Focus Group 'Competitive and resilient mountain areas'
Which innovative approaches and innovations linked to agriculture, forestry and bioeconomy can foster the competitiveness and the socio-economic and environmental resilience of mountain areas and their communities?
Tasks
- Collect and highlight innovative approaches and inspiring success stories on new ways of capitalising agri-food, forestry products and other bioeconomy products, including ways to cope with challenges posed by climate change, land abandonment, improve the coexistence between farming and large carnivores and take advantage of new opportunities such as social farming or health-based agritourism.
- Identify challenges and opportunities to strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of mountain areas. These can be, for example, related to business models, markets and value chains, access to traditional and local knowledge and capacity building, new technologies and digital solutions.
- Explore the role of social innovation and ways to increase social resilience and reinforce social communities in mountain areas, for example attracting and engaging new citizens in the agricultural, forestry or bioeconomy sectors.
- Identify the needs to support innovation in mountain areas.
- Propose ideas for potential Operational Groups and other innovative projects.
- Identify research needs coming from practice and possible gaps in knowledge.
Focus Group members
| Mr/Ms | Surname | First name | Profession | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mr. | Arion | Felix | Expert from an organisation, network, group or enterprise | Romania |
| Ms. | Costa | Cristina Amaro | Researcher | Portugal |
| Mr. | Dreer | Johannes | Farm advisor | Germany |
| Ms. | Dzhambazova | Rositsa | Expert from an organisation, network, group or enterprise | Bulgaria |
| Ms. | Fernández Pérez | Liliana | Farm manager or owner | Spain |
| Ms. | Fidanska | Bozhura | Researcher | Bulgaria |
| Mr. | Fischer | Markus | Expert from an organisation, network, group or enterprise | Austria |
| Ms. | Jarosch | Julika | Expert from an organisation, network, group or enterprise | France |
| Mr. | Jitea | Ionel Mugurel | Researcher | Romania |
| Mr. | Kazoglou | Ioannis (Yannis) | Researcher | Greece |
| Ms. | Keena | Catherine | Farm advisor | Ireland |
| Mr. | Lazaro | Juan Antonio | Other | Spain |
| Mr. | Lundin | Sten-Rune | Civil servant | Sweden |
| Mr. | Mateus | Tiago | Expert from an organisation, network, group or enterprise | Portugal |
| Ms. | Murphy | Bridget | Farmer | Ireland |
| Mr. | O'Driscoll | Colm | Innovation support agent / innovation broker | Italy |
| Mr. | Perlik | Manfred | Researcher | Other |
| Mr. | REDMAN | Mark | Expert from an organisation, network, group or enterprise | Romania |
| Ms. | Riguccini | Nadia | Civil servant | Italy |
| Ms. | Stotten | Rike | Researcher | Austria |
Facilitation team
| Mr. | Kirchweger | Stefan | Austria | Coordinating expert |
| Ms. | Guimarey Fernández | Beatriz | Spain | task manager |
| Ms. | Karasinski | Céline | France | co-task manager |
