Spanish professor visits Harper under the Erasmus programme

Posted 7 March 2017

Professor Irene Guerrero from the INEA-Agricultural Engineering School in Valladolid, Spain, has visited Harper Adams University under the Erasmus programme.

Professor Guerrero came to Harper Adams to learn about the research projects being undertaken and the facilities available.

She said: “I wanted to come to Harper Adams as it’s one of the best agricultural schools in Europe. It’s a very good university.

“I’ve been talking to Dr Tom Pope about integrated pest management and Dr Simon Jeffery about functional diversity and soils.

“I’ve also been learning about PhD researcher Claire Blower’s project into multifunctional field margins for the delivery of ecosystem services. I think it’s a beautiful study and very interesting.”

Principal lecturer Dr Nicola Randall, who has accompanied Irene throughout her visit, said: “Irene is particularly interested in agricultural ecology, which is my specialist area, but also in the work we’re doing in the Centre for Evidence-Based Agriculture.

“The Erasmus programme provides a brilliant opportunity for us to collaborate and make links with academics in other countries and throw some ideas around together.

“Meeting Irene has been great, and we’ve found some unexpected links in the time we’ve spent together – such as working with the same people on big projects, and thinking of some potential research collaboration ideas.

“We’ve also been talking about the possibility of arranging student field trips to Spain as the natural landscape and biodiversity is very different there.

“While here, Irene has been into an MSc Agroecology lecture to see the differences between our teaching methods, and also catching-up with two students who are currently studying here under the Erasmus programme.”