i2connect

i2connect is an H2020 funded project that supports interactive innovation processes in European agriculture and forestry

Context

Innovation and innovative processes have always been part of advisory work. In the past it was focused on new production techniques, the introduction of research results and more and more on methods to lower the production costs and to optimize subsidies.
Today it is accepted, that knowledge is also gained by practitioners from their own work, from experiences in groups and their raising knowledge from different information channels. The group of stakeholders has been extended by representatives of value chains, consumers, NGO’s and research people.
This offers new perspectives for advisors. The role of knowledge transfer nowadays is extended to the role of a facilitator. And tomorrow more and more advisors are needed to support multi-actor innovation processes. In the past innovation processes were the product of hazards and intuition.
The trainings for innovation support agents, offered by the i2connect project, will focus on their role in multi-actor innovation processes.

Project objectives

The i2connect project aims to fuel the competencies of advisors who will support and facilitate interactive innovation processes responding to multiple challenges in European agriculture and forestry. This facilitation requires awareness, new tools and methods, motivational and organisational approaches for advisors. The strategy in i2connect is to use the existing advisor networks and the experiences of success in different contexts to create a broader network and momentum of change enabling a new culture of bottom up led innovation support. This resource of over 40,000 advisors are critical actors supporting agriculture and forestry on the ground and must be influenced in this project to support interactively innovation with particular emphasis on EIP 2020 target of 3,500 operational groups and beyond.

More informations

Project lifetime

5 years

Budget

Total i2connect for 5 years: 5 millions Euros
AGRIDEA part for 5 years : 300 000 Euros

Partners

i2connect brings together 32 organisations, most of them directly involved in stimulating innovation in rural areas and food systems in all corners of Europe. The major associations of rural advisory services are partners. In the consortium 22 languages are spoken.