MULTISWARD will support developments and innovations in grassland production and management throughout the diversity of European farming systems, pedo-climatic and socio-economic conditions. It will enhance regulating and supporting services from grasslands at the farm and landscape levels whilst improving the competitiveness of grassland-based ruminant production systems. This will be achieved by a concerted use of diversity: multi-species swards, diversity of plant communities at the farm and landscape levels and diversity of production systems at the landscape level.

To reach this goal, MULTISWARD will:
- Define the roles and utility of grassland from economic, agronomic and environmental perspectives and determine stakeholder s requirements and expectations with respect to multi-functionality in EU countries
- Assess the performance of multi species swards (MSS) in terms of plant productivity and animal nutrition over a range of environments and determine the most appropriate mixtures according to the soil and climatic conditions
- Optimize the role of MSS in the provision of regulating and supporting services and maintaining a high level of biodiversity
- Design and evaluate innovations in grazing and animal management (including animal genetics) to enhance the sustainability and competitiveness of grassland-based ruminant production system
- Provide adequate evaluation tools (indicators and models) to assess ways of combining high production efficiency with optimal provision of regulating and supporting services from grasslands at farm to regional levels
- Identify and analyse the effects of socio-economic and policy scenarios supporting grassland development or inducing grassland replacement by annual crops in order to support the design of future policies
- Disseminate knowledge to key stakeholders through a participatory framework that will allow exchanges between researchers and key stakeholders and increase awareness of grassland based systems

research area:
Multifunctional grasslands for sustainable and competitive ruminant production systems and the delivery of ecosystem services