Raoul Mille is an engineer and civil servant in forestry, agriculture and environment. He contributed to INRA forestry genetic research by collecting seeds from nut, oak and cherry trees during several long-term experimental field trips in Soviet Georgia (seedlings planted by INRA in experimental plots in France). He spent several years as a forest manager of French public forests in different ecosystem regions (Mediterranean, temperate broadleaves, tropical forests in French Guyana) and was responsible for the design and implementation of forest management plans. He joined the international consultant team of the French Forest organisation ONF in 1995, and was in charge of East European and Middle East cooperation; he also managed two large cooperation projects in Lebanon (an EU afforestation project and a French-Lebanese project “Fight against forest fire”).
Since 1999, he has been active in science support activities, at bilateral and European level (science diplomacy in Finland, Austria and Germany and head of the European cooperation of Cemagref). From 2003-2007 he was secretary of the European Environmental Partnership PEER which he helped organise and develop).
Before joining INRAE in January 2020, he was director of Irstea’s European and international activities (2015-2019). At European level he contributed to the activities of the European biodiversity network (Alternet), the European water network (EurAqua) and to the design and implementation of an ongoing research project on sustainable development goals “Tackling and managing risks with SDGs” (PEER-TRISD).
He joined the Department of International Affairs at INRAE at the beginning of 2020 as the Deputy Director responsible for the development of the international priority programmes (PPI) on a variety of themes (biocontrol and agroecology, zoonoses and emergent diseases, forest and climate change adaptation, microbiomes, climate and soils). His main interests today include understanding how research can contribute to global challenges as defined in Agenda 2030 and the UN conventions, and contemplating the concept of “sustainability sciences”.