This paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, aims to summarise the main features of the AgriSpin project. The project is being financed by the Horizon 2020 research program of the European Commission aiming at contributing to system-oriented innovation research in agriculture and as complementary to the policy instrument EIP AGRI. The idea behind EIP AGRI is that innovation emerges from interaction between stakeholders.
Multi-actors networks are increasingly used by farmers to link between them and to be interactively connected with other partners, such as advisory organizations, local governments, universities, and non-farm organizations. Given the importance assigned to the agricultural innovation by EU resorting to the networking between the research chain actors and the farmers, a strong focus on enhancing the creation of learning and innovation networks is expected.
The present case study investigated a policy-induced agricultural innovation network in Brandenburg.
Se analizan los efectos de las interacciones, directas e indirectas, entre agricultores y otros actores relevantes en el intercambio de información y conocimiento para la innovación agrícola. Los datos se obtuvieron al preguntar a 120 agricultores «¿de quién aprende y/o a quién recurre para obtener información o conocimiento de cuestiones técnicas y productivas en torno a su unidad de producción?». Se emplean indicadores del análisis de redes sociales para proponer lineamientos que permitan catalizar la innovación agrícola.
Se reconoce que los procesos de innovación suceden entre un conjunto heterogéneo de actores, donde el Análisis de Redes Sociales (ARS) es una herramienta prometedora para su análisis y comprensión y, así, diseñar intervenciones basadas en red para catalizarla. Las intervenciones en red describen el proceso a través del cual se usan datos relacionales para acelerar el flujo de información entre los actores que la conforman.
This research aims to add to the literature new insights about the interaction processes, which are implemented in different interactive extension approaches, by analysing how farmers attending different extension events shape a network of indirect interactions
In this paper, presented at the 12th European IFSA Symposium (Workshop: "Generating spaces for innovation in agricultural and rural development") in 2016, the authors assess the integration of new entrants to small-scale farming into agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS), in four study sites located on Europe’s periphery (Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom).