Kontext

In Europe, there are a good examples showing advisors active as innovation brokers and facilitators in "interactive innovation projects", but these examples are still limited in number. Rural Development programmes offer funding in European regions for EIP-AGRI Operational Groups aimed at stimulating such interactive processes for bridging the gap between practice and research. Farm and Forestry advisors are still considered to support the “linear knowledge transfer model”. There is still lack of understanding about what is behind the specific roles of advisors in the different stages of the process and the necessary competencies going along with it. Moreover, implications for advisory organisations for their managers and further AKIS decision makers to create an enabling environment for innovative advisors and innovation processes are unclear. This hampers the effectiveness of the EIP-AGRI programme and other interactive innovation initiatives in the EU.

However, there are many new and original cases of innovation support provided by farm and forestry advisors across Europe, induced by recent EU policies. Many of these examples have not been systematically exploited to update the advisors’ communities in a given country and even less to advisors in the wider EU contexts. Replicable best practices must be made available to other advisors through information, dedicated tools, formal training, peer-to-peer learning and networking activities. Furthermore, there is a need for awareness-raising of managers of advisory services and/or managing authorities at an EU-wide level, so as to develop an “innovation culture” among managers of advisory services and AKIS actors.