In March 2014 twelve partners from eight European countries met in LEGOLAND, Denmark, to make a project proposal for the European Union. It was an extraordinary meeting, providing a good basis for a nice project: AgriSpin.

 

How to build a good support structure for innovative farmers? That was one of the questions for which the EU had issued a tender within the framework of the EIP program (European Innovation Partnerships). EIP is part of Horizon 2020, aiming at raising the innovative capacity of Europe significantly. Not only in agriculture, by the way.

 

EIP assumes that innovations emerge from interaction between stakeholders, including researchers. This feels like a relief, after decades in which it was assumed that researchers invent new things which should trickle down to users like farmers. I think too many researchers still believe this today. The tender calls for four thematic projects and one project that focuses specifically on the support structure: support systems for innovation.

 

In March 2014 twelve partners from eight European countries met in LEGOLAND, Denmark, to make a project proposal for the European Union. It was an extraordinary meeting, providing a good basis for a nice project: AgriSpin.

 

How to build a good support structure for innovative farmers? That was one of the questions for which the EU had issued a tender within the framework of the EIP program (European Innovation Partnerships). EIP is part of Horizon 2020, aiming at raising the innovative capacity of Europe significantly. Not only in agriculture, by the way. 

 

EIP assumes that innovations emerge from interaction between stakeholders, including researchers. This feels like a relief, after decades in which it was assumed that researchers invent new things which should trickle down to users like farmers. I think too many researchers still believe this today. The tender calls for four thematic projects and one project that focuses specifically on the support structure: support systems for innovation.

 

This topic is close to my heart. This is about the intermediaries between farmers, researchers, and other key players, the focus of my work for the last 35 years. If I may believe the signals, then the experiment "Networks in Animal Husbandry", in which I have been able to give my theory hands and feet, has been one of the sources of inspiration in Brussels which contributed to the design of the EIP.  Fortunately, there are people in my particular international network of ESEE and IFSA who know my work. And so I was asked to join. This began with two meetings in Brussels, where the new program by the EU (Inge van Oost) was explained. Then, in Krakow, I spoke with the intended project manager, Leif Raun, and the mutual interest grew.

A few weeks later we went to work with each other on a special location: LEGOLAND in Billund, Denmark. Very practical: a hotel annex meeting centre, right next to the airport. Anyone who has experience with EU projects knows that it is not at all that simple to create something beautiful with so many partners. That is why I was all the more impressed by the atmosphere during this 24 hour session: everyone showed genuine interest to understand each other, and to examine what we could do together. Nice to see how the Danes facilitated this process. If we can keep this spirit, then we can come very far.

 

 

As an independent professional I cannot be a partner in such a project. Furthermore we focus on regional agricultural organisations supporting innovations. For quite a while already I was in contact with Peter Paree from the ZTLO (the Southern Farmers Organization, representing about a third of all Dutch farmers). And so ZLTO became the Dutch partner in the consortium.

 

Peter had other obligations, and  so he asked his colleague Geert Wilms to go. Geert has a special position in the innovation system as Chairman of the Steering Committee LIB (agriculture innovation Brabant). He is paid by the province of Noord Brabant and ZLTO to stimulate innovative projects in agriculture. He does this for many years already, and each time the external evaluators (people with outstanding reputation) that his programme should be continued. A pure Free Actor position!

It has become a beautiful project proposal, with as core activity "cross visits": teams of 6-7 participants from partner organizations will visit a regional partner during a week, in order to understand what is happening there and to help each other to ideas. If it all pushes through, it will be my responsibility to organise these cross-visits.

 

It is by far our not certain whether our proposal will win: our strongest competitor is a consortium led by my former colleagues in Wageningen, together with the French INRA and a number of other partners.