📅 Empowering students for climate-resilient agriculture
📍 Neustadt, Germany — 23–26 June 2025

Twenty-two Master’s and PhD students from Europe and beyond met in Neustadt and online to tackle real-world adaptation challenges for perennial crops, with a special focus on viticulture and apple culture.

🏞️ About the Summer School

From 23–26 June 2025, the NEWCLIM (Erasmus+) Summer School took place in Neustadt, Germany. Students joined an intensive, challenge-based learning programme that combined field visits, stakeholder engagement, interdisciplinary teamwork and creative communication outputs.

✏️ Why this Summer School?

NEWCLIM’s Summer Schools put students into the “Investigate” and “Act” phases of Challenge-Based Learning (CBL), helping them design practical, stakeholder-informed solutions for climate adaptation in perennial cropping systems.

The Neustadt edition emphasised hands-on learning in vineyards and orchards and explored practical pathways for sustainable viticulture.

🎯 Core objectives

• Develop applied skills in climate-resilient crop management and adaptation planning
• Practice stakeholder engagement and science communication
• Produce tangible solutions and communication outputs (podcasts, videos, briefs)
• Build an international network of early-career researchers and practitioners

🔍 Challenge topics tackled by student teams

Working in interdisciplinary groups, students investigated and proposed solutions on the following key challenges:

• To implement sustainable strategies to address abiotic risks caused by climate change
• To mitigate biotic risks related to climate change while aligning with the EU Green Deal’s objectives
• To introduce new varieties (fungus resistant varieties) as a climate change adaptation strategy to crafters, growers, consumers, trade
• To manage the growing financial risks associated with climate change

Teams presented their work in innovative formats — from short podcasts to role playing as well as classic presentations — combining scientific rigour with accessible communication for stakeholders.

🌿 Activities & highlights

• Field visits: Guided visits to local vineyards and orchards to observe climate impacts and adaptation measures first-hand
• Interdisciplinary teamwork: Teams researched, prototyped and presented solutions using the CBL method
• Stakeholder engagement: Public panel and stakeholder sessions — including policymakers such as MEP Christine Schneider — to discuss pathways for sustainable viticulture
• Creative deliverables: Podcasts, short videos, policy briefs and slide briefs aimed at farmers, advisors and policymakers

🗣️ Public engagement

The Summer School included a public panel discussion that brought together researchers, producers and policymakers to discuss how to scale climate-smart practices in perennial crops. The event emphasised the role of policy support and stakeholder collaboration in accelerating sustainable viticulture.

🤝 Partners & project

The Summer School is part of the NEWCLIM Erasmus+ project (2023–2026) — an international collaboration to develop open-access teaching resources and an online platform for climate-resilient perennial crop management.

Project partners include:

• Institut Agro (France)
• Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences – SLU (Sweden)
• University of Chile (Chile)
• Wine Campus Neustadt (Germany)

🚀 Outputs & next steps

Student teams produced multimedia outputs and short policy briefs that will be shared through the NEWCLIM platform and the project’s online community.

The Summer School feeds into the project’s teaching resource library and prepares teams for follow-up activities in the NEWCLIM CBL trajectory.