As part of the Horizon Europe work programme 2023-2024, a new partnership is planned to start: Agroecology living labs and research infrastructures. The partnership aims to structure and support a network of living labs and research infrastructures that will accelerate the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe. It will provide spaces for long-term, site-specific, multi-stakeholder and real-life experimentation, and direction for research activities on agroecology at the European and national levels.

In order to better prepare this partnership, two CSA-type projects financed by Horizon 2020 were launched: ALL-Ready and AE4EU. 

ERRIN was invited to become a member of the external Advisory Board of the ALL-Ready project. Recognised as an important stakeholder to involve, ERRIN, represented by Bioeconomy Working Group leader Angèle Liaigre, is contributing to the co-creation of the framework for the European Network of Living Labs and Research infrastructures that the project is piloting.

THE ALL-READY PROJECT

ALL-Ready is one of the building blocks in the construction of the partnership. More specifically, it aims to prepare and pilot a European Network of Living Labs (LL) and Research infrastructures (RIs) that will enable the transition towards agroecology throughout Europe. The project is led by INRAE in France and is composed of 13 partners, mainly academic institutions as well as some networks.

In particular, the project has six objectives:

1. Collectively define the mission and vision for the Network.
2. Identify, map and evaluate existing components of the Network including their level of maturity, looking at both success stories and barriers for agroecological transition.
3. Beginning with a few LLs and RIs in the consortium countries, put in place a small-scale pilot network to test different aspects of the Network in real-life situations.
4. Draw up an Implementation Plan for the Network, including trans-Network support activities and services.
5. Prepare and initiate a capacity building programme for the Network implementation phase and a data and knowledge management strategy.
6. Roll out a communication programme that will promote engagement among the agricultural community and funders.

ACTIVITIES OF THE ALL-READY PROJECT

In order to prepare the Network, two sets of discussions with the external Advisory Board were organised in 2021. A first dialogue took place in spring and was meant to discuss the concepts behind the network, i.e. values, activities to be organised, competences to be represented and policy incentives. A lot of feedback was gathered from the participants, which you can find in this report.

In the beginning of October, another workshop was organised to discuss the planning of the Network and how to build it. After an initial brainstorming sessions, which again served as reminder of the importance of involving the regional and local governance levels in the Network, a discussion took place on the criteria to use to define the activities and the members of the Network.

FUTURE STEPS

The ALL-Ready project will continue its work on the building of a Network, and the first call for interest should be launched in 2022. As for the future Horizon Europe partnership, you will find a provisional timeline below: