Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NEFERTITI (Networking European Farms to Enhance Cross Fertilisation and Innovation Uptake through Demonstration)

Teaser

In 2009, the 2nd SCAR Foresight raised the fact that the European AKIS (Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems) were “unable to absorb and internalise the fundamental structural and systemic shifts that have occurred” and that substantial evolution of the Research &...

Summary

In 2009, the 2nd SCAR Foresight raised the fact that the European AKIS (Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems) were “unable to absorb and internalise the fundamental structural and systemic shifts that have occurred” and that substantial evolution of the Research & Innovation paradigms were necessary to increase the exchange of knowledge and to change the agricultural systems. This awareness led the DG AGRI to launch the “EIP-AGRI productive and sustainable agriculture” that promote multi-actors’ partnership within interactive innovation project in order to better identify needs of the farming sector and to better address their challenges and tailor research activities for a more efficient innovation uptake. Within this overall agricultural and knowledge related challenge, demonstration activities and peer-to-peer learning have always been perceived as one of the most efficient levers to share knowledge, so incentivising farmers to change their practices and farming system. In this context, the European Commission funded 2020 projects (PLAID and AGRIDEMO F2F) under H2020 2016 program in order to inventories the demo-farm across Europe and to identify Demonstration best practices. Building on these 2 projects, the overall objective of NEFERTITI is to network the European demonstration farms on 10 specific thematic areas, in order to increase the number of demonstration activities and their quality, so accelerating knowledge flows between actors and European territories, improving innovation uptake and the impact of research and innovation.

Work performed

The compilation of available knowledge on effective network development is realised through the development the “Conceptual framework and key factors for network development”. The “Good practice for farm demonstrations” gives an extensive overview of good practices for both on-farm and virtual demonstrations. Further, a Dynamic Action Plan (DAP) was developed for the 10 Networks defining both the needs of network actors and a concrete action plan for each network.
The setting-up of the project Networks consisted in 1) shaping the architecture and governance model of the 45 hubs and 10 networks, 2) identifying European demo-farmers, innovation actors and projects, 3) define structure of knowledge exchange meetings and organise the first one and 4) define structure of cross-visits and support hub coaches and network leaders in the organisation and carry out of their cross-visits.
The organisation of the demo-campaign consisted in 1) sharing a common definition of a Demo Event, providing methodology, tools and guidelines to organise, carry out and evaluate their events, 2) creating the tools on the Nefertiti Platform to register and follow-up the demo activities of each hub, 3) Incentivising, supporting and accompanying all 45 hub coaches to better understand the demo events they could support/organise, to integrate best practices, to register, plan and report on demo-events. By the beginning of July 151 events have been registered (67% of the annual objective was reached in 6 months).
The project platform was developed as a tool that will serve the needs of the project. After gathering the requirements of the partners, the baseline was the approved platform architecture followed by 9 sprints to achieve the platform development. The platform provides a description of the networks, hubs and farms, the list of innovation actors, the calendar of the events and the report of each demo-event. The open-source platform is fully interoperable with the “Farm Demo Hub” platform and available in all project languages.
The project structured a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) approach that serves two general functions: to increase the capacity for ‘self-assessment’ in the hubs and networks, and, to report on the activities, what is learned in the hubs, networks and the wider AKIS. A practical set of guidelines and tools has been developed: 1) the Hub M&E Journal for demo events 2)a checklist describing aspects and questions for M&E, 3) an Exit Poll for demo events participants, 4) a tool for Team Reflection and self-reflection in the hub, 5) an approach for evaluation of Cross Visits including practical templates and protocols.
Policy makers were approached (through ERIAFF and S3 Thematic Platforms) to become a member of the NEFERTITI network by signing a membership declaration (42 policy actors so far). This figure will keep on rising along the project. The project started with stimulating a connection with other relevant regional, national and EU projects (including EIP-OGs and H2020 projects) as the demonstrations will offer an opportunity to other projects to show their results to farmers in an interactive way.
The tools for the communication and communication around demo activities have been prepared: the dissemination and communication plan, Social Media strategy, corporate identity, communication material in all languages, physical meetings, workshops, conference, project website, videos on the Farm Demo YouTube channel and social media. In addition, strong links have been established with the EIP-AGRI.

Final results

The definition of the 6 “key factors for network development” are easy to understand and useful for both the networks within the project as other networks. Specifically, in combination with the DAP-guide, a useful tool is created for all networks to achieve long-term goals, by specifying shorter term actions. The FarmDemo toolkit using the input of the “Demonstration Best practices” will be further developed and spread within and outside the project.
NEFERTITI’s hubs and networks lay the foundation for the engagement of a European wide EIP-AGRI network. Two important “side effect” of the Networking activities have been identified: 1) the attractivity of the Network for actors outside the consortium and from other countries and 2) the connections/joint activities with other project that want to use Nefertiti tools and Networks.
The platform to showcase demo-farms and to announce and report on demo-events is a unique tool that can evolve in the time and be used and extended further to other projects even after the project timelife. The connection with “Ask.Valerie” tool and the extension of the Valerie Ontology to Nefertiti project and thematic area is a clear added-value.
The “Monitoring and evaluation” stimulates the quality of the demonstration activities by capturing and sharing practices and methods to improve collective peer-to-peer learning on demo-farms. These approaches can fuel demonstration activities in various countries and could be integrated in other R&I projects (H2020 and OGs) in order to boost the outreach of their activities.
The operational connection of Nefertiti hubs with a wide range of actors and Policy makers allow them to better learn the business, the problems and obstacles of the farmers. whereas Researchers also learn about these real problems and may have solutions in some cases. Farmers and innovation actors learn about the opportunities that public authorities can offer to strengthen and increase on farm demonstration activities.
The ease of use of the platform and web site started to attract increasing number of users from different geographical areas of Europe, ensuring a wide European coverage of the pedo-climatic areas and representation of the AKIS diversity. The active social media communication substantially strengthen the communication impact including the video channel.

Website & more info

More info: https://nefertiti-h2020.eu/.