The kick-off meeting of the ATTRACTISS project was held on October 17-19, 2022 in Florence with the participation of our colleagues Lívia Kránitz and Dr. Szabolcs Vágó. The event took place in the same location and in the same week as the EU FarmBook partner project, so the participants of the two projects had the opportunity to get to know each other and consult about synergies and cooperation opportunities. With this familiar but well-organized opening event, the implementation of the Horizon Europe project, planned for six years, began, in which the AKI team manages two tasks and a work package.
The professional coordinator of the project is the Italian CREA, which deals with agricultural research and economic analysis, and the technical coordination tasks are performed by the RMB representing the Austrian Burgerland. The ATTRACTISS project aims to develop and embed competencies, approaches, and governance models for Innovation Support Services (ISS) and Member States AKIS to enable individual grassroots innovative ideas to come to fruition and generate solutions for the transition process towards more sustainable agriculture and forestry. This is closely related to the institute’s AKIS-related tasks, such as the modernAKIS and EU FarmBook projects and the operation of AKIS innovation and digitization support unit.