One of the main difficulties that the European agri-food cooperatives are facing is the lack of involvement and participation of young farmers (men and women) in the management of their own farms and in the day to day activities of the cooperative. The generational shift is not guaranteed because the younger farmers are not aware of the importance of the cooperative structure for the sustainability of their farms. Considering this need, the aim of the project is to get a generational and gender balance in the co-operative agricultural sector through the strengthening of the capacities of young generation of farmers (men and women) in order to ensure the generational shift in their family farms and co-operatives. The goal is to engage young farmers with the values and objectives of the cooperatives. It will empower young farmers to make changes in the cooperatives in terms of innovation and improvement of the cooperative areas of work. The project partnership is formed by 5 organizations coming from 5 different EU Member States. The Coordinator (ICOS) and Partner 3 (SERVICES COOP DE FRANCE) are the national Association and Union of agri-food co-operatives in their countries (Ireland and France), Partner 2 (AGACA) is the Association of agri-food cooperative of Galician region (Spain) and Partner 5 (LLKC)) is the Public Agency of the Ministery of Agriculture for the rural advisory and traning center for co-operatives. They will provide the project with a work-based experience in the cooperatives sector and a strong link with project stakeholders and project beneficiaries. Partner 3 (Changemaker) is a consultancy company and VET provider specialized in ICT and innovative training tool development and consultancy of innovation and change processes management. They will play a pedagogical supervisor role in the development of the training contents and tools. The methodology used to develop the project will be based on cooperative learning, paying special attention to the involvement of participants as active agents of their own learning process. The main foreseen result of the project will be: Innovative shared training contents about Basic Farm Management through joint development available in English, Spanish, French and Latvian. Innovative shared training contents about cooperative culture and values available in English, Spanish, French and Latvian. 1 open-source ICT platform to support learning with interactive management of contents and tools. 6 Cooperative games to work cooperative values supporting previous training contents. 1 Training course for trainers (virtual training), in order to train trainers in the use and implement of the training contents and cooperative games developed. 4 National Pilot Training Sessions with final beneficiaries held in Ireland, Spain, France, Latvia. These will aim to present and test common training contents and methodologies and for testing the cooperative games developed. 3 Seminars of presentation of intellectual products developed in Spain, France and Latvia, in order to disseminate and capitalise project objectives and results. 1 Final Conference held in Ireland through which the final results of the project will be disseminated and capitalise on. 2 Blended mobilities for young farmers and women farmers (learners of partners), in order to directly experience different points of view and different ways about how young farmers and women are getting involved in the agri-food co-operative sector in other countries. Virtual and physical mobilities are foreseen. At the end of the project the following impacts will be achieved: 1) Provide the agri-food cooperative sector, and the associations of cooperatives and VET providers in particular, with new and innovative training contents and tools for fostering knowledge in Basic farm management and Cooperative culture and values among their younger members (women and men). 2) Improve and update pedagogical, methodological and procedural skills and technical knowledge of participating organisations’ trainers, especially of organisations offering VET contents to cooperatives. 3) Update the technological and pedagogical knowledge of trainers in participating organizations about the offer of new innovative training tools and resources available, in order to provide them with the skills and the knowledge required to create, manage and develop Innovative training tools using ICT tools and open-source technology as well as cooperative learning tools. 4) Increase the quality and accessibility of the VET offer in the agri-food cooperative sector.

SCOoPE project will work directly with energy-intense agro-food industries to implement cross-cutting and collaborative energy management systems addressed to reduce their energy consumption, and will further spread this knowledge within technicians, businesses managers, and energy and agro-food institutions. The project SCOoPE aims at achieving the challenges of the topic EE 16-2014/2015. Regarding the use of cost-effective energy solutions, the project objective is to reduce energy consumption at a short term in a range between 10% and 15% directly in 81 businesses belonging to the agro-food target sectors of the project (namely crop drying, meat and poultry, dairy, and fruit and vegetables transformation). This reduction must be achieved without any decrease in the production capacity of the companies and maintaining correct socioeconomic and environmental conditions. In order to do that, the project will work with the uptake of specific and cross-cutting innovative technologies and techniques, which efficacy has been proven in other industrial sectors, different from agro-food sector, but that are not yet familiar to project’s target sectors. On the other hand, the project pursues larger savings in the medium term with new affordable energy solutions, specifically by developing the concept of “Collaborative Energy Management Systems”. It will take advantage of complementarities and synergies between analysed industrial sites with similar characteristics and will use them for the improvement of their joint energy efficiency. For this purpose, 6 pilot industrial clusters will be run in order to prove the improvements of total energy consumptions and its associated costs, achieved by using common procedures based on ISO 50.001 and supported by an specific software (Dashboard) developed by the project. All these experiences will be promoted to encourage target groups to reduce their energy consumption, following the example of the directly involved companies.

uP_running project aims to set the path for the development of the bioenergy utilisation of agrarian pruning and plantation removal (APPR) wood obtained from vineyards, olive groves and fruit tree plantations. uP_running vocation is the abatement of the current immobilism of the value chain actors for the utilization of APPR woody biomass. For that purpose uP_running incorporates a set of straight actions aimed to reshape the sectors perception, to provide evidences of real success and replicable models to follow, as well as to promote the take-off for the utilisation of APPR biomass residues. An intense communication campaign will address the varied target audience with tailored messages and materials to raise the awareness. An impact on policy barriers and on the legal framework currently setting limits for the utilisation of APPR wood will be carried out through direct advocacy and lobbying work at national and EU level. Once the awareness is raised and the sector is released of hindering barriers, a snowball effect will be triggered through multiplicative and dissemination actions. First part of uP_running multiplicative strategy is to create a permanent capacity in Europe, by empowering national and regional agrarian associations, extension services and/or private consultants with capacities to give support for decision making to farmers, cooperatives and agro-industries owing the APPR residues. A call for entrepreneurship will put into operation the newly created capacities in 7 EU countries to promote the decision making of pioneer entrepreneurs. Setting up and running new APPR biomass value chains is the key for a self-replication and to further contribute to the development of the bio-economy in Europe. The actions will be initiated in a set of 4 “demo” countries (that together account for 50% of EU potential), replicated in 3 relevant EU countries, and extended through precursor actions to 7 additional EU countries.

The INDUCE project will develop an open access platform (INDUCE toolkit) where training material, online lessons, guidelines and tools will be available for companies aiming to increase their energy efficiency. Besides, the INDUCE methodology will be integrated in the platform with the objective of designing to design a specific capacity building programme for every company accessing the INDUCE toolkit, which will resulting in ad-hoc training adapted to the company’s needs and opportunities. The INDUCE methodology will link knowledge transfer on energy efficiency with behavioural and organizational change models, so an energy culture and an environment conducive for change are established in the company, while employees are motivated to act in a more sustainable manner. Unique about this methodology is that it will follow a Human-Centered Design approach, in which every phase will be conducted in close cooperation with the end users of the capacity building programme. This will enable INDUCE to interact and test together with the companies the best interventions, measures, etc. to be implemented. The INDUCE methodology and the toolkit will be both tested and validated in 15 pilot companies from the food and beverage sector in four countries that represent over 45% of the EU companies in this sector: Spain, France, the Netherlands and Germany. In a second replication step, an INDUCE community of trainers will be established by certifying 60 INDUCE trainers. They will be in charge of implementing the INDUCE methodology in another 300 companies, hence increasing INDUCE's impact up to 106 GWh/year of energy savings. The INDUCE Consortium includes three well-know research centres with expertise in energy efficiency, behavioural science and decision-making processes. In addition, a partner in charge of training at national level and an association as multiplier organization has been involved in every pilot country. Finally, this competitive consortium is completed by a research oriented SME focussed on exploitation and dissemination.

RUBIZMO will identify business models with high potential for empowering rural communities to take advantage of the opportunities arising from improved value chain optimisation. It will directly supporting the creation of sustainable jobs and growth in rural economies, supporting a multi-actor approach for generation of shared-value. Ultimately, the project looks to contribute to rural development in Europe, supporting the Europe 2020 Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth, as well as supporting Regional and Rural Development policy. To do this, the project will identify innovative business models (developed or identified in existing projects under FP7, H2020, Interreg, Central Europe, etc.) with a significant potential to support modernisation and sustainable growth in rural economies, and relevant to the food sector, bio-based value chains and ecosystem services. Business models with the potential to contribute to the modernisation and sustainable growth of rural economies will be selected, packaged and classified according to their nature, comprising technologies, services, business support structures, financing mechanisms, etc. This will result in the creation of four practical, user-oriented tools: - Virtual library of business cases, to inspire and inform potential entrepreneurs about business opportunities; - Guidelines on creating favourable conditions for the deployment of innovative business models, to help public authorities and rural networks create adequate framework conditions for rural innovation; - Toolkit for clustering and network development in rural areas; - Transformation support tool, to help individual entrepreneurs understand which business models are best adapted to their situation, and how to go about implementing change. The project will then prepare Europe-wide upscaling and replication in rural areas using real life cases, taking account of the complexity of transferring value chains.