PollinERA partners to chair simulation track at FOODOPS 2026: Call for papers is currently open
PollinERA coordinator, Christopher John Topping, and project partners Johan Axelman and James Henty Williams from Aarhus University will chair an open track titled “Simulation for the Agricultural Environment” at the International Food Operations and Processing Simulation Workshop (FOODOPS 2026), which will take place in Genoa, Italy, from 21 to 23 September 2026.
This track invites contributions that employ simulation approaches to understand, predict, and manage agriculture–environment interactions. Agricultural production systems operate within complex social-ecological landscapes, where management decisions influence food production, biodiversity, ecosystem services and environmental quality. The track, therefore, invites contributions that use simulation to explore agriculture–environment interactions, including environmental risk assessment for agrochemicals and emerging technologies, biodiversity dynamics in agricultural landscapes, regenerative farming systems, pollutant fate and transport in agroecosystems, and decision-support tools for evidence-based agricultural policy.
A particular emphasis is placed on systems-oriented approaches that move beyond single-stressor or single-endpoint assessments and instead capture feedback between agricultural practices and environmental outcomes. Methodological approaches may include agent-based models, landscape simulation, population dynamics, ecosystem network models and data-driven methods such as machine learning, particularly when integrated with mechanistic process understanding. The track aims to bring together researchers advancing simulation science to support sustainable agricultural systems.
Accepted papers will be published in Elsevier Procedia Computer Science, available open access on ScienceDirect and indexed in Scopus, providing visibility for contributing researchers. The track is currently accepting paper submissions, and researchers interested in contributing are invited to submit their work by 15 April 2026, selecting “Simulation for the Agricultural Environment” as the main topic during submission.