Are Advisors the Primary Providers of Innovation Support Services in Forestry and Agriculture? Preliminary Findings from the Project LIAISON

Abstract: A large variety of organisations provides support for cooperative approaches in the field of research and innovation in agriculture, forestry and rural development, and acts as Innovation Support Services (ISS). The findings from ProAkis (2015) show that different types of organisations such as administrative offices, public or semi-public advisory services, rural academies/universities, producer organisations, other NGOs or private consultants engaged in the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) can act as ISS. The funding of ISS can be public, private or a mix of both. A literature review indicates that studies often focus on the
larger “enabling environment” and the structure of the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS). Moreover, many authors pay particular attention to the role of public or semi-public farm advisory organisations (Knierim et al., 2015; Sulaiman 2015). The paper is based on the analysis of more than 200 case studies of publically or privately funded interactive innovation projects within the EU and beyond. The selection of cases took place under the framework of the Horizon2020-funded European research and innovation project LIAISON. European and national databases contain several thousands of projects in agriculture, forestry and rural development. We selected projects applying the interactive innovation approach from a) EU programmes (EIP-Agri, Horizon2020, Interreg, and LIFE+); b) nationally/regionally or privately funded projects; and c) informal initiatives or networks in the agri-food, forestry, bioeconomy or nature conservation area. The results indicate that publically funded IIS play a core role for legal/administrative compliance of projects. Semi-public advisory services take up this role as well, and they are strong in linking farmers with scientists, technicians, entrepreneurs etc. However, they often exist and offer efficient ISS only for those industries that have a long tradition for a sector or area (e.g. dairy, pork, poultry or club fruit). This paper shows that different types of organisations (research institutes, farmers or producer organisations, NGOs, processing or marketing SMEs, or public bodies) provide various forms of support for the studied interactive innovation groups. No particular type of organisation such as the farm advisory services are more suitable than the other organisations for the delivery of ISS. Instead, it depends on former collaboration, the particular topic, objective or capacities available as well as the cultural/political context who engages in interactive innovation and provides innovation support.