The European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, and the European Innovation Partnership EIP-AGRI Service Point are organising a seminar dedicated to the development of national Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) as part of the CAP Strategic Plans post 2020. 

Knowledge and innovation fostering and sharing are part of the post 2020 CAP cross-cutting objective on modernisation. They have a key role to play in helping farmers and rural communities meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. There is an increasing demand for innovative solutions through continuous renewal of products, processes and services. For quicker impact, such solutions are best co-created by people with complementary knowledge, and by farmers and foresters as end-users of the project results. They bring in the necessary practical knowledge to make the results applicable in practice. This successful interactive innovation model based on co-ownership of innovation and its results was established in the current funding period. It links research, innovation and knowledge sharing under Horizon 2020 and the CAP with the EIP- AGRI and its current over 1200 Operational Groups. It will be continued and further developed in the next period 2021-2027.

The main current challenge is that the existing national and regional AKISs are not sufficiently interconnected within each Member State to effectively support interactive innovation. There is already a substantial amount of knowledge available, but the available knowledge is fragmented all over Europe and insufficiently applied in practice. 

Well-functioning AKISs will help speed up innovation throughout the EU, avoid duplication of efforts and save costs, and strengthen the impact of EU and national/regional R&I funding providing cross-border spill-overs. 

The overall aim of this seminar is to support the Member States in the preparation of their AKIS Strategic Plans and to promote efficient agricultural knowledge flows across the whole EU. It will focus on exchanging experiences and inspiring examples in organising and supporting knowledge creation and exchange in agriculture between the different AKIS actors. It will create the opportunity to familiarise Member State administrations and other AKIS actors with the various possible approaches through discussions and the exchange of experiences on draft AKIS Strategic Plans and actions.

More information here