The bioeconomy covers all sectors and systems that rely on biological resources, their functions and principles all primary production sectors that use and produce biological resources (agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture) and all economic and industrial sectors that use biological resources and processes to produce food, feed, bio-based products, energy and services. Today’s bioeconomy is considered a central element to the functioning and success of the EU economy. In 2015, it contributed an estimated €2.3 trillion turnover, €621 billion value addition and employed 18 million people. Croatia’s has a good potential to transitioning into a sustainable circular bioeconomy given its abundant land and marine natural resources. Croatia is now in the process of developing it National Bioeconomy Strategy and Action Plan. At the regional level, Croatia is also an active member of the BioEast Network working joint with other member countries on pursuing a common strategic bioeconomy agenda and partnerships in key priority areas. At the EU level currently strategical linkages to the National Agricultural and Rural Development Plan and the Post 2020 CAP are been identified. Furthermore, emerging EU initiatives such as the New Green Deal need to be discussed and evaluated to identify potential contributions of agriculture and particularly bioeconomy to this new approach. A more strategic and comprehensive engagement national, regionally and international is paramount to inform the evolution of the bioeconomy sector in Croatia. The objective of the EU strategy for the bioeconomy of 2012 Is way to a more innovative and competitive society, in which. Better Masters of resources and in which food security can be aligned with sustainable use of renewable resources for industrial needs while ensuring environmental protection ". The Commission is 2017. Revised EU strategy for the bioeconomy of 2012. and concluded that the relevance of the strategy's objectives has been

The PLAID project (Peer-to-peer Learning: Accessing Innovation through Demonstration) will identify, compile and make publically accessible the topics, locations, best practices and innovative approaches to demonstration on commercial farms in the EU 28, Switzerland and Norway. PLAID will enable access to demonstration activities by creating a searchable georeferenced inventory and map covering all 30 countries; developing ‘virtual’ (on-line) demonstration approaches with commercial farmers; assessing governance, commissioning, financing, topic selection, access (particularly gender), mediation techniques and impact in 24 longitudinal case studies; and comparing the impact of different governance models and financing mechanisms on learning processes and accessibility. PLAID will produce recommendations for governance and best practice in both real and virtual demonstration settings, using these to develop indicators and decision support tools for farmers, advisors, commercial companies, charities, educators, policy makers and researchers. PLAID is a multi-actor consortium, using a multi-stakeholder approach, where farmers, industry stakeholders and academics work together as to design, test and validate outputs. PLAID has been designed to achieve high impact, through generation of a substantial set of knowledge exchange activities and project outputs, which will be hosted long-term on PLAID stakeholder web-sites, You Tube and the EIP Agri Service Point. PLAID will initiate a community of practice, which together with the above activities and outputs will provide a solid foundation for RUR-12-2017: “Networking European farms to boost thematic knowledge exchanges and close the innovation gap” and provide substantive input to the EIP Agri database.

DESIRA will develop the concept of Socio-Cyber-Physical Systems to advance understanding of the impact of digitisation in rural areas, linking analysis directly to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Operationalising the Responsible Research and Innovation approach, DESIRA will enrol agriculture, forestry and rural stakeholders in co-developing scenarios and policies in Living Labs established in 20 European Regions, and a Rural Digitization Forum gathering 250 stakeholders from all Europe. A Virtual Research Environment tailored to the purposes of the project will connect all participants and allow to increase substantially the interaction within the network. DESIRA will provide a Taxonomy and Inventory of Digital Game changers which will be implemented into an online Visualization Tool, a Set of Socio-Economic Impact Indicators aligned to the Sustainability Development Goals implemented into an online Socio-Economic Impact Tool, a Pan-European Assessment of digitization in European rural regions, a Needs, Expectations and Impact appraisal report, a Comparative Scenario Report based on scenario development activities of Living Labs and the Rural Digitization Forum, a Policy analysis and Roadmap, an Ethical Code to be adopted by researchers and innovators and recommended by policy bodies, five Use Cases that will report a further analysis – co-created by Living Labs with the support of ICT specialists - of the most promising solutions identified by Living Labs, Showcase Technologies - including a Virtual Farm Platform - that will create a selection of proof of concepts suggested by Use Cases. A detailed, multi-media dissemination, engagement and communication strategy will accompany the project from the beginning, looking at research as a multifunctional (research, engagement and communication) process and at the same time involving communication specialists in the development of adequate messages and in the choice of the most effective media.

NEFERTITI is a unique project that establishes 10 interactive thematic networks and bring together 45 regional clusters (hubs) of demo-farmers and the involved actors (advisors, NGOs, industry, education, researchers and policy makers) in 17 countries. NEFERTITI focuses on creating added value from the exchange of knowledge, actors, farmers and technical content over the networks in order to boost innovation uptake, to improve peer to peer learning and network connectivity between farms actors across Europe, thus contributing to a more competitive, sustainable and climate-smart agriculture. NEFERTITI address 10 themes that have been chosen based on key concerns of the farming communities of the regional hubs in the project, covering together a balanced range of themes over three main agricultural sectors: animal production, arable farming and horticultural production. The themes have also been chosen regarding their innovation potential, their demonstration potential and the cross-fertilisation potential among the themes, the sectors and the actors. Themes are closely linked to the H2020 Thematic Networks and will connect with other organisational structures at grass root level, like EIP operational groups and study clubs that will confer to the project a key role of accelerator and empowerment of the dissemination and of the uptake of the practical-oriented knowledge delivered by all EIP related projects. A monitoring and learning program supports the systematic extraction of lessons learnt, lessons to be shared with wide audiences including AKIS actors and public authorities. A web based platform unlocks the experience, actors, demo details and the related content for wide spread sharing, enhanced by dedicated production of relevant material (including high-quality professional videos) in each language of the partners. NEFERTITI will engage a policy dialogue with EU Regions to match farmers and policy makers’ interests in view of the networks sustainability.

modernAKIS aims to improve AKIS actors’ capacities to leverage individual, organizational and systemic resources needed for the transformation towards more coherent, effective and efficient AKIS systems and the transition to a more sustainable management and use of natural resources in farming and forestry. To this end it will build and foster a European network of at least 1.000 key AKIS actors, including AKIS coordination bodies, from all EU MS, who will act as linchpins in the transformation of the AKIS systems towards a more effective governance and the modernization of the European agri-food sector. The project will also build the capacities of these key AKIS actors towards systems understanding and engagement, enabling them to enact long-term system changes that will improve the AKIS. In addition, it will set up at least 1 Community of Practice in each Member State, enabling thus participants to act as vectors of change in their communities. In addition, modernAKIS will provide a comprehensive digital catalogue with new know-how, and at least 80 tools and methods supporting key AKIS actors to improve the knowledge flows and develop a well-functioning AKIS in line with relevant policy objectives, e.g the Green Deal, Farm2Fork, SDGs.