Dr Fabien Girard

Between 2011 and 2013, he was appointed as a Project Manager to the High Council for Biotechnologies in Paris, where he worked on the interplays between industrial property and plant biotechnology.

While on secondment at the Maison Française d'Oxford (MFO) from 2016 to 2016, he conducted a research programme on the "Theory of Law and Legal Anthropology", and, as part of that responsibility, organised several conferences and workshop on legal and political philosophy, as well as on the governance of biodiversity.

In 2014, funding was granted by the French National Research Agency (ANR) to his project (ANR-15-CE21-0004) CommonPlant: Access, Commons and Plant Breeding Reframing the legal system to face the challenges of an increasing world population and the preservation of agrobiodiversity – CommonPlant.

His new project "Bioculturalis", also funded by the ANR, further investigates how best to legally protect agricultural innovation of indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers.

Fabien has written extensively on the connections between biotechnology, plant innovation and industrial property, but his work was recently re-oriented to focus more on Access and Benefit-Sharing, seed sovereignty and indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers' rights. His major works are: 'Semences et agrobiodiversité : pour une lecture ontologique des bio-communs locaux' (2019); The Commons, Plant Breeding and Agricultural Research: Challenges for Food Security and Agrobiodiversity (2018 - with Ch. Frison); ' "Though the treasure of nature's germens tumble all together": the EPO and patents on native traits or the bewitching powers of ideologies' (2015); Biotechnologies végétales et propriété industrielle (2014 - with Ch. Noiville).

Full list of all his publications