First Pilot network meeting held

The first pilot network meeting was organized on 13-14th December 2021 in an online format which officially marked the launch of ALL-Ready pilot network. The pilot network will act as a small-scale testbed to experiment and give feedback on the tools and recommendations developed during the ALL-Ready project, to build cooperation and to prepare joint activities between the different agroecology-focused member living labs, research infrastructures across Europe. Therefore, the aim of the meeting was to bring together the selected 15 members to get to know each other’s activities, the project and future European Agroecology Partnership as well as to contribute to the ongoing work of different Work Packages with agroecology living lab and research infrastructure expertise of the members through interactive workshops.

First results of the match-making exercise show the 5 main collaborative themes and common challenges identified. They are going to be validated during the next pilot network member meeting later this spring.

Co-creation process of the Virtual Lab for agroecology

To determine the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the network, a questionnaire was prepared by INRAE with certain threshold for inclusion, for the mapping of potential actors in agroecology transition.

The participants of the workshop could fill in the form, to observe on which level they fit into the criteria and where are they positioned on the scale of agroecology transition.

The whole afternoon was dedicated to the pilot members’ presentations when all 15 members had the opportunity to get familiar with agroecological activities of each living lab and research infrastructure.

Expectations and benefits of the pilot network

During the first workshop of the meeting, the members arrived to a common understanding on their expectations and benefits from the network. Ensuring dynamic knowledge exchange, knowledge sharing (e.g. challenges, data and best practices of living lab models) and co-creation opportunities between the member living labs and research infrastructures seemed to be the most important expectation and benefit that network could provide. Creation of a platform for future collaboration in international research projects on agroecology, enhancing networking potential of the members as well as organizing trainings for members to broaden their knowledge in new methodologies and approaches for agroecological transition deemed also very significant by the members.

Day 2 was structured to gather the contributions of the members and channel them into the ongoing work of different Work Packages in ALL-Ready through three interactive workshop sessions.

Mapping the collaboration potential between the members

In order to find joint activities for all members of the network, as a first step participants identified specific and common agroecological interests and topics. Altogether, 21 topics emerged, out of which sustainable soil management, sustainable arable practices and digitization in agroecology were the most commonly addressed ones among the members. This was followed by the mapping of collaboration potential, by identifying current agroecology related research/activities, challenges related to agroecological interests and future/new activities.

The aim was to achieve a better understanding among the members about each other’s LL/ RI activities while mapping the cooperation potential among them to prepare for future collaborative activities. As results of the match-making exercise, five main collaborative themes emerged, illustrated below together with related challenges.

The common or individual challenges, reflect the problems that members LL/RIs face in their everyday operations. The network, in order to fulfil the expectations of the members can act as medium to address some of these challenges through collaborative activities. According to the feedback of the members, separate events/workshops dedicated to common challenges are needed to further refine them and to find solutions.

Main competencies for agroecology transition

A workshop was organised to understand better the main competencies that are necessary to run an agroecology living lab or research infrastructure. Based on the feedbacks, leadership & agility, organisational, networking and facilitation competencies, as well as personal skill and system thinking are necessary to coordinate agroecology living labs and research infrastructures.

Furthermore, the participants also identified the competencies that need to be developed (business and marketing skills, social sciences, data management, facilitation skill, design thinking) in their initiatives. Some of these shortages will be targeted by the future capacity building activities of the ALL-Ready project, for other missing skills external/integrated experts will be needed.

Building a Virtual Lab that suits the pilot network members’ need

During the workshop the participants identified the future needs of the pilot network that can be covered by a Virtual Lab, the expected outputs of the Virtual Lab, type of data to be shared by the members and barriers to implement the virtual lab by the members.

The Virtual Lab should be a dynamic and user-friendly platform for network members that present a geographical overview of the network and the main characteristics of the living labs and research infrastructures working on agroecology, in this way it should also contribute to the collaboration of the different Pilot Network members as a network. The main data that can be shared in the Virtual Lab are the results from agroecology best practices, including results from on-farm trials (sensors, remote sensing, soil, water quality, yield, crop physiology), but also information on challenges encountered and potential solutions and existing policies to support agroecological practices.

Despite being virtual, the pilot network meeting was a great success, managing to achieve all objectives set up in the beginning and keeping participants engaged and active during the 2 days.