Innovation in the case study

The Cluster’s funding mode offered an option to develop the scope of their activities through an extension of the multi-annual Activity plan and some additional funding for new projects and the Cluster’s ongoing operations.

This additional support has fostered processes whereby semi-market mechanisms provide incentives for long-term cooperation based on looking for new ideas; this precondition is aimed at providing continuity to the Cluster’s activities to meet farmers’ needs.

This has been important in reducing the potential risk of pure research-oriented projects failing to integrate different actors – e.g. Farmers making key decisions for projects proposals on the basis on information provided by experts (researchers, market actors) rather than on-the-ground knowledge and experience.

The main focus is to drive technical incremental innovations aligned with the important concepts of “competitiveness”, “efficiency”, “practical approach”, and “farmers’ needs-led approach”.