EIP operational groups increase profitability, efficiency and sustainability of the agriculture and other primary production. Operational groups are developing a substantial innovation for agricultural livelihoods. Projects support agriculture and forestry and renewal of primary production and advances bioeconomy. Within these projects, the practical know-how and expert knowledge are combined. The operational groups solve previously identified problem and share this innovation to be used in the field.
There are at least two parties involved:
- agricultural, forestry, refinement of agricultural products and bioeconomy enterprises
- relevant experts such as researchers, advisors and associations
The idea of the project and the problem to be solved should be connected to activities of the involved enterprises. As the aim is to renewal and operations with novelty value, the problem to be solved has to be new, previously not applied in Finland.
EIP-AGRI
EIP-AGRI is a new way to support new innovations for European agriculture and forestry. EIP-AGRI agriculture profitability and sustainability innovation partnership was established in 2013. The aim of EIP-AGRI is to build bridges between research and practice. The most important forms of action are projects executed by innovation groups and networking.
European Innovation Partnership, EIP is a concept that was established in 2010 in an announcement of innovation union. EIP increases cooperation between actors and increases synergies in the EU. The foundations of EIP-AGRI are in the current policies, foremost EU’s rural development policy and EU's research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.
EIP-AGRI is aiming at increasing collaboration in sharing information and experiences for production chains and the research community in order to develop innovative solutions and instantly applicable research results. This is the reason why EIP-AGRI focuses on developing companionship, using bottom-up approaches and developing networks.