Increasing knowledge flows to practice within AKIS via EU thematic knowledge hubs

This destination will support the EU Commission priorities ‘Sustaining our quality of life: food security, water and nature’ and ‘A new plan for Europe’s sustainable prosperity and competitiveness’, which require innovative and agile governance models and tools to support transformative change within planetary boundaries.

R&I supporting decision-making is a key enabler for the Vision for Agriculture and Food that aims to secure the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of the EU's farming and food systems within the boundaries of our planet, as well as to meet the objectives set out in the Common Agricultural Policy.

Besides, the R&I supporting the bioeconomy, with a focus on bio-based solutions and the role of biotechnology, needs to be further strengthened, in line with the new EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the Communication on Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing and the Life Sciences Strategy.

There is also a need to unlock the potential of applied digital and data technologies to support sectors covered by this cluster in becoming more competitive, sustainable, resilient and inclusive in line with the evolving EU policies on cyber, data and data technologies and digital services, notably the European Data Strategy, the Europe’s Digital Decade Policy Programme, the AI Continent Action Plan and the upcoming EU digital strategy for agriculture. This destination will contribute to the development, support and take up of digital and data-based solutions to implement the European Green Deal, while fostering innovation and supporting start-ups, thereby supporting the EU Competitiveness Compass.

The destination supports the European Ocean Pact, aiming at bringing coherence across all EU policy areas linked to the ocean, supporting a resilient and healthy ocean and coastal areas and promoting the sustainable blue economy. In particular, land-sea connection areas are crucial for addressing the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, coastal erosion, extreme events, and hydrological crises. When relevant, actions are encouraged to align with the EU Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’, leveraging its digital infrastructures (such as the Digital Twin Ocean), stakeholder networks, and knowledge systems to enhance governance, environmental observation, and policy-support tools across terrestrial and aquatic systems.

This destination implements research actions to address water challenges in the EU and support the European Water Resilience Strategy by advancing the capacity for proper management of water sources.

In line with the global approach on R&I, this destination will foster and support regional and international initiatives, encourage international cooperation, contribute substantially to the implementation of key international treaties and to the work of various international bodies, assessments and other initiatives, and help achieve international commitments, notably under the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement.

Knowledge and advice are key to improving competitiveness, sustainability and resilience. R&I actions under this destination will support effective Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) that are at the heart of the 2023-2027 CAP’s cross-cutting objective as a key mean to bridge the gap between science and practice. Synergies with the EU-CAP Network, and particularly the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups supported by the CAP, will be further exploited.

The European Research Area is further integrated, and the global efforts are well-coordinated for impact-oriented science on food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture-forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, and environment.

The Destination supports unlocking the unique assets for research and innovation of the EU outermost regions, in line with the EU strategy for outermost regions^[1].

Expected Impact: Proposals for topics under this destination should set out credible pathways to "developing innovative governance models and tools enabling sustainability and resilience", and more specifically to one or several of the following expected impacts:

• improved evidence-based knowledge, tools and science-society-policy interfaces support effective policy mixes and multi-level governance that are capable of anticipating a changing world, enabling a just sustainable transition for all, engaging society at large and balancing economic, social and environmental goals;
• competitiveness, sustainability and resilience of the economy are supported by more accessible and interoperable environmental observations and improved Earth Intelligence;
• productivity is boosted and transformative changes required by the European Green Deal are facilitated, leaving no one behind, thanks to enhanced digital and data technologies, flows of existing and new knowledge, solutions and skills among actors and communities, as well as maximised synergies between initiatives.

[1] COM(2022) Putting people first, securing sustainable and inclusive growth, unlocking the potential of the EU’s outermost regions.

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• competitiveness, sustainability (where relevant including biodiversity restoration), and resilience of agriculture, forestry and rural areas is fostered, by providing impartial and tailored knowledge to advisors and end-users^[1];
• advisors are better integrated into the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) with up-to-date, practice-oriented knowledge that enables them to provide farmers with high quality and impartial advice;
• research findings, innovative solutions, practical knowledge and best practices, are well known, widely shared and used in practice by end-users.

Scope:

There is a growing need to disseminate practical knowledge on challenges and opportunities for agriculture, forestry and rural areas stemming from both scientific-research and practical experience, and to effectively link it to the relevant actors through enhanced thematic collaboration between researchers, advisors and farmers.

EU thematic knowledge hubs should transform both existing and new knowledge into accessible formats for advisors and targeted end-users, focusing on dissemination over collection. By blending the strengths of thematic and advisory networks, these hubs should offer services to widely disseminate information on specific themes among practitioners on the ground, contributing to a well-informed, and engaged AKIS community. Proposal should set up these hubs as a go-to source for valuable content, facilitating access to relevant thematic research findings presented in a practical way, innovative solutions, and best practices, empowering advisors with cutting-edge knowledge and providing ample opportunities of collaboration and cross fertilization amongst the different AKIS actors.

Proposals should:

• compile a comprehensive up-to-date scientific and practical knowledge, best practices and innovative solutions within the thematic area indicated, which are effective and ready for use in practice, but not commonly known and/or used by the end-users. This objective should be achieved by primarily drawing from existing resources, while also remaining open to incorporating new sources as they become available;
• develop and widely share and disseminate an extensive range of useful, applicable and appealing informative materials and training courses using the most effective approaches, formats, tools (including audio-visual) to reach end-users and advisors through diverse channels mostly used by practitioners. The information provided should be easy to access and understand and translated into at least all 24 EU official languages to allow dissemination across the whole EU. Consortia should ensure collection and dissemination of knowledge from and to at least fourteen EU Member States, guaranteeing a balanced geographical coverage across the EU;
• offer services that enhance networking, cross-fertilization and knowledge exchange between the different AKIS actors^[2], to stimulate dialogue on innovative solutions and initiatives, to build relations and support mutual learning across the EU;
• actively involve advisors in EU thematic knowledge hubs and mobilise also other relevant AKIS actors (including the AKIS coordination bodies) and actions at European/national/regional levels to support the implementation of the knowledge and solutions in practice across the EU;
• include a dedicated task and appropriate resources to collaborate with, ensure complementarities, avoid duplication of efforts and use efficiently the outputs and activities of the relevant past, existing and future AKIS projects^[3];
• establish strong collaborations with national or regional authorities and ecosystems ensuring effective partnerships that support Member States in the training of advisors and enable them to provide practical guidance tailored to diverse contexts, including accessing finance;
• develop a long-term plan to update and maintain the knowledge hub and its outputs beyond the project duration. Ensure that all resources are created with interoperability, adaptability and transferability in mind to facilitate their continued use and transfer/integration across diverse platforms and stakeholders.

Proposals should either address the thematic Area A: Holistic management of crop nutrition and protection for resilient and healthy cropping systems or Area B: Agrobiodiversity and wild pollinators for economic and environmental sustainability. The area (A or B) should be clearly indicated in the proposal. Within the frame of each of the broad thematic area, applicants should select specific topics in a bottom-up way in order to respond to the most urgent need(s) from practice, explain the relevance of the theme in relation to end-users’ need(s), clarifying the added-value of the proposal and how it avoids duplication with ongoing or completed thematic networks and projects^[4].

Proposals must implement the multi-actor approach, with a balanced consortium of relevant actors with complementary knowledge, actively involving advisors and end-users to identify the most urgent practical needs and plan and execute the main tasks of the thematic knowledge hub. Minimum 30% of the number of people involved in the project should be impartial advisors^[5] and spending at least half of their working time on giving advice to farmers. Consortium partners should have a wide network and be capable to involve as many professionally active advisors as possible across the EU into the activities of the project. To this end, proposals may involve financial support to third parties (FSTP) to ensure the involvement of advisors from across the whole EU in the activities of the advisory network.

The projects under this topic are relevant to the EU policies related to the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food and the cross-cutting objective of the common agricultural policy (CAP) to enhance knowledge flows among AKIS actors, in particular advisory services and end-users.

[1] An “(end-)user” of R&I result(s) is a person who is him/herself putting the results into practice (i.e. practitioner); depending on the thematic area which the knowledge hub is expected to focus on, end-users could be farmers and/or foresters and/or other rural actors, or all of them

[2] akisconnect | Connecting all EU AKIS actors

[3] In particular but not exhaustive the projects funded under Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and CAP: advisory and thematic networks, ATTRACTISS, modernAKIS, i2connect, PREMIERE, EU-FarmBook, the future project to be selected under the topic HORIZON-CL6-2025-03-GOVERNANCE-14, and relevant EIP-AGRI Operational Groups projects.

[4] A theme already covered by a finished thematic network(s) is not allowed, unless the added value of the thematic network proposal is clearly explained and justified.

[5] In line with the Article 15(3) of the Regulation (EU) 2021/2115, advisors must be suitably qualified, appropriately trained and have no conflict of interest.