AGRIFORVALOR will close the research and innovation divide by connecting practitioners from agriculture and forestry to research and academia as well as with associations and clusters, bio -industry, policy makers; business support organisations, innovation agencies and technology transfer intermediaries in multi-actor innovation partnership networks. Theses networks will be managed by three Biomass Innovation Design Hubs, piloted in Andalucia, Hungary and Ireland. In each of these hubs, existing research results and good practices on valorization of biomass sidestreams from agro and forest will be shared and matched with the specific needs and potentials; new grass-roots ideas collected and developed; and dedicated innovation support applied to further deploy selected topics which are dealt with by multi-actor innovation partnership groups. Here, practical support in the exploitation of promising research results is complemented by assistance in business (model) development - with a tailored mix of innovation support measures offered to individual subjects. Tailor-made innovation support tools and materials will thus be developed in line with the identified needs of forestry and agriculture. In each hub, Steering Committees consisting of experts on exploitation and business development will be set-up to monitor and consult the conceptualization and implementation of the trainings and support measures. Project results and experiences will be translated into recommendations for a more demand-driven research agenda as well as long-term end-user materials to feed into the EIP-AGRI. AGRIFORVALOR thus delivers as mediator and facilitator new commercial opportunities for the agriculture and forest sector in Europe to become active partner in the sidestream biomass value chain.

BovINE will tackle urgent sustainability challenges faced by beef producers by bringing together beef farmers, farming organisations, advisors, researchers and all relevant actors across 10 member states to close the divide between research and innovation in Europe. There are 255,000 farms in the EU bovine meat sector, yet no network focused solely on their needs has been established to date. Coordinated by Teagasc (IE), BovINE is built around the multi-actor approach to implement more intense cooperation between researchers, advisors, farmers and relevant actors to facilitate greater exchange and acceptance of co-created solutions. BovINE draws on the EU, national and regional connections of the 18 consortium members to appropriate networks, on the four related key themes of socio-economic resilience, animal health and welfare, production efficiency & quality and environmental sustainability. Using the multi-actor approach BovINE will (i) capture and share innovative ideas and methods from practice across Europe and (ii) identify and conserve research findings that have not yet been widely adopted, enhancing their potential for integration into practice by assessing feasibility at demonstration farms. BovINE’s strategic and targeted dissemination and communication actions are designed to raise awareness of the project’s innovation potential, and deliver engagement with farmers, their intermediaries and knowledge providers. Through driving effective cooperation between beef producers and researchers, and utilising trusted gatekeepers, BovINE will form a transnational ecosystem to stimulate knowledge exchange at international level to boost the economic viability and sustainability of the European beef-producing sector.

WelFarmers will set up eight national innovation networks and four Europe-wide networks of pig farmers, advisors, veterinarians and researchers to address the challenges of the upcoming change in the European pig welfare legislation. WelFarmers will address four main topics: cage ban; keeping pigs with uncovered tails; avoiding pain during castration and space and flooring. The most urgent innovation needs and challenges will be identified in a bottom up way and the network will collect and evaluate good practices that meet these needs. WelFarmers will also strive to collaborate with existing and new EIP-AGRI operational groups (OGs) and EU research projects focused on pig welfare and to enhance their impact. The selected best practices will be disseminated through a series of communication and dissemination activities to reach most pig farmers in the eight participating countries and in Europe. EIP abstracts, thematic reports videos, brochures, e-news, national workshops, transnational cross-fertilisation events and a multilingual website are some of the dissemination methods planned to communicate and disseminate the best practices.

The Ploutos project focusses on rebalancing the value chain for the agri-food system, transforming it into one that works for the benefit of society and the environment. The project will develop a Sustainable Innovation Framework that follows a systemic approach to the agri-food sector, building on three pillars: Behavioural Innovation, Sustainable Collaborative Business Model Innovation and Data-driven Technology Innovation. Exploiting a history of significant agri-food projects and the respective ecosystems around these, the project will deploy 11 innovative systemic Sustainable Ιnnovation Pilots, where using a Multi-Actor Approach new innovative solutions and methodologies will be implemented, tested, assessed and derive practical lessons learned. The pilots cover a large range of agri-food ecosystems, across 13 countries, covering arable, horticulture (both open fields and greenhouses), perennials and dairy production among other. In each case, behaviour change, collaborative business modelling and data driven innovation will be integrated to deliver the most environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable solution. A Ploutos Innovation Academy will be established to as a vehicle for integrating the know-how, best practices and assessments developed across the project and derived from the Sustainable Innovation Pilots. Ploutos includes 33 partners, 23 of them being end-users, representing all relevant actors in the food system, including farmers, food industry companies, scientists, advisors, ICT specialists and policy makers.

The DEMETER Project is a large-scale deployment of farmer centric interoperable smart farming-IoT based platforms delivered through a series of 20 pilots across 18 countries (15 States in the EU). Involving 60 partners, DEMETER adopts a multi-actor approach across the value chain (demand and supply), with 25 deployment sites, 6,000 farmers and over 38,000 devices and sensors being deployed and participants involved come from different production sectors (dairy, meat, vegetables, fruit and arable crops), production systems (conventional and organic) and different farm sizes and types, optimising the data analysis obtained across multiple farms. DEMETER will demonstrate the real-life potential of advanced standards-based interoperability between IoT technologies by adapting and extending existing standards into an over-arching Agricultural Information Model, concurrently ensuring security, privacy and business confidentiality across the full value chain in multiple agri-food operational environments. DEMETER will encompass a multi system and multi data source integration considering not only IoT but legacy systems, open data, geographical and satellite information, and in general will provide an open and interoperable data integration model. DEMETER displays how an integrated approach to business modelling and user acceptance can support sustainable farming and food production systems, provide safe food and support farmers in their decision-making in ‘doing more with less’. DEMETER will bring new business opportunities on the farm and in the wider agri-food economy, while concurrently contributing to the safeguarding of Europe’s precious natural resources. DEMETER’s goal is the creation of a secure and sustainable European IoT technology and business ecosystem whose impact could be transformative in the EC food and agriculture sector, and potentially across the world.