Improving National AKIS Organisation in a Co-Creative Process across the EU

Deadline: 06-Oct-21

European Commission is inviting proposals for Improving National Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) Organisation in a Co-Creative Process across the EU.

Scope

Proposals should address the following activities:

• Compare the various types of AKIS within the EU at national, regional and local level to discover how they effectively and efficiently enhance interaction between AKIS actors through activities at various geographical levels.
• Special attention shall be paid to making practice-oriented information and knowledge better available, shared and accessible and on how to improve knowledge flows between AKIS actors, including informing research on needs from practice and finding ways to reward scientists for results useable in practice in particular.
• Project activities should help learning processes for practitioners within the country and regions, as well as support them to benefit from well-functioning AKISs.
• Project proposals must also support development of various cross-border approaches between AKISs to enhance knowledge flows and initiatives to incentivise innovation projects among countries and regions within the EU, and to learn from each other.
• A specific part of the project should be dedicated to sharing the various ways and good examples of how advisors can be intensively integrated in AKIS , including for innovation support.
• Assess current AKIS, using practical tools and indicators capable of monitoring the functioning of Member States’ AKIS.
• This should include institutional arrangements and ways to stimulate researchers to exchange information with practice and have an effective impact on the transition to a more sustainable agriculture by adjusting the focus of their research to more practical approaches and interaction with practice.
• Provide advice and support on how to measure improving the functioning of the AKIS, making use of a coherent and effective approach while taking into account the national/regional/local historical and cultural contexts.
• Provide all outcomes and materials to the European Innovation Partnership ‘Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability’ (EIP-AGRI), including in the common ‘practice abstract’ format for EU wide dissemination, as well as to national/regional/local AKIS channels and to the EU-wide interactive knowledge reservoir (HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-24) in the requested formats.
• Cover all 27 EU Member State in the project, and make use in all those countries of experts who understand and are able to make an accurate interpretation of the national/regional contexts of practitioners.
• Use the knowledge and innovation experts in the SCAR-AKIS Strategic Working Group to discuss the project’s strategy and progress in the various stages of the project.
• Projects should have a minimum duration of 7 years and must implement the multi-actor approach.
• Since innovation support is an essential element in a well-functioning AKIS, cooperation with the project under HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-26 is expected.

Funding Information

Grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000 except for:

• public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
• cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).

Expected Outcomes

• In support of the Green Deal, CAP and farm to fork objectives and targets, the successful proposal will focus on appropriate governance to interlink Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) actors and connect them with practice-oriented information derived from different sources that are readily available.
• The expected outcome of this topic is to develop sound AKIS governance in Member States.
• Member States’ authorities and AKIS actors need insights and tools to advance knowledge exchange, build capacities.
• Innovative governance solutions should accelerate the transition to a more sustainable management and use of natural resources in farming and forestry.
• This will lead to better informed and engaged stakeholders and users of innovative project results thanks to effective AKIS and related platforms.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
  • eligible non-EU countries:
    • countries associated to Horizon Europe
    • low- and middle-income countries

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2THUgAW