Identification of key challenges and information needs of those enabling and implementing interactive innovation projects within the EIP-Agri

The European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-Agri) is a relatively new policy concept that aims to speed up innovation in agriculture and forestry. Our paper presents key challenges and information needs of (potential) beneficiaries, advisors, support services, educators, policy makers and administrators. Since the EIP-Agri aims to address the needs of various stakeholders and to foster projects on the regional, national and European level, its implementation is complex. Our analysis is based on data obtained at workshops that took place in Northern, South-Eastern, Southern and North-Western Europe in November 2018. Each workshop followed a common script and reporting guideline leaving space to account for the diverse macro-regional contexts. While the heterogeneity within each macro-region was high, the results show that i) the particular institutional settings impact on the enhancement of farmer-led networks/projects, ii) economic incentives either drive or hamper the involvement, iii) fore-runners in the field of interactive innovation exist in both policy/administration and in practice, iv) the maturity of administrative systems is of great relevance and impacts significantly on the cooperation and co-creation of stakeholders. This paper contributes to the knowledge exchange and co-learning between practitioners, advisors, scientists, and representatives from policy and administration in Europe who are aiming for interactive innovation in agricultural, forestry and rural value chains. The comments and recommendations collected at the ESEE 2019 conference will feed into the further work of the LIAISON project