About the project
Connecting advisers to boost interactive innovation in agriculture and forestry – i2connect project aims to fuel the competencies of advisors who will support and facilitate interactive innovation processes. The strategy in i2connect is to use the existing advisor networks and the experiences of success to create a broader network and momentum of change enabling a new culture of bottom-up led innovation support. This resource of over 40,000 advisors are critical to support agriculture and forestry on the ground and must be influenced in this project to support innovation with emphasis on EIP-Agri 2020.
An inventory will be made where best practices throughout Europe will be analyzed in an interactive way to guide the development of approaches and tools.
A pool of trainers will be trained to work with these materials in training to better coach advisors. Attention will also be given to the ‘enabling environment’: ways in which managers of advisory services, research actors, policy makers and others can create conditions that are conducive for interactive innovation processes. The project will support learning through courses in the main European languages. Training courses will include a period of moderated peer coaching on the job for advisors. Some advisors may join cross visit teams for studying interesting cases abroad. These activities feed into a professional network with many local branches, supported by the project through a moderated online platform for mutual coaching and sharing experiences on themes that emerge.
i2connect brings together 42 organizations, most of them directly involved in stimulating innovation in rural areas and food systems in all corners of Europe, especially in CEE countries. The major European farm and forestry advisory services are partners. They are committed to contribute to a continuous learning and improvement of advisory support making better use of the opportunities that the EIP-Agri program has created for bridging the gap between research and practice.
Interactive innovation
Interactive innovation emphasizes cooperation among various actors, the sharing of knowledge and effective intermediation between actors along the value chains and at different territorial levels. Key for interactive innovation is that existing (sometimes tacit) knowledge is included whereby end-users and practitioners are not only involved as study objects but their entrepreneurial skills and practical knowledge are used for developing the solution or opportunity, thereby creating co-ownership.
A prerequisite for interactive innovation is a multi-actor approach involving all the relevant actors along the entire project; from the participation in the planning of work and experiments, their execution, up until the dissemination of results and possible demonstration phase. The relevant actors are those that share a complex problem, which requires new knowledge and practice and include actors from different societal sectors such as researchers, entrepreneurs, educators, government workers, NGO representatives as well as farmers/farmer groups, advisors, enterprises, etc.
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Objectives
The project’s overall objective is to “Empower advisors as well as their organizations to engage and support farmers and foresters in interactive innovation processes”.
To reach this overarching goal, our three specific objectives are:
Work packages
The project activities are organized in seven work packages:
WP1 - UHOH - Bases, Frames and frames and approaches for joint action and analysis
we will define the conceptual ground for the project, update the AKIS inventory from the PROAKIS project and develop an inventory of advisory services. i2connect will characterize innovation advisors and innovation networks and organize a process of systematic joint learning among the consortium partners.
WP2 - TEAGASC - Identify and analyze best practices from a range of practical cases across Europe
we will examine practical cases where experiences in interactive innovation support have been successful and identify the strategies, practices, actions, motivations and environment that constitute and support these good practices.
WP3 - AGRIDEA - Develop tools, methods and didactical strategies to strengthen advisor’s capacity
to support interactive innovation: we will select and develop tools, methods and didactical strategies for advisors and their managers, for future advisors (students), as well as for managing authorities and policy makers.
WP4 - ZLTO - Activate and facilitate the innovation network
we will carry out training sessions, cross-visits, pilot projects, and networking activities to provide advisors and their managers with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to better support interactive innovation in agriculture and forestry. We will also carry out activities involving AKIS actors to create an enabling environment for innovation support and we will offer summer schools for future advisors (students).
WP5 - EUFRAS - Communication, dissemination and synergies
we will carry out communication and dissemination activities at a large scale using different types of media and we will establish links and synergies with other projects and networks, with the EIP-AGRI networks at regional, national and European level, as well as advisory groups such as the SCAR AKIS SWG.
WP6 - APCA - Project management
we will facilitate collaboration between the consortium partners and ensure that the project reaches its milestones, produces quality deliverables on time, achieves its objectives and that the consortium’s contractual duties are met.
WP7 - APCA - Ethic requirements
we will define internal procedures to ensure that the project complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ethical standards set by the European Commission.
Achievements
i2connect addresses the full range of challenges faced by innovation advisors. Its well-tailored activities will provide interested professionals and their organizational and institutional environments with skills, competencies, concepts and approaches. In particular, it is the ambition that i2connect will specifically enable actors:
- To connect diverse AKIS actor groups and stakeholders with different professional backgrounds around a challenge or problem and to engage with them in a cooperative working process;
- To perceive farmers’ needs and interests for change and innovation and to respond to their views with a partnership attitude and supportive services so as to recognize potential innovations;
- To provide a range of different innovation support services to clients in a targeted and situation-specific way
- To diagnose the respective AKIS in order to bridge practice and research meaningfully;
To practice networking and peer-to-peer learning so that long-lasting living networks are created and maintained beyond the project’s scope and duration.
The main measurable outputs of the project are:
Practical knowledge on the competences and role of advisors in interactive innovative:
- An online inventory of advisory organisations and advisers in 30 countries
- 30 updated AKIS country reports
- An inventory of 100 practical cases of support to interactive innovation
- 40 practical innovation cases analysed and translated into best practices
- Various scientific papers and summaries
Training contents, a pool of experienced trainers and training courses:
- a tool box for advisors, managers, teachers and policy makers
- 5 trainings of trainers and a pool of 50 trainers and 30 facilitators
- 40 trainings sessions and 600 advisors trained in innovation support
- 4 excellence classes and 80 managers trained
- 3 summer schools for students, 80 teachers & students trained
An EU-wide advisors’ network:
- 8 cross-visits and 80 advisors involved
- 13 pilot projects for testing best practices under different conditions
- 4 regional innovation workshops and 2 project conferences
- a virtual, European-wide network of advisers