Based on the make-up of the scientific community in Montpellier, the main aim was to bring higher education and research closer together, by encouraging researchers to take part in teaching courses that were part of existing curricula, according to their specialties, positioning their work in a general plant improvement perspective. The aim was to put researchers in a position to transmit their most recent results from this perspective, with the required distance and appropriate pedagogy. It also involved mobilizing current or potential partnerships to assert the essence of the current challenge, with all its global dimensions, and to assume an international ambition, while respecting the mandates of the Montpellier partner establishments.

The project mobilized eight Montpellier research units, including AGAP, which delegated researchers and teachers to form a multi-institutional Management Team.It also involved higher education partners in Senegal and Vietnam.We took the time to discuss the project with curriculum managers from Montpellier (UM and MSupAgro), Senegal (UCAD and ENSA-Thiès) and Vietnam (USTH), as well as with researchers from the Labex units.
A total of 13 teaching modules have been integrated into master's courses (M1 or M2) at UM or MSupAgro, or have taken the form of doctoral modules/thematic schools. Varying in scope, representing between 3 and 40 hours, some of them were conducted four times between 2016 and 2020. Around a hundred of the researchers who led or contributed to these modules benefited from training in pedagogical techniques by the consultant recruited by the project, Agnès Seye. The researchers were thus able to renew their teaching practices during the modules, and the project produced 9 pedagogical videos. Finally, support for Master's level students enabled 11 foreign students (4 from Vietnam and 7 from Senegal) to benefit from 2-year Master's scholarships in Montpellier, and 10 French students to do their Master 1 internships abroad.

In addition to its specific objectives, the project has set up a collective governance structure and a consortium agreement between the partner establishments, providing a framework for the production and capitalization of products in terms of intellectual property.
Reflexivity has been a regular feature of the project, with satisfaction surveys and several episodes of collective consultation, testimonials and forward-looking reflection.An end-of-project workshop provided an opportunity to gather feedback, celebrate successes, analyze criticisms and synthesize ideas in terms of perspectives.Many lessons, both positive and negative, were learned and will be applied to future initiatives.

A description of CultiVar's activities and products can still be found at https://www.cultivar-flagship.net/fr/le-projet-cultivar.

A number of specific dynamics induced or reinforced by CutiVar have continued in various forms.
Firstly, certain courses have found a place in Montpellier university curricula.
Thus, ten modules have been formalized with joint responsibility between course leaders and researchers, six of whom (at the end of the list) are AGAP Institut researchers:

• Basics of ecophysiology (T. Simonneau),
• Ecophysiology, from phenotype to ideotype (T. Simonneau),
• Integrated approach to plant improvement: case study (L. Laplaze),
• Integrated plant improvement project: phenotypes, models and ideotypes (M. Lucas),
• 15 challenges in plant breeding (JC Glaszmann),
• Tools for plant improvement (JC Glaszmann),
• Tropical and Mediterranean plant breeding (F. Curk),
• Plants and people, a shared history (C. Leclerc),
• Adaptation of tropical field crops to climate change (E. Jaligot)
• BigOmics, comparative genomics (S. Sidibe-Bocs).

Some modules that had gained a strong reputation as international research schools have been put on hold due to the availability of sponsors, but remain areas of potential investment by the teams:

• Analysing and modelling phenotypes for challenging environments, F Tardieu and D Luquet ;

• Genome editing in agriculture: engaging in policy, legal and institutional issues, S Louafi.