Which key actors are relevant to participate depends on the objective of the project. They are essentially the (end) users of the project results who are backed up by any other useful intermediaries and actors who can contribute with further expertise and innovative ideas relevant to the project’s objectives, and support communication and dissemination. The genuine and sufficient involvement of such actors should take place all over the whole course of the project: from participation in development of the project idea, planning and experiments to implementation, communication and dissemination of results and to a possible demonstration phase. Building blocks for the project are expected to come from science as well as from practice: it is a ‘co-creation’ process. Practitioners and (end) users are to be involved, not as a study object, but to use their practical and local knowledge and/or entrepreneurial skills to develop solutions and create 'co-ownership' of results for (end) users and practitioners. This contributes to and speeds up the acceptability and uptake of new ideas, approaches and solutions developed in the project.

The multi-actor approach has been overall reinforced under Horizon Europe. To this end, the definition and requirements of the MAA included in the introduction of the Horizon Europe Cluster 6 work programme 2023-2024, p. 21-23 have been revised and simplified. In addition, the scope of the topics outlines the main actors that are required to be involved in the projects. In the evaluation, MAA is not only an excellence criterion, but also the eligibility criterion. The multi-actor approach has also been opened up to all sectors under Cluster 6 including agriculture, forestry and rural areas, food, bioeconomy, environment, fisheries and aquaculture, etc. As a result, in the two consecutive Cluster 6 work programmes, 44% of the topics (worth more than 40% of the budget) require MAA. In total, under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, more than 350 multi-actor projects have been funded so far.