Dr Katrin Prager

Biography

University of Aberdeen, Reader (Associate Professor) and Programme Director for Master of Land Economy (2017-), Senior Lecturer (2017-2022)

James Hutton Institute (formerly Macaulay Land Use Research Institute), Senior Social Scientist in Landscape Governance (2009-2018) and interim Head of Social Economic and Geographical Sciences (2016-2017)

Humboldt University, Scientific Project Coordinator SoCo (Soil Conservation and Sustainable Agriculture) (2007-2009)

University of Tasmania (Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture), postdoc (2006-2007)

Humboldt University Berlin, PhD Agri-environmental policy making (2003-2006) 

Technical University Berlin, MSc Landscape Planning and Environmental Management 

APPOINTMENTS

The Journal of Agricultural Extension and Education - Guest Editor for Special Issue on "Co-Design and transdisciplinary approaches towards sustainability innovations in agriculture" 2024/25

Editorial Board Member for Scottish Geographical Journal (2018-)

Associate Editor for the Socio-Economic Development section in Land Degradation & Development (2018-2019), editorial board (2013-)

Research Overview

• institutions and governance in landscape and environmental management
• community engagement in natural resource management and rural development
• participatory processes in agri-environmental policy making and implementation
• social-ecological systems and resilience
• land manager attitudes and behaviour
• adoption of soil and water conservation practices
• farm advisory services
• citizen science and knowledge exchange
• inter- and transdisciplinary research

Current Research

VISIONARY - Food Provision through Sustainable Farming Systems and Value Chains (EU Horizon Europe). Overall scientific lead (coordinator role passed on to Polytechnic University of Valencia due to unresolved Associate Country status of the UK after Brexit), Workpackage lead. September 2022-August 2026.

FARM TREE - Balancing farm and landscape-scale demands for integrating trees on agricultural land (UKRI Treescapes Programme). Key output: FARM TREE Info Tool - a tool to explore existing tree planting on farms in Scotland. This is a searchable map linked to a database of farms with tree integration including planting objectives, species, planting designs, benefits, challenges, and grant funding.

Recently completed:

CONTRACTS2.0 - Co-design of novel contract models for innovative agri-environmental-climate measures and for valorisation of environmental public goods (EU Horizon2020). I led WP1 and was responsible for the case study in England. We focussed on results-based contracts and collaborative approaches to achieve landscape scale outcomes (May 2019-April 2023)

AgriLink (funded by the European Commission, Horizon2020) - The project investigated the role of farm advisors and other advisory service providers in enhancing learning and innovation for a transition towards more sustainable agriculture (2017-2021)

Knowledge Exchange

Some of my work is captured in my blogs:

• Combining collective agri-environmental contracts with a payments-by-results approach
• Do we need diversity science?
• Effectively integrating online participants in onsite meetings
• Policy interventions for enhancing natural assets – are they compatible with crofting communities?
• A co-creation challenge: aligning research and policy processes
• Is co-creation more than participation?
• Can mapping mental models improve research implementation?
• How to evaluate organisations?
• Children as Researchers
• An inventory of agricultural advisory services
• Measuring interdisciplinarity

Collaborations

• Invited expert in a project by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Argentina's Agricultural Research and Development Organization (Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, INTA) on transformation in agricultural extension (Nov 2018)
• collaboration with researchers from UK, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Uruguay: The development of co-creative capacity for addressing socio-environmental problems (2016-2018). Funded by SESYNC (Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, USA), lead: Allison Metz (National Implementation Research Network, North Carolina)

Teaching Responsibilities

I teach Level 1, 3 and 4 undergraduate courses and several Level 5 (Masters) courses.

My Globalisation lecture is on globalisation of food production and consumption, and my Geographical Issues contribution is on alternative food networks.

For the Master of Land Economy (MLE) I coordinate several courses in the first and second half session. As part of GG5071 I teach a module on 'Teamwork and team management'.

I also supervise both Undergraduate and Masters dissertations.

Master dissertations supervised:

• Callum Gammie Plastic alternatives in agriculture and factors influencing farmer adoption of these alternatives (2023)
• Rosemary Glass Agricultural tenancies in the North-East of Scotland: time for reform? (2023)
• Christopher Kennedy  The barriers of woodland creation in Scotland. A review of the Forestry Grant Scheme and tree planting on tenanted land (2022)
• Hector Inglis  The impact of the 2016 Land Reform (Scotland) Act on the relationship between landlords and tenants in agriculture (2022)  
• Kirsten Reid  Regenerative agriculture: an exploration of farmers perceptions in North East Aberdeenshire  (2022)
• Iain Paterson  Determining the willingness to pay for farmland bird conservation in Scotland (2021)
• Kimberly Briscoe A Natural Capital approach to valuing biodiversity: Determining an economic valuation method for wetland farm birds in the Cairngorms National Park (2021) 
• Ross MacKay  Upland footpaths as a public good. Understanding land manager behaviour (2020)
• Aimee Mitchell  The future of Scottish agricultural tenancies: A progressing tenant farmer perspective (2020)
• Hamish Payne  An assessment of the impacts of Scottish and German rural planning legislation, laws and decision-making processes on the environment and biodiversity (2020)
• Karen Ross  The perceptions of Joint Farming Ventures amongst aspiring and recent new entrants in Scottish Agriculture (2019)
• Rebecca Adair  A study of key actors’ opinions to a trial reintroduction of the Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx) to Scotland (2019)
• John Kennedy  The Future of Crofting? A study of the Purpose, Perceptions and Predictions for Crofting and its Legislation (2019)
• Heledd Rheinallt  Determining willingness to pay for the reintroduction of the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) to Scotland (2018)
• Kate Michie  A study of Perthshire land managers attitudes towards the conversion of upland farmland to forestry (2018)
• Eilidh Manson  Identifying the barriers during conversion from conventional to organic dairy farming systems in Scotland (2018)

Please email me if you are interested in the full dissertation.