Meet Professor Diego Abalos, Principal Investigator of AgNUE.
For Diego Abalos at the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University, understanding nitrogen dynamics is ultimately about reducing uncertainty.
How nitrogen moves through soils, crops and the atmosphere remains one of the major challenges in sustainable and efficient agricultural production. Through AgNUE, Diego Abalos is leading an international effort to strengthen how these processes are monitored, understood and modelled across agricultural systems.
“The data and models currently used to inform policy advice and guide sustainable farming practices are associated with high levels of uncertainty. AgNUE aims to set a new standard, bringing nitrogen research and its practical implementation into a new era, and enabling real, measurable progress toward more sustainable agri-food systems.”
As Principal Investigator of AgNUE, Diego Abalos is responsible for helping shape the scientific direction of the platform and bringing together expertise across disciplines, institutions and countries. The project connects researchers across Europe and the United States through a shared infrastructure of agricultural supersites, combining field experiments, measurements and modelling approaches across scales.
A central focus of the work is improving understanding of nitrogen losses and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture.
“Improving nitrogen use efficiency and reducing nitrous oxide emissions is one of the central challenges today,” Diego Abalos explains.
Bringing together scientific perspectives
Throughout his research career, Diego Abalos has worked across several internationally recognised research environments, including Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Across these roles, he has worked with experimental field research, isotope tracing techniques, greenhouse gas measurements and modelling approaches. Within AgNUE, many of these perspectives are now brought together into a shared research effort focused on nitrogen dynamics across agricultural systems.
The ambition is not only to improve scientific understanding, but also to strengthen the knowledge base supporting future agricultural management and environmental decision-making.
Connecting science, policy and practice
Alongside serving as Principal Investigator of AgNUE, Diego Abalos also leads the project’s work on science translation and stakeholder integration.
A central ambition within this work is ensuring that scientific knowledge generated across AgNUE can support practical decision-making related to agriculture, climate and nitrogen management.
This includes strengthening connections between measurements, modelling and real-world application, while creating dialogue across researchers, policymakers and agricultural stakeholders.
By connecting field research, modelling and science translation across AgNUE, the project aims to contribute to a more robust foundation for future agricultural and environmental decision-making.