The vision of FOSTER is to build a foundation from which a new Knowledge and Innovation System (KIS) for Europe’s food system can emerge. The current structure is insufficient to address the emerging challenges of nourishing people in a healthy and sustainable way. Key objective is to gain insights into how it can be built to be more inclusive and better governed. FOSTER shall help to transform Europe’s food system outcomes and will achieve this by: - building a FOSTER Platform including food system-state of the art knowledge, foresight by semi-automated Horizon scanning, trend and threats-analysis and new multi-dimensional scenarios of EU food systems to 2040; - implementing the FOSTER Academy -including 4 Summer Schools- for integrating food system-related disciplines and citizen science to enhance food system understanding across the ERA; - initiating and assessing a co-creation and co-learning process within six national resp. regional Citizen Driven Initiatives (CDIs), in which new knowledge, strategies and Action Research Agendas are gained; - scaling out and deep CDIs solutions and approaches to other territorial contexts; - studying different R&I mechanisms of policy support for mission-oriented R&I policy for food systems transformation, and analysing and ground-proofing them in each CDI; - strengthening science-policy interfaces by co-learning processes with external experts and developing recommendations for food systems R&I policies tailored to different geographies and sectors; - identifying the trigger points to help ‘unlock’ system lock-ins and support further dynamics towards system transformation; - and applying reflective monitoring on all FOSTER’s co-learning activities to develop insights into how the KIS can be broadened from an agricultural-KIS to a food system-KIS. To inspire adoption of FOSTER learnings, over 20 workshops and a final conference will be conducted; scientific position papers and policy briefs will be widely communicated.

Starting from current best practices and key success factors observed and analysed in innovative value chains and the state of the art in technological and non-technological approaches, CO-FRESH proposes to develop techniques, tools and insights for the re-design of agri-food value chains. Through collaborative and systemic approaches, the tools and formats will be applied in 7 pilot cases representing diverse fruit and vegetables agri-food value chains (including protein crops for food and feed) across Europe. CO-FRESH will use the Intervention Research approach to study models of collective innovation action within and across organisations. The CO-FRESH consortium brings together key actors from pilot agri-food value chains; actors’ associations (farmers, food producers, cooperatives, consumers); experts in technological (including digital) solutions and non-technological (including social, organizational, and institutional) solutions; as well as experts in environmental, social, economic sustainability, and in consumer’s acceptance. The main objective of CO-FRESH is to (re)design and pilot innovative systemic approaches to agri-food value chains to scale up this innovation at European level. These innovative approaches will improve economic, social and environmental performance/efficiency of these value chains, through smart integration of technological, social, organisational, managerial and institutional innovations; all of which serve to make them more sustainable.

BOND acknowledges the fundamental role farmers and land managers play in the environmental and economic sustainability of the farming sector in Europe, as well as the importance of the way they organise, on Europe’s foods and landscapes. BOND contributes to unleash, strengthen, and organise, the great potential for collective action and networking of individuals, groups and entities of farmers and land managers, focusing on countries with lower organisation levels, with a view to creating strong, dynamic and effective organizations that have a voice and a place in policy design. More specifically, BOND investigates and addresses the constraints and disincentives, and reaches a higher level of participation of farmers as follows: (i) Draw up solutions and build bonding capital within groups, ensuring cohesiveness and trust among people; (ii) Enable organizations to come closer, building bridging capital to form larger networks, help overcome attitudes and constraints that impede collective action; (iii) Build linking capital, developing ties with entities with different interests and powers, including government, donors, academia, private sector, to reach a stronger position in decision-making, and (iv) Engage multi actors and policy makers throughout these processes. BOND’s approach relies on 3 pillars: SEE-learning from success (mobilisation, study tours), LEARN-overcoming constraints (self-analysis, capacity building), TELL-affirming a position in the policy landscape (gaming interface, best practice in regulation, lab experiment), and on involving the youth, women and men (designing a road map for the future), with training sessions and meeting events at every step of the project (interregional forum, national workshops, regional policy roundtables, youth forum). BOND’s legacy will be a menu a la carte of practical processes, user-friendly, with methods and tools to guide end-users when they decide to engage and benefit from the synergies of working with others.

The ICT project for women in rural areas is born from a partnership results of four NGOs: AgriNatura Foundation from Poland, Kisleptek from Hungary, AMA Centar from Serbia and EcoRuralis from Romania.The main objective of this project is the exchange of good practices between partners involved in educational activities in rural areas. The target group are women - rural areas inhabitants, very often lacking basic computer or Internet skills.The lack of these basic skills in the 21st century results in a specific social exclusion (digital exclusion). The project partners have clearly identified the need to educate this weaker and defavourised social group in order to bridge a growing gap between those more educated and those lacking the basic ICT skills. The project duration is planned for two years, with four international meetings, one in every partner country. The project includes local worshops carried out by each partner, on the topics of ICT education program in the field of the computer use, Internet, social media, the web security and the resources. An important element of the workshops will be to adapt the content to the local specifics and each partner activities. Some of this topics are: Internet and rural tourism, sales through Internet of local products (like Community Supported Agriculture systems) or seed exchange platform. The project results will include: 4 newsletters informing about 4 international meetings and the ICT Vademecum - guidelines for rural women developed by the partners. The guidelines will include:- a short computer course: Internet and social media usage- how to search for the information, security on the web- ICT is the key to the world: ubiquitous digitalization- Internet platforms: how to search an offer, how to place an offer, the seed swaps, how to sell a local product.All results will be available on the partners' websites in the national and English languages. The results will also be uploaded to the Erasmus + Project Results Platform. The project will have a wide reach and anyone interested in this topics will have the opportunity to use the developed materials.

The horizontal objective of the project is to foster the social and educational value of European cultural heritage within its contribution to job creation, economic growth and social cohesion. The main field of the project is short food supply chain (SFSC) development which is one of the most relevant factors as well as a tool of European food cultural heritage maintenance. However, researches in recent years, as well as surveys of producers and consumers, have highlighted the problem that small producers have difficulties separately, so they need to work together to gain market access. Intermediate players have taken over some of these activities from producers. These are supply chain organizers who understand market and agricultural processes thus helping farmers to gain market access. Experts agreed that it is necessary to start a special SFSC organizer training and to develop special eligibility conditions, as well as the training of SFSC advisers, however, these development and support directions are still missing in practice.Therefore the partnership is committed to explore the possible ways on how to generate the position of a so-called Rural facilitator and to develop the necessary learning materials and training tools to train individuals who intend to take under this new profession in their career. The outcomes of the project will provide an innovative teaching approach where organisers can partake from capacity building which will strong economic impact on successful value chain organisation and rural employment development.The target group of the project:Organizers/animators potentially involved: resuming intellectual women; Employees of LEADER organizations; already existing market organizers; rural development NGO; restaurant suppliers; rural tourism organizers/providers, producers and restarters in rural areas.General objectives of the project:To map problems, necessary competencies and existing practices in the field, to survey on the required competencies of the potential rural facilitators. Based on the mapped hiatus and the targeted competencies, the project will build up a training material, a curriculum and will conduct pilot test phases, whose basis will be laid in the frame of a joint staff meeting. The project will compile and use all those knowledge bases and competencies of partners which can be channelled into this specific field and exploit them to social innovation by ways of adapting them to the material as well as passing on capacity building knowledge.Partnership:-The members of the partnership are all related actors of the agricultural sector but with various focuses and expertise. The consortium contains a university, a farmer representation body, National Union of Small Farmers and Service providers, a stakeholder for autonomous groups in agriculture and a regional development body, and a training centre.Activities of the project:1. The essence of the project is to assess the current real demand for competencies to be acquired (competence needs research in partnership): e.g. organizational skills, legislation, food safety, processing, marketing, logistics, communication (IO1- SOTA and Competence catalogue)2. Subsequently, the project partners will find out what rural development and business conditions are needed for these qualified specialists to be employed and earn their wages on a market basis (IO2-BUSINESS ROADMAP PREPARATION).3. Depending on local needs and capabilities, project partners prepare a joint learning material by integrating the adaptable points of the already existing knowledge basis (IO3-HANDBOOK)4. Channelling their knowledge from similar fields into our training, the French partner performs a Joint Staff Training (training of trainers). (Part of IO3)5. Based on the Handbook and results of IO1, pilot trainings will be implemented involving trainers who gained knowledge through the joint staff training. A curriculum and supplementing training tools will be elaborated (IO4- Curriculum and course)6. Multiplier events are foreseen to spread the results of the project in each country towards the end of the project. (Part of IO4) Main project results are· identifying rural facilitators in the partner countries· studying the necessary knowledge, competencies and circumstances of rural facilitators· enhancing social innovation by developing new curricula and handbook· fostering European food rural heritage due to small farming development· decreasing unemployment in rural areas· supporting access to healthy and trust foods for consumers.Partners will ensure the availability of project results for at least 5 years and will focus their efforts and means in order to, after the project completion, mainstream and multiply results, by creating handbooks and curricula in their countries and Europe.