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.

does not apply; see above

AgriLink aims to stimulate sustainability transitions in European agriculture through better understanding the roles played by farm advice in farmer decision-making. To this end, AgriLink will analyse and improve the role of farmer advice in 8 innovation areas that combine challenges identified in the “Strategic Approach to EU Agricultural Research & Innovation”. AgriLink builds on the premise that the full range of advice-providing organisations need to be included in the assessment of service provision and innovation adoption. The methodology combines theoretical insights with cutting edge research methods within a multi-actor, transdisciplinary approach. It draws on ‘micro-AKIS’ (individuals and organisations from whom farmers seek services and exchange knowledge with) analysis in 26 focus regions, sociotechnical scenario development and ‘living laboratories’ where farmers, advisors and researchers work together. Research in focus regions will provide insight in farmers’ micro-AKIS, advisory suppliers’ business models, and regional farm advisory systems. This will feed an assessment of the efficacy of governance of farm-advice-research interactions across Europe. Newly developed advisory methods and new forms of research-practice interaction will be validated and further developed in Living Laboratories. A socio-technical scenario method will be used to explore, jointly with stakeholders, transition pathways towards more sustainable agriculture. Crucially, AgriLink builds on insights and experiences from both research and practice. The consortium consists of researchers from different disciplines (institutional economics, innovation studies, AKIS studies, sociology of networks), as well as of advisors (from public, private and farmer-based organisations) from across the EU. Actors from advisory services will be active in the validation and dissemination of results, to ensure that all project findings are both scientifically sound and practically useful.

The overarching objective of UNISECO is to strengthen the sustainability of EU farming systems, through co-constructing practice-validated strategies and incentives for the promotion of improved agro-ecological approaches. We will enhance the understanding of socio-economic and policy drivers and barriers for further development and implementation of agro-ecological approaches in EU farming systems to identify and facilitate more effective management strategies for European agriculture. This requires a wider systems perspective, considering socio-economic, ecological and political settings at a territorial level. We will operationalise a socio-ecological systems framework that integrates external settings into a sustainability assessment of farming systems, paying particular attention to the role of different types of actors and their roles in sub-systems. UNISECO will provide a methodological toolkit to assess the environmental, economic and social impacts of innovative strategies and incentives for agro-ecological approaches in EU farming systems at farm and territorial levels. The methodological toolkit will be tested in participatory case studies in 15 European countries with different biophysical, socio-economic and socio-cultural contexts of farming systems. UNISECO is committed to a genuine transdisciplinary process, reflected in consortium composition of stakeholder and scientific partners, and the emphasis on multi-actor engagement. Group learning processes, integrating practical and theoretical knowledge, will benefit scientists, stakeholders and end-users through improved understanding on how to strengthen sustainability of EU farming systems. UNISECO addresses the work programme topic SFS-29-2017 and contributes to Sustainable Food Security by identifying and supporting farming systems that enable the production of healthy food while preserving the environment and bringing added value to farm households and the different stakeholders of the value chain.