prof.dr. I (Ioannis) Athanasiadis

Current major grants

• AgriscienceFM - AI Foundation Models for Agricultural Sciences (2026-2029), Horizon Europe
• GenAI4Earth - Generative Artificial Intelligence for Earth System (2026-2029), Horizon Europe
• PHENOM - Phenotyping with Foundation Models (2026-2029), TKI ICT 
• 3D-CIRCULAR - Digital Deep tech Driven Circular Economy (2026-2030), Digital Europe
• AETHER-xAI - Self-Explainable AI for Earth Observation (2026), ESA
• PHENET - Tools and methods for extended plant phenotyping and envirotyping services of European Research Infrastructures (2023-2027), Horizon Europe
• LTER-LIFE - A research infrastructure for digital twins of ecosystems in a changing world (2023-2033), NWO
• AgrifoodTEF - The European Testing and Experimentation Facilities for Agrifood Innovation (2023-2027), Digital Europe

Recently concluded major grants

• Smart Droplets - Accelerating the achievement of EU Green Deal goals for pesticide and fertilizer reduction through AI, data and robotic technologies (2022-2026), Horizon Europe, WP Leader.
• D3-C2 - Data-driven discoveries in a changing climate (2022-2024), Wageningen University & Research Investment Theme, Leader.
• GREAT - Green deal dataspace alignment, (2022-2023), Digital Europe.
• DFF - Digital Future Farm (2020-2022), WUR Strategic Theme Flagship, WP leader.
• CYBELE - Scalable big data analytics for fostering precision agriculture and livestock farming (2019-2022), Horizon 2020-Integrated Action, Task leader.
• Dragon - Data-driven precision agriculture services and skill acquisition (2018-2022), Horizon 2020 Twinning Grant, WP leader.

Ioannis N. Athanasiadis is Professor and Chair of Artificial Intelligence at Wageningen University and Research. His research aims to advance artificial intelligence to address global challenges, related to food security, agriculture and ecology. He is a proponent of use-inspired fundamental research. Driven by the complexities of natural systems, Ioannis aspires to further the field of artificial intelligence and contribute towards a more sustainable and food-secure future. Together with his research team, students and stakeholders, Ioannis develops artificial intelligence systems tailored to help farmers, policymakers, and industry make better-informed decisions, manage risks and improve our understanding of complex system interactions with data-driven discoveries.

Ioannis is/was the co-principal investigator for several major European and national grants related artificial intelligence in agriculture and ecology (AgriscienceFM, GenAI4Earth, AETHER, AgrifoodTEF, PHENET, SmartDroplets, LTER-LIFE, CYBELE, Dragon). He founded and leads AgML, the research group of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) working on the interface of machine learning with agricultural modelling, by sharing reference datasets and research protocols.

Ioannis is a Fellow of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society. He served for more than 15 years as an editor of the journal Environmental Modelling and Software, was the inaugural managing editor of the journal Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling, and has long experience in reviewing for primary AI venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR).

• IFIP (1-1-2017/31-12-2099)
  Chairman of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 5.11 Computers and the Environment http://www.isess.net
• ZALF (1-2-2026/1-2-2030)
  
• AgMIP Partners (1-2-2026/1-2-2031)
  AgMIP Partners is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in NY, USA