Innovation support services
Helping Operational Groups with brokering, facilitating, and disseminating support
Sometimes providing stand-alone funding is not enough for groups who want to cooperate in an innovative project. So-called 'innovation support services' can play a crucial role in capturing individual bottom-up grassroots ideas, helping the group to find the right partners, getting the innovative projects off the ground, and making sure that they are successful.
Innovation support can include a broad range of services that support innovation, including brokering, facilitating and disseminating, accompanying the various stages in a project.
On this page:
- Innovation brokering to connect and prepare
- Facilitating for effective communication
- Disseminating results
- New roles for farm advisors
- More information on innovation support services
Innovation brokering to connect and prepare
Innovation brokering focuses on forming a group and developing the partners' project ideas into a clear workplan. An 'innovation broker' plays the role of matchmaker in the phase before the start of the project, by:
- Capturing relevant grassroots innovative ideas from farmers, foresters, advisors or other people working in the fields of agriculture, forestry or rural areas.
- Bringing the right people together around the particular project idea, helping them to connect with each other and have a common understanding about the project objectives.
- Helping the group develop the project idea into a concrete plan to move forward, discuss the cooperation agreement and apply for funding.
- Identify available funding to start up the Operational Group project.
The innovation broker acts as a go-between, connecting farmers, foresters, advisors, rural entrepreneurs, researchers, NGOs and others, to develop an idea together that may become an innovation. Brokers also help to clarify the precise roles and activities of each partner in the project. Their main task is to help prepare a project proposal that is endorsed by all project partners, and help them put forward a successful funding application. Member States may provide funding under the CAP Strategic Plans for this preparation step. This can help them start their projects with a well-developed view on the issue and activities they want to address, and on how the project can add value.
Facilitating for effective communication
Once the Operational Group has started, so-called 'facilitators' can mediate and ensure an effective communication between the different partners. Partners in an Operational Group will come from different backgrounds and are used to working in different professional contexts, be it from practice, research, advisory services, or the market. A facilitator can impartially 'translate' between the partners, help them understand each other's needs and expectations, and keep the discussion going. CAP Strategic Plans may also provide funding to support this type of role.
Disseminating results
Innovation support and frequent networking activities are needed to create awareness about the project and to disseminate its intermediate and final results.
Operational Group projects need to share their knowledge through practice abstracts in the 'Common Format'. National CAP Networks and many other dissemination channels can help to reach those who need and will use this knowledge in their daily practice. Additionally, it is key that Operational Groups that work on the same or complementary topics learn about each other, so they can mutually benefit from the synergies between their projects.
Innovation support services or networks may help Operational Groups organise brainstorming events, or set up thematic or cross-sectoral groups. They may also support a broad dissemination of innovative project results. Some innovation support services share results through thematic groups or networks that focus on specific challenges for particular sectors. Others may invite relevant stakeholders or interested parties, to stimulate brainstorming on topics with innovation potential and to foster cross-fertilisation of ideas from different sectors.
Innovation support services should ideally have a good connection with and a thorough understanding of the world of agriculture, forestry and rural areas. They should have well-developed communication skills, should be well visible and easy to find, and should work long-term. Their activities can be supported by CAP Strategic Plans.
Innovation support services may work in different ways. For example, some may use vouchers that pay for meetings where brokers and partners discuss concrete ideas or put a proposal on paper. Such vouchers help to lower the administrative burden and make it easier to use brokerage services. It is also useful for innovation support services to be a partner in the Operational Group.
Watch the animated video to see how innovation support services capture grassroots innovative ideas, and help develop them into EIP-AGRI Operational Groups or other interactive innovation projects.
New roles for farm advisors
Under the CAP for the period 2023-2027, farm advisory services need to cover innovation support, in particular for preparing and implementing Operational Group projects. Advisors are ideally positioned to take up this role, as they have a strong relationship with farmers or foresters, built on trust.
Organisations like farm advisory services have broad networks, and this puts them in a privileged position to bring the right people together. Because of their daily contact with clients, they can more easily capture grassroots innovative ideas from practice, and help indicate where practice needs or interests are highest, to prepare projects with high added value.
In addition, advisors may become partners in an Operational Group project, where they can contribute with broad practical knowledge and a good view on various on-farm situations.
Advisors can equally act as 'multipliers', bringing the experiences of Operational Groups to a broader group of farmers, already during the timespan of the project. They can involve other farmers, for instance during farm visits, in discussion groups or at demonstration events. Of course they can also make use of already established channels to disseminate results after the project is finished.
More information on innovation support services
- Watch the animated video to see how innovation support services capture grassroots innovative ideas, and help develop them into EIP-AGRI Operational Groups or other interactive innovation projects.
- Read the EIP-AGRI brochure on Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS), which includes a dedicated section on innovation support.
- The EU CAP Network seminar 'Fostering an effective and integrated AKIS in Member States' (Lithuania, June 2023) focused on advisory support in EU Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems. See the presentations and other results on the event page.
- Find interesting presentations from the EIP-AGRI seminar 'CAP Strategic Plans: the key role of AKIS in Member States' (held online, September 2020)
- Find out more on innovation support for Operational Groups in the background documents 'Tool for the CAP Cross-Cutting Objective (CCO) – AKIS Strategy'
Tools for the CAP Cross-Cutting Objective
(PDF – 667.66 KB)