Stakeholders Engagement through Regional Communities: an interactive multi-actor methodology for co-innovation in rural areas

Nowadays knowledge and innovation play a crucial role in helping farmers meet the future challenges linked to an increasing pressure on the use and management of natural resources and high political and societal ambitions with respect to sustainable ways of food production. The timely access and ability to integrate rapidly evolving information, knowledge and technological developments across all actors who participate in agricultural value chains is key to a successful transition towards a sustainable Europe by 2030 [1]. To ensure that knowledge is shared between everyone who uses and produces it, and that people are connected, effective Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) are needed across Europe [2]. Therefore, new and better ways to share knowledge and expertise are considered essential to keep agriculture and food production competitive, sustainable and rural areas alive. However, fostering co-creation and effective knowledge transfer in the agriculture and food production contexts is a complex issue due to the plurality of actors and the socio-cultural divergences between different geographical areas in Europe. To cover this diversity, facilitating effective knowledge transfer processes, closing the gap with research and innovation and reinforcing AKIS across Europe, an interactive demand-driven innovation methodology has been developed [3], based on the creation and activation of Regional Stakeholders’ Communities. This methodology proposed by FEUGA to engage and organise the work of different regional stakeholders’ communities following a Multi-Actor Approach (MAA) [4] is conceived as a matrix organisational structure with two main dimensions (Geographical and Technical) and a linking element (Engagement Coach). This methodology was first successfully implemented in agroforestry and viticulture sectors, in AFINET [5] and WINETWORK [6] projects, taking advantage of H2020 Thematic Networks funding instrument [7]. Afterwards, the MAA methodology proposed by FEUGA has been extended and tested in Research and Innovation projects with European dimension in different agricultural related domains such as soil biodiversity (SOILDIVERAGRO [8]), antimicrobial use (AMU) in animal production (ROADMAP [9]) and sustainable animal breeding (GERONIMO [10]), among others. Therefore, this validated methodology benefits rural areas and the agri-food sector ensuring an efficient transfer of knowledge among key actors and stakeholders and fostering co-innovation within the regional communities, contributing at the end to reinforce AKIS across Europe