special Session 8

SPECIAL SESSION #8

Gianluca Brunori

University of Pisa, Italy

• gianluca.brunori@unipi.it

Manlio Bacco

European Commission - JRC

• manlio.bacco@ec.europa.eu

Alessio Ferrari

University College Dublin

• alessio.ferrari@ucd.ie

Alexander Kocian

University of Pisa, Italy

• alexander.kocian@unipi.it

Chiara Mannari

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)

• chiara.mannari@isti.cnr.it

Jörg Dörr

Fraunhofer IESE and RPTU Kaiserslautern

• Joerg.Doerr@iese.fraunhofer.de

Digital technologies, including sensor networks, drones, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics technologies, play an increasingly important role in agrifood systems. Their potential to disrupt systems and drive innovative developments can turn technology into a game changer. However, disruption brings not only upsides but also downsides. Some actors will benefit from the disruption (winners), while it is detrimental to others (losers). Moreover, the degree of adoption in applied contexts is heavily influenced by policy, social, economic, and environmental-related drivers and barriers that must be considered. Improving the capacity to analyse the practitioners’ needs and anticipate the impact of a technology, once adopted in specific contexts, is key to improving performance, market success, and impact on society. This session focuses on how to embody a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach into technology design, the system requirements definition, and innovation policies. The basic assumption is that the participation of a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., in the form of Living Labs) in the design, development, and use of digital technologies in agricultural settings will increase their acceptance and adoption, and will therefore boost the 'twin transition' (ecological and digital). This special session also explores the transformative potential of AI in agriculture, emphasizing collaborative intelligence—where human expertise and AI systems work synergistically to enhance productivity, sustainability, and decision-making. Ultimately, the session provides a forum for discussions on disrupting agricultural technologies, their applications, and their impact across contexts.

Contributions are expected to deal with, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Co-creation and co-design of digital systems for agriculture tailored to the context;
• Requirements engineering and digital design techniques tailored to agrifood systems;
• Developments to improve social, economic, and environmental impacts of agriculture through digital technologies;
• Data, platforms, and tools for sustainable agriculture for farmers, advisors, and other stakeholders;
• Technological pathways for the agroecological transition;
• Collaboration between human stakeholders and artificial intelligence technologies for agrifood systems.

Gianluca Brunori, is Full Professor at the University of Pisa, where he teaches Food Policy and Bioeconomy. As a researcher, he has accumulated 30 years of experience in the fields of Agricultural Economics, Rural Sociology and Food Policy, participating to several European Projects, in three of them (TRUC,
GLAMUR, and DESIRA, CODECS) as scientific coordinator. The research group he leads and leads - Pisa Agricultural Economics (PAGE) - works on small farmers’
individual and collective strategies, on the socio-economic impact of food supply chains, on the link between collective initiatives and rural development, on support policies for small farming and rural development at local and regional level, on urban-rural relationships. He has been President of the Research Committee “Sociology of Agriculture and Food” (RC-40) of the International Sociology Association, and vice-president of the European Society of Rural Sociology.
He has been Chief Editor of the journal “Rivista di Economia Agraria” and is editor in chief of the journal Agriculture and Food Economics. He has served as a member – and in two years as a chair - of the expert panel of EU SCAR (Standing Committee for Agricultural Research) 2nd, 3 rd , 4th and 5 th foresight exercise. He is also chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Joint Programming Initiative “Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change” (FACCE).

Manlio Bacco, was awarded a PhD in Information Engineering and Science from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2016. He works as a Scientific Project Officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, since October 2023. He has been associated with the Institute of Science and Information Technologies (ISTI), National Research Council (CNR), Pisa, Italy, since 2012. His research interests include data spaces, digital twins, and the development of methodologies and technologies for using digital technologies in agriculture, forestry, and rural areas. He has been local PI of the EU DESIRA and CODECS projects on sustainability in agriculture.

Alessio Ferrari, is lecturer at University College Dublin (UCD) and a senior research scientist at CNR-ISTI (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dell'Informazione "A. Faedo", Pisa, Italy, currently on a career break). His primary research interests are: applications of natural language processing (NLP) techniques to requirements engineering (RE); user and customer interviews in RE; RE education and training; empirical formal methods and empirical software engineering. He is part of the EU DESIRA and CODECS projects on sustainability in agriculture. He is the author of over 100 papers in conferences and journals, including ICSE, IEEE RE, IEEE TSE, and REJ. He regularly serves in the PC of ICSE, IEEE RE, REFSQ, AIRE, is one of the founders of the NLP4RE workshop series, has been the Local Organiser of REFSQ 2020, Program Chair of REFSQ 2023 and Program Chair of IEEE RE 2025.

Alexander Kocian, received the Ph.D. degree in Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2003. Doctoral dissertation: "EM based joint data detection and channel estimation of DS/CDMA signals" (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Bernard H. Fleury).
He is currently Assistant Professor with the Department of Computer Science, University of Pisa, Italy, working on numerous projects funded by the Tuscany and Liguria Regions in Italy, the European Space agency, and the Italian National Research Council. He has co-authored dozens peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and he has been member of numerous program committees of international conferences.
Dr. Kocian received the EAI Fellow Award in 2022. He is currently Steering Committee Member of the EAI INTSYS conference. He also serves as member of Editorial Board for Stats (MDPI), Signals (MDPI) and Artificial Intelligence and Applications (Bon View Publishing).

Chiara Mannari, is a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Pisa, where her research focuses on end-user programming, model-based software engineering, and requirements engineering for sustainable digitalisation in agriculture. Her work explores how AI and human-centric software design can empower stakeholders in agriculture, bridging the gap between technology and end-user needs.
As part of the CODECS project on sustainable agriculture, she investigates participatory approaches to digital innovation, ensuring solutions align with ecological, social, and economic sustainability goals. Her interdisciplinary approach combines AI, software engineering, and agroecology to foster responsible and inclusive technological transitions in farming systems.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Dörr, holds the chair of "Digital Farming" at RPTU in Kaiserslautern. Furthermore, he has been a member of the extended institute management of Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern since 2020. In this position, he is responsible for the research programs of the institute and has been leading the Smart Farming program at the institute since 2020. His work at the RPTU as well as at Fraunhofer IESE focuses on software and systems engineering, especially for applications in digital farming. Jörg Dörr has extensive knowledge in the areas of software and systems engineering, requirements engineering, and data usage control. He is active in diverse industries, with a focus on smart farming. He is the author of more than 150 academic and industry-related publications. Since 2006, he has been active as a lecturer on topics including requirements engineering and agile methods, and since 2021 also on digital farming at universities. Jörg Dörr is active in the GI (Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.), was spokesman of the requirements engineering group for several years, and is a founding member of the GI Kaiserslautern regional group. Furthermore, he is a member of the BMEL's Competence Network Digitalization in Agriculture, a member of the Start-up Expert Advisory Board of the Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank, scientific spokesperson of the Competence Network Digital Agriculture Bavaria, technical leader of the Requirements Engineering Community Days of the Softwareforen, and active in various national and international program committees.