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CV

INRAe senior researcher
Agronomical Engineer, AgroParisTech, Paris 1986
Doctor in Biology, Bordeaux 1989
Habilitation, Bordeaux 1998

https://cv.archives-ouvertes.fr/olivier-le-gall

• Plant virologist (1986-2006) :

As a graduate student, as a post-doc (Univ. Wageningen, NL) and as a researcher (INRA Bordeaux, France), I studied the diversity of plant viruses (genomics, phylogeny, systematics) and of their biology, especially in situations of “non-host” resistance, where host factors involved in the virus cycle are absent or unavailable for the virus. From 1999 to 2006, I have been the principal investigator of a team of around 20 on plant-virus interactions.

• Head of division at INRA (2006-2012) :

As the head of the INRA division “Plant Health and the Environment” (around 1000 persons in about 40 research units nationwide), I stimulated ecology as a disciplinary background to develop agro-ecological crop protection approaches, and interfaces between biology and ecology. I also coordinated the reorganization of INRA researches on bees and pollination. I prepared the strategic plan of the division for the coming 5 years. Beyond the division, I set up a trans-disciplinary research program for sustainable management of crop health, further enlarging the disciplinary approach to general agronomy and to social sciences. In this period, I was also a member of the scientific advisory board of several institutions.

• Deputy CEO of INRA (2013-2017) :

As the deputy CEO of INRA in charge of scientific affairs, my duty was to coordinate and program the research, the skills’ portfolio, the infrastructures and the partnerships of the institute (around 8000 persons in about 100 locations nationwide). INRA, later merged into INRAe (https://www.inrae.fr/en), was in charge of producing and sharing knowledge necessary for our food systems to tackle multiple global transitions: demography, environment, climate, digital, etc. I elaborated the strategy of INRA for the coming 10 years, #Inra2025, the first of its kind in France to include a full chapter dedicated to the operational development of Open Science.

• Chair of the French Advisory Board for Research Integrity (since 2017) :

INRAe had been one of the first French institutions to adopt the national charter for research integrity, in January 2015. The French Office for Research Integrity (OFIS; https://www.ofis-france.fr) was created in 2017 to stimulate the sharing of a culture of research integrity in the French research and higher education ecosystem, by ensuring missions of observatory, provision of resources, animation and foresight. I was asked to steward the setup of OFIS and I am now chairing its advisory board.