As a leading forum on industrially co-ordinated sustainable land management in Europe Research and Innovation are at the heart of what NICOLE Supports. First conceived in 2019 the Research Agenda was developed by the NICOLE Innovation Working Group to collate the research interests and priorities of the NICOLE members. This was collated through online and in-person surveys, identifying the key areas of interest.

These areas of interest were then rephrased as research challenges that a researcher could devise an experimental programme to address. With the advent of Covid-19 and the emergence Big data, Artificial intelligence and the Climate Crisis the areas of interest were expanded and developed in Research Personas. These provide a Problem Statement, identify key stakeholders, provide an example knowledge base, challenges, member priorities, preferred working partnerships and the priority stages of development.