Tell us something about yourself... what is your background and role in the organization you are working for?
I have a scientific background with the added value of a Master’s degree in Scientific Information Management. For the last 7 years, I have been working for INRA on different missions. INRA is the French national research institute in the field of agriculture, environment and food but also the second largest research institute in these fields in the world for the number of its publications. I was hired by INRA in 2004 for my expertise in information systems. But in 2006, I joined the scientific information division to work on the INRA Open Archive: ProdInra.
For the last two years, I have been responsible for the INRA open access policy and the Open Archive. I have been managing a team of 7 people and being involved in 2 European Projects related to Agricultural Information Management. I have orientated my missions toward international networks and collaborations as research & open access remove geographical barriers.

How did you get in contact with AIMS?
FAO is a relevant partner for me. I have discovered similar interests with FAO people such as sharing information and ICTs. They made me know this website. As I was interested in getting selective information about technologies, standards and tools, I started to be a regular AIMS portal’s reader! As soon as the AIMS_Community twitter account was created, I subscribed to it. It would be great to access the AIMS news through RSS as well.

What is your opinion on AIMS?
As far as I know, there is no other portal that provides information about standards & tools in the field of agriculture. AIMS content is provided by the FAO’s Office of Knowledge, Exchange, Research and Extension team. It is for me a guarantee of quality. I like reading the newsletters and the tweets for receiving news. More feedback about projects and experiments from partners involved in this community in the public part of the portal would add more value. It would also highlight some interesting ideas, experiments or projects.

According to you, what is the most important benefit that AIMS provides to the agricultural information management community?
It offers a portal for information specialists in the field of agriculture to be up to date on technologies, tools and standards. It offers also a “virtual meeting room” for this community that allows discussions on different topics: Metadata Standards, Open Access (are my favorites)…

How do you think that information management standards can contribute to agricultural research for development?
The keyword is interoperability. Using standards is the better way to maximize interoperability between data providers and service providers in the agricultural area. AIMS promotes standards and the linked data; I agree with this approach that helps building a virtual infrastructure for sharing agricultural research information.
The information provided can then contribute to increase knowledge for southern countries. It helps highlighting interesting experiments and methods for the benefice of food safety, sustainable agriculture and rural development.
Our community is not just “playing” with standards, it is really the first step for building and contributing to a global infrastructure for the benefit of end users.