About ALL-Ready

Today, agricultural systems face multiple challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss, dwindling resources and soil and water quality degradation. Agroecology can strengthen the sustainability and resilience of farming systems and thus contribute to addressing these challenges. 

Based on the premise that Open Innovation Arrangements (OIAs) and in particular Living Labs (LL) and Research Infrastructures (RIs) are instruments that have large potential to contribute to amplifying agroecology in Europe, the main aim of ALL-Ready was to prepare a framework for a future European network of LLs and RIs (to be called “AgroEcoLLNet”) that enabled the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe. 

The project laid the groundwork and prepared the necessary prerequisites and activities. Testing verified and improved the project’s outcomes, which were communicated widely in Europe. The implementation plan was tested and integrated into the validated framework of AgroEcoLLNet. The project relied on a highly participatory and inclusive approach and on experimentation in real-life situations, and thus itself uses a living lab approach. An underpinning principle of the project was the strong stakeholder engagement, which had begun in the preparation of this proposal.

The project had 3 phases:

1. An initial preparatory phase in which the vision, scope and mission for the Network were defined and the criteria for inclusion in the Network of LLs and RIs as well as other forms of OIAs were defined. This enabled the mapping of current and emerging LLs, RIs and OIAs across Europe and their characteristics, highlighting best cases (Work packages 1 and 2).
2. In a second phase, different prerequisites/ activities for the future Network were prepared (sustainability, including funding, governance, capacity building, data and knowledge management). Plans for each of these were constructed with stakeholders and then tested in a small-scale pilot network and then refined to match needs (work package 3).
3. Finally, the outcomes of the work were communicated widely throughout Europe by a variety of mechanisms. One of the final outcomes of the project were a pilot-tested Implementation Plan for implementing the validated framework of AgroEcoLLNet, within Horizon Europe (work packages 4-7).

Building on the achievements of the ALL-Ready project, this work is now being continued within the AGROECOLOGY Partnership, the European Partnership on accelerating farming systems transition through agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures.