A strong relationship; from EURAKNOS to EUREKA

Did you know that much of the new agricultural and forestry knowledge never actually reaches the people who need it most? Quite surprising - isn’t it! The good news is that in our two sister projects, EURAKNOS and EUREKA, we have been working to change this situation.

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FROM EURAKNOS TO EUREKA
Did you know that much of the new agricultural and forestry knowledge which is generated through research and innovation projects funded by the European Union never actually reaches the people who need it most? Quite surprising isn’t it! The good news is that in our two sister projects, EURAKNOS and EUREKA, we have been working to change this situation. With funding from the EU Horizon 2020 programme we have been building a digital platform that will bridge the gap between research and practice - between the people who create solutions and those who can benefit from it. EURAKNOS recently held its final conference and EUREKA therefore became fully responsible for the next steps towards creating and testing the EU-wide, open-access "Agricultural Knowledge Reservoir" (The EU FarmBook). In this newsletter we explain the work of EURAKNOS and EUREKA in a little more detail.

This video explains the relationship between EURAKNOS & EUREKA as well as the purpose of the "EU FarmBook"

Do you want to learn more?

The first step
The journey began in 2019 when EURAKNOS was launched. The project aimed to create the basis for improved (digital) exchange of best practices between farmers, researchers and advisors from different sectors and EU Member States. Firstly, outputs from various H2020 Thematic Network projects were collected to identify the most effective strategies and tools for storing and sharing data. See the video Building a digital knowledge database to collect outputs from various Thematic Network Projects.
Secondly, EURAKNOS collected the most important findings on what makes an effective multi-actor network-, and how to implement these best practices in Thematic Network projects. These are available in an exciting new publication, The Explorer’s Guide to Thematic Networks. See video:

The Explorer’s Guide to Thematic Networks

In January 2021, the EURAKNOS policy brief (vision paper) was published in Volume 8 of the Project Repository Journal, an Open Access publication with a global audience of over 200,000 people. European subscribers include those with roles in the European Commission, local and central government agencies and departments, funding agencies and research councils, and many more. The vision paper describes a centralised, EU-wide, open-source digital platform to share and store practical knowledge outputs from Thematic Networks on agriculture and forestry topics.

Finally, EURAKNOS has built a prototype of the online agricultural knowledge base. The work on this platform does not end with EURAKNOS, but is continued with its sister project EUREKA. Testing the prototype platform (the ‘minimum viable product’) is a major focus of EUREKA and this will be done in an iterative, flexible and agile way. The EUREKA team is generating and integrating feedback from end users to improve the design of the platform, ensuring usability and the inclusion of all features needed.

Project Co-ordinator, Dr. Pieter Spanoghe, was recently invited to present the combined work of the EURAKNOS and EUREKA projects to the ‘Permanent Subgroup on Innovation for agricultural productivity and sustainability’. This high-level group supports implementation of the EIP-AGRI in EU rural development policy and provides an important link to the National Rural Networks that are established in each of the 27 Member States, as well as the European civil dialogue groups with an interest in rural innovation. The presentation can be viewed here: https://ec.europa.eu/eip/agriculture/sites/default/files/field_event_attachments/sgi18_euraknos_eureka_pieter_spanoghe.pdf

Speaking after the meeting, Dr Spanoghe explained:
“The EURAKNOS / EUREKA projects have been running at a time when more and more results and innovative solutions are becoming available from EU-funded multi-actor projects and thematic networks. This meeting was a great opportunity to explain our work to the rural networks and how they can also engage with this knowledge sharing. During the meeting we also discussed that a new website will be built for the post-2020 EU CAP network and that the advice and valuable experience from the EURAKNOS / EUREKA projects can be taken into account”.

At the moment The EU FarmBook is being tested and it is expected to be launched mid 2021. If you want to learn more about EUREKA and the EU FarmBook please visit our website.

11 May 2022

In order to test the feasibility of developing an EU-level online knowledge reservoir - the EUREKA team created end-user personas and journeys to help understand the requirements of farmers, foresters and advisors across the EU.

09 Mar 2022

The digital platform 'EU FarmBook' has been developed to test a big idea: Can all of the tangible outputs of EU-funded research and innovation projects be brought together and organized in one user-friendly platform to help get practical knowledge into the hands of the farmers, foresters and advisors across Europe who need it most?