Key contemporary trends, such as climate change, gender inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic, bring new challenges to European rural areas. Change also brings opportunities to foster more resilient, inclusive and sustainable rural regions, such as created by the digital and ecological transitions. However, there is a need for all individuals and communities to participate in rural innovation. Traditionally, however, rural women’s employment opportunities and contribution to innovation has been overshadowed, and often suppressed, by for example a patriarchal ethos. FLIARA (Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas) uniquely proposes a transdisciplinary, innovative methodology to improve understanding, awareness and recognition of women’s role in a more sustainable rural future, as well as develop proposals for how more effective policy and governance frameworks can support this and enhance women’s capacity to contribute to it. FLIARA will combine futures and case study methods, alongside network building and policy benchmarking, while being underpinned by a co-created conceptual and assessment framework. Using a unique foresight approach, FLIARA will identify visions for sustainable farm and rural futures and the sustainability innovations needed to realise these visions. Using a thematic case-study approach, project partners will investigate women-led innovations on farms and in wider rural areas looking at their pathways in the innovation ecosystem. Building on the power of social networks, a Community of Practice will be developed with women identified throughout the case studies networking alongside key innovation policy and governance stakeholders. The Community of Practice Network will occur in conjunction with a Campaign of Visibility for women-led rural innovations, spotlighting women as key innovation actors. Project outcomes will result in end-user ready resources, including policy proposals and practical tools supporting women-led innovation.

The current state of the art is that the project EURAKNOS has analyzed the knowledge of 28 Horizon funded Thematic Networks (TNs) and linked operational groups (OGs) and developed a vision and guidelines for a digital knowledge reservoir for an EU-wide agriculture and forestry practice. EUREKA has continued this effort by examining 120 Horizon funded MA projects within the EIP-AGRI and developing a ‘proof of concept’ of such a knowledge reservoir building on the results of the EURAKNOS project. EU-FarmBook will capitalize on the results of EURAKNOS and EUREKA, making the data taken up in the platform more FAIR and adding necessary functionalities to the platform based on the users’ needs such as interactive peer to peer interaction and user content evaluation tools. Moreover EU-FarmBook will assure the linkage to traditional dissemination channels, such as agricultural journals, on farm demo activities, and training and education initiatives. The EU-FarmBook will therefore work closely with associations of journalists (ENAJ), educational and training institutions and strengthen the ties with EIP-AGRI Service Point. The effort will also be expanded by looking beyond H2020 and Horizon Europe funded projects, and OGs, through linkage and interoperability with national and regional initiatives. During the whole project an intensive dialogue will be maintained with AKIS coordination offices and CAP networks in all MS. The aim is that during the first stage of the project the concept of the platform will evolve to an exploitable product that will stimulate the exchange and collaboration between the AKIS actors at an EU wide scale. Targeted and efficient management of data and information to support agriculture and forestry practice from different sources will not only support the CAP but also the Green Deal and Farm to Fork objectives and targets, ultimately resulting in innovation for an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable agriculture and forestry

The EU has set a target of reaching at least 25% organic farmland by 2030, which requires a tripling of the current organic area and the entry of 700,000 new farmers into the organic sector. This calls for easy access to reliable knowledge about organic practices, as well as the creation of innovations. Organic advisory services are essential to achieve this, and there is a need for 10,000-20,000 organic advisers in the EU to serve these farmers. The overall objective of the project is to co-create an EU-wide network of 1000 organic advisors that will exchange knowlegde and provide mutual support, covering all 27 EU Member States and 7 other European countries. The network will cover both plant production and animal husbandry. It will embrace the diversity of organic advisory services offered by private and publication organisations or self-employed professionals. An Action Plan will be created to ensure the long-term continuation of the network, laying down a governance structure and identifying future funding streams. Exchange will take place in online community spaces and in-person events. Online learning activities will be offered to increase technical and soft skills of advisors, both newcomers in the sector as well as more experienced organic advisors. Based on an analysis of drivers and barriers, the project will empower organic advisors to improve capacity of their organisations and promote the creation of organic advisory services where they do not exist yet. Successful business models of structuring and financing organic advisory services will be assessed. The outcomes of the project will be disseminated to actors within and beyond the organic community. Finally, synergies will be created with other EU projects and policy makers will be engaged to foster long-term support for the network itself and for organic advisory services in all parts of Europe.

Forests are crucial for climate mitigation, biodiversity protection, water flow regulation, recreational, cultural and health services – and many other forest ecosystem services (FES). Yet, as our key challenge, Europe’s forests at present critically undershoot their potential to deliver FES. Climate change will affect future FES supply. Societal demand for FES will be complex, and highly dynamic. Some FES economic values are ill explored. Facing these challenges, INTERCEDE will help to better match future FES supply and demand from Europe’s forests. First, we will project theory-informed yet evidence-based scenarios for future FES supply and demand. Second, as recognized in the EU Forest Strategy, Market-Based Instruments (MBI) can be key in improving tailored incentives and incomes for forest owners to manage their forest for socially optimal FES provision. MBI can thus help aligning FES supply with multidimensional demand. We will comprehensively map and evaluate Europe’s current MBI landscape, adding new rigorous impact evaluations of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) schemes, while also assessing the EU’s Rural Development Programme (RDP) investments from a PES angle. From this, we will develop effective, adaptable and scalable MBI policies. We can only achieve this by systematically connecting research to policy and practice, creating our multi-actor aligned Transdisciplinary Forum as key interface. Our consortium brings together small and medium-sized enterprises assisting forest owners in FES management practices, organisations representing landowners and environmental interests, and researchers who excel in modelling and valuing FES, in the economics of instrument design, and in governance and policy analysis. The consortium will mid-way in the project set up an Accelerator Service for (new or pre-existing) PES and MBI schemes, piloting new designs and MBI business models to boost the development, outcomes and impacts of targeted interventions.

The Societal Challenges addressed by European Union (EU) strategies such as the Green Deal and Farm-to-Form require innovative solutions in agriculture, forestry and rural areas. The Multi-Actor-Approach (MAA) is a promising instrument to speed up innovation. However, the H2020 RIA LIAISON (2018-2022) has identified some deficits and inconsistencies in the interpretation of the MAA by both current and potential MA consortia and Member States’ (MS) authorities. PREMIERE will therefore foster the development of sound, coherent and well-prepared MA projects in two ways. Firstly, it will contribute to the building of project consortia that make best use of the complementary knowledge of their members during proposal writing, project activities and beyond, in particular by improving the connection between Horizon Europe (HE) MA projects and Operational Groups (OG). Secondly, through insights and tools, it will support the implementation of innovative governance and sound decision making in policy and administration for the green transition. By using the results from LIAISON and capturing ‘grass roots’ ideas from project participants, policy makers and executive agencies through stakeholder dialogue across all 27 EU MS (including with the SCAR AKIS SWG, National Contact Points and other relevant HE projects), PREMIERE will develop tools as well as training and networking events for capacity development. These will include a Serious Game, an Online Academy and a MOOC. The project will test out the effect of providing seed funding to at least eight MA organisations (mainly OGs) and prepare a handbook of good practices. This user-focused workplan, with its open science outputs, will lead to more effective EU and national AKIS. It will be implemented by a very experienced, competent and genuinely MA consortium of policy makers, executive agencies, advisors for co-innovation partnerships, AKIS actors and/or and current and potential MA project partners.