25 European sustainable food projects to meet for networking day on October 25

The COREnet and EU4Advice projects will hold a networking day on 25 October in Brussels. The event features an interactive agenda for sustainable food sector stakeholders to share insights and good practices and to discuss trending topics. It will gather the EU CAP Network (Building EU-AKIS), EC Policy Officers and over 25 EU-funded projects working to improve sustainability in food systems.

COREnet and EU4Advice are the first Horizon Europe projects aimed at establishing an advisory network on sustainable food short circuits (SFSCs) together.

This networking event will enable delegates to share their projects key results, support synergies and promote future exploitation opportunities.

To address key factors and gaps in the rollout of the SFSC advisory network, three specific sessions are planned on: integration of advisory networks into AKIS, interoperability, impact, and replicability of projects' knowledge.

Advisory networks have been introduced under Horizon Europe. Advisors play a key role in steering and influencing farmers' decisions. The networks facilitate the exchanges between farm advisors across the EU, increasing the speed of knowledge creation and sharing, capacity building, demonstration of innovative solutions.

Advisors should then be able to translate the research results into concrete opportunities for the end users and adapt those to specific local circumstances.

AKIS coordination bodies across the EU are helping to organise these advisory networks at national and EU levels. As they do this, they address open questions about what kind of policy instruments and plans could be more effective given the new CAP and the diversity of AKIS in terms of composition, key players, language, and culture.

Knowledge exchange, training, and interaction between advisors

The EU digital ecosystem for the agrifood sector is complex: digital platforms for Innovation and Support Services, national AKIS, resource repositories, advisors' data bases, have been funded by the EU through different projects and initiatives. In this context questions related to interaction between advisors, interoperability between platforms -criteria, topics, categories-, will be addressed during the event, which will enable in depth discussions and will bring light to the next steps for the creation of the EU Network of SFSC Advisors, as innovation brokers in local short chain projects and key actors in member states national AKIS.

The following projects will participate in this networking event:

ATTRACTIS, CLEVERFOOD, CO-FRESH, COACH, DIVINFOOD, DRG4FOOD, EUFARMBOOK, FAIRSHARE, FOOD TRAILS, FOOD2030, HUMUS, i2connect, LOFT, MODERNAKIS, PLAN EAT, SCAR AKIS, SFS INNOVATION PLATFORM, SKIN, SMARTCHAIN, STRATUS, STRENGTH2FOOD

Agenda and organizing committee contact information available here.

Contacts:

Project coordinator:

Francesco Contò
francesco.conto@unifg.it

University of Foggia

Communication Manager:

Jelena Lazic
jelena.lazic@icons.it

Fondazione ICONS

Project website: https://shortfoodchain.eu/

Twitter: @shortfoodchain

LinkedIn: COREnet

Provided by iCube Programme