The Harlan Symposium was created by the University of California (UC Davis, USA) as a tribute to Jack R. Harlan, American botanist and agronomist (1917-1998). J.R. Harlan was a pioneer in the study of agriculture and crops of origin, showing the importance of the relationship between human development activity and the evolution of agricultural biodiversity. His most famous book, "Crops and Man", 1975, remains a reference and has been the bedside book for generations of students in plant breeding, especially in France, where J.R. Harlan's influence has been very strong in the scientific community dealing with plant genetic resources.

At the invitation of UC Davis, the scientific community of Montpellier applied in 2016 for the third edition of the Harlan Symposium, a prestigious, recurrent but rare event, organized in 1997 and 2008. This application was selected after a competitive process. The originality of the Harlan Symposium lies in the multidisciplinary aspects of science (from archaeology to genetics and agroecology), the variety of biological models (plants, animals, microorganisms) and the large time scale (from the origin of agriculture to current problems of agricultural biodiversity use). The Third Harlan Symposium will be influenced by the research themes of southern countries, taking into account the Mediterranean and tropical orientation of the research teams involved.