From lab to farmland: How the EIC Women Leadership Programme helped NutriSen co-founder Débora Monteiro Moretti drive agricultural innovation
- ›Débora Monteiro Moretti, co-founder of NutriSen and beneficiary of an EIC Transition project, used the EIC Women Leadership Programme to sharpen strategy and leadership as she returned from maternity leave.
- ›NutriSen's LiveSen-MAP project builds a multi-season, high-resolution dataset on plant nutrient status and will test 20 000 diagnostic strips for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in field conditions.
- ›The Women Leadership Programme supplied practical coaching on value proposition, negotiation and team alignment and created peer networks that led to new contacts and potential partnerships.
- ›NutriSen failed to reach its target of 50 percent female participation in its field trials and is investigating why women farmers were underrepresented.
- ›Débora emphasises flexible working policies for mothers and plans to engage more with women in agriculture to design inclusive tools.
From lab to farmland: leadership, data and a test strip at scale
As International Women’s Day approaches, the European Innovation Council is highlighting participants in its Women Leadership Programme. One of them is Débora Monteiro Moretti, co-founder of NutriSen and lead on the EIC Transition-funded LiveSen-MAP project. NutriSen aims to turn scientific detection methods into farmer-facing products that make nutrient management more precise and accessible. Débora credits the Women Leadership Programme with practical support on business strategy, team alignment and networking at a moment when she was returning to work after maternity leave.
NutriSen and the LiveSen-MAP project
NutriSen’s stated mission is to equip farmers with affordable tools to monitor plant nutrient levels and make timely, precise decisions on fertiliser and crop nutrition. Under the LiveSen-MAP project the company is assembling an extensive multi-season data set on crop nutrient status and preparing 20 000 diagnostic test strips that target the key macro-nutrients used in conventional fertilisation strategies. The goal is to validate these strips in the field and build the dataset needed to translate a laboratory method into a product farmers can use across varied conditions.
Why the EIC Women Leadership Programme mattered for Débora
Débora describes her role as translating laboratory inventions into marketable innovations and building a business that supports scientists moving into entrepreneurship. She applied to the EIC Women Leadership Programme at a personal inflection point when returning from maternity leave. The programme offered tailored training, mentoring and business coaching that she says helped refine NutriSen’s value proposition and improve internal team alignment. She also highlights the emotional value of peer networks and the sense of belonging the programme generated.
Beyond content, Débora says the programme delivered practical skills in negotiation and leadership. She credits business coaching with helping to tailor NutriSen’s market message and facilitating a partnership opportunity discovered through networking with other female founders in the cohort.
Limits, lessons and the reality of field testing
The LiveSen-MAP project contains several technically and commercially challenging steps. Building a representative, high-resolution dataset across seasons is resource intensive. Ten or twenty validation sites may not capture the diversity of growing systems in European and Latin American contexts, where NutriSen has ties. Converting a lab assay into a robust field strip requires stabilising reagents, ensuring consistent extraction methods and accounting for variability in plant sap matrices.
Débora is candid about a specific shortfall. NutriSen aimed for at least 50 percent female participation in its field trials and acknowledges the company fell far short. Rather than dismissing the failure, the team is investigating where women are located in modern farming operations and whether technology design or outreach strategies might increase participation. This is a notable admission because it highlights adoption barriers and the risk of producing datasets that underrepresent certain user groups.
Context: EIC support, Transition funding and broader ecosystem programmes
NutriSen is an EIC Transition beneficiary. The Transition strand is designed to turn research results into innovation opportunities by funding activities that de-risk technology, develop business cases and validate technical feasibility in preparation for market entry. Complementary EIC services such as the Women Leadership Programme are delivered through the EIC Business Acceleration Services. These services combine coaching, mentoring and matchmaking to help awardees scale.
The European Innovation Council frames support to women innovators as part of its strategic goals for 2021 to 2027 aimed at improving European competitiveness. Other targeted schemes include Women TechEU and the European Prize for Women Innovators. These initiatives respond to persistent gender imbalances across entrepreneurship and research. Still, outcomes are often reported as counts of supported companies or participants rather than independent evaluations of long term impact.
| Programme or project element | What it delivers | Notes and caveats |
| LiveSen-MAP | High-resolution multi-season nutrient dataset and 20 000 test strips for field validation | Field validation is necessary to prove accuracy across crops, stages and environments |
| EIC Women Leadership Programme | Tailored trainings, mentoring, business coaching, networking and alumni access | No direct funding. Travel costs for in-person events are borne by participants |
| NutriSen business aims | Translate lab assays into farmer-facing products and build the business around them | Requires robust product engineering, regulatory clarity and scalable distribution |
What Débora plans next and wider implications
Débora says the programme helped her recognise internal limits she placed on herself and prompted a step forward in leadership confidence. As NutriSen continues test strip validation, the team plans to address gender gaps in trial participation and to build more flexible working policies. Débora emphasises flexibility as a concrete company practice to support mothers who are balancing childcare and leadership roles.
From a sector perspective, NutriSen’s work illustrates common tensions in agri-tech innovation. There is a technical path from lab detection to low-cost diagnostics. There is also a social path that covers farmer adoption, gender inclusion and the institutional channels needed for scale. Success will depend on both paths and on rigorous field evidence that links strip readings to agronomic decisions that measurably improve yield, input efficiency or environmental outcomes.
Advice to aspiring participants
Débora’s recommendation to other women innovators is straightforward. She sees the Women Leadership Programme as valuable for addressing doubts and insecurities faced by women entrepreneurs and leaders. For those eligible, participation can provide strategic clarity, peer support and access to potential partners.
How to follow up or connect
The EIC Women Leadership Programme is offered through the EIC Business Acceleration Services and applications open periodically via the EIC Community platform. Questions about the programme are handled through the EIC Community contact channels under the 'EIC Women Leadership Programme' category. The programme sits alongside other EIC efforts such as Women TechEU and EIC Transition grants that fund technology maturation.
NutriSen’s LiveSen-MAP project is an example of how public innovation support can combine technical development and leadership capacity building. Real progress will require transparent field validation and explicit strategies to include underrepresented users. That combination will determine whether a laboratory assay becomes a reliable, widely adopted tool on the farm.