A winter school in landscape agronomy and the synergies it created

We present the experience of the second Winter School in Landscape Agronomy (WSLA) for PhD students in agronomy developed by a French‐Italian team of researchers with various backgrounds but all working in an agronomical context which requires a landscape scale vision and concerns agro‐environmental and territorial issues. The lack of a common language became evident and all researchers recognised that contributions from different disciplines (agronomy, geography, landscape ecology, land management, etc.) could contribute to the development of an appropriate research methodology for the specific research questions. Hence a common conceptual framework was developed and a concepts and tools "glossary" was defined. The efficacy of the framework and glossary to help communication in Landscape Agronomy issues was tested through 1) application of the framework in the development of the WSLA and 2) by looking at the capacity of the framework and the glossary i) to guide the students through the concepts of Landscape Agronomy and ii) to help them in defining questions regarding the case study. In this paper we present some scientific and educational issues that are involved in the WSLA; we present the conceptual framework developed for the WS, and we show its place in the educational programme. We elucidate the innovative aspects added to the educational curricula of the students that participated and highlight the created synergies. For teachers, this new approach helped to better structure the WSLA programme; for the students, it made it easier to position new knowledge and to give structure to the case study work.