Hosted by Society for Territorial and Environmental Prosperity (STEP) in Sofia, Bulgaria, from June 3 to June 5, 2025, the 4th co-innovation workshop (CiW4) of the Agroecology-TRANSECT project was a vibrant gathering dedicated to advancing agroecological practices across Europe. Agroecology-TRANSECT aims to contribute to releasing the full potential of agroecology for European agriculture by strengthening the knowledge base for farmers and advisors and supporting decision-makers. It aims to deliver robust evidence of the benefits of agroecology on climate change mitigation, biodiversity, and farm socio-economic resilience. ÖMKi’s role is to lead a transformative learning platform (WP3) with the Wageningen University, comprised of 11 Innovation Hubs across Europe and to monitor the unfolding of the agroecological potential of AE practices in the Innovation Hubs as part of their socio-technical systems. ÖMKi also brings into the project its ’Cover crop seed mixture for vineyards and orchard’ LL as an Innovation Hub from Hungary.
Over three days, participants engaged in sessions, discussions, and activities designed to foster innovation and collaboration in agroecology among the 11 Innovation Hubs (IHs) and project partners from 12 countries. The workshop included several interactive carousel sessions that allowed space for feedback and for an exchange of experiences. The session this year focused on four key themes that shaped the direction and structure of the workshop: Multicriteria Assessment Framework (which helps compare different agroecological practices based on a range of social, environmental, and economic factors); Peer-to-peer exchange (enabling IHs to share experiences, challenges, and solutions directly with one another); Q methodology (a tool for exploring and comparing participants’ viewpoints through a structured ranking of statements); and Dissemination (which involves sharing project results and insights with broader audiences to increase impact and engagement).
As part of the carousels, our colleague, Gerda Jónász facilitated a session where the participants were asked to share their views on how the Learning History (LH) as a tool impacted their IH. The LH is a reflective learning tool that captures key events, decisions, and lessons from the IHs by combining factual accounts with personal or community experiences. Developed through in-depth interviews and discussions with IH facilitators, it supports shared learning, cross-hub analysis, and improved decision-making for future actions. Participants noted that preparing the Learning Histories supported more strategic, long-term thinking—helping them situate their work in a broader context, clarify outreach goals, and use the process as a starting point for planning as well as input for their own evaluation systems.
For the second day, field visits were organized, offering participants insights into the biodiversity conservation efforts of the local IH organised by STEP and their partners in Godech Municipality, Bulgaria, where 95% of the municipal pastures are in Natura 2000 sites. At the first site, participants attended a series of thematic presentations covering key topics such as grassland conservation, local plant diversity, grazing behaviour of cattle, and current trends in butterfly communities, delivered by Desislava Sopotlieva – grasslands biodiversity expert, and Zdravko Kolev – butterflies’ expert. As part of the activity, both a digital butterfly monitoring app and its analogue version was tested in the field, allowing for direct comparison and user feedback. These exercises aimed to enhance participants’ understanding of monitoring methodologies and support citizen science engagement in biodiversity data collection. The participants had the chance to meet with several local farmers, including Pavlin Antonov, Stefan Vlasakie, Slavi Dimitrov and Katina Dimitrova.
At the second site, the participants explored a managed pasture used for dairy cattle grazing. The owner of the farm, Borislav Boriso provided an overview of his grassland management strategies and the operational structure of his dairy business, then the participants discussed pasture species composition, stocking rates, milk yield variabilities.
The final day featured a series of presentations that offered participants feedback based on insights and observations gathered during the carousel sessions of the previous days. These were followed by two Action Planning sessions, providing space for concrete next steps, and a concluding plenary session that wrapped up the three-day workshop. The workshop not only facilitated valuable exchanges but also strengthened the network of IHs in the project, laying a robust foundation for future co-innovation efforts.
In Hungary, ÖMKi’s Innovation Hub is pioneering the Living Interrow research, which explores how species-rich perennial cover crops—particularly grass-herb and legume mixes—can improve soil protection, weed suppression, and biodiversity in organic vineyards and orchards on steep northern slopes. The work combines agroecological principles with practical technology use to assess how cover cropping affects ecosystem resilience and climate adaptation. Looking ahead, the hub aims to strengthen cooperation across the value chain, including with seed companies, and broaden its research to better understand landscape-scale ecological impacts and socio-economic factors.
