The AGROECOLOGY Partnership (72 partners from 26 countries) kicked off early this year – coordinated by the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany -, has the ambitious mission to coordinate efforts, pool resources, and facilitate the transition to agroecology across Europe, by building on participatory research approaches such as Living Labs (LL) and Research Infrastructures (RI). To achieve this, one of the goals of the partnership is to build a European Network of Agroecology LLs and RIs (hereafter the Network) that connects these participatory place-based innovations for enhancing knowledge sharing and for supporting multi-stakeholder co-creation of agroecology innovations across various scales in Europe. Within AGROECOLOGY, the Hungarian Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (ÖMKi) is responsible for coordinating the Network between 2024-2031.

Picture 1. Kick-off meeting of the AGROECOLOGY Partnership organised on 28-29 February 2024 in Brussels
The foundations of the Network were already laid down between 2019-2023 in frame of two Horizon 2020 projects, the ALL-Ready and AE4EU. The ALL-Ready project experimented with a small-scale pilot network of same structures (also led by ÖMKi) while the AE4EU project created three agroecology LLs. Therefore, the Network did not have to be established from scratch, rather relying, combining and strengthening the networks already created in the preparatory projects.
This way, the Network was successfully launched in June 2024 when the first cohort – composed of 12 LLs and 5 RIs – was formed. To kick off the work in the Network, the members participated at online onboarding meetings on 26 June and on 31 July, with the aims of introducing members to each other, presenting the main activities of the partnership and the Network, and starting a common discussion on the Network’s vision and objectives. Besides the 17 Network members, the partnership’s coordination, work package and task leaders, and partner organisations also participated (picture 2).

Picture 2. Screenshot from the online onboarding meeting of the Network
The 3-hour-long meeting started with the introduction of the members focusing on their specific LL/RI objectives, activities and contributions to agroecology. Ulrike Ziegler (Jülich) from the Coordination gave an overview about AGROECOLOGY, while Korinna Varga (ÖMKi), coordinator of the Network, presented the Network’s objectives and expected activities. The presentation was followed by Valeria Csonka (ÖMKi), who introduced the benefits and expectations of the Network to its members and presented a timeline of the joint activities and in-person/online meetings expected in the first two years. The second half of the three-hour meetings focused on joint discussions around four main topics with the active involvement of members: Network vision, validation of its objectives, monitoring and evaluation framework and internal communication.
As a first step in defining a common vision, Marta Guadalupe Rivera Ferre (CSIC) presented similar visions developed in previous projects (ALL-Ready, eLTER), which will form the basis of the Network’s vision, strategy and action plan. As a result of the online collaborative brainstorming, a number of ideas were gathered from members, highlighting the need for and importance of connecting these open innovation communities.
Previously prepared objectives were also presented during the onboarding meeting, so the participants had the opportunity to enrich and validate them, thus supplementing the otherwise consensual objectives, which were in harmony with the members’ ideas (picture 3).

Picture 3. Online exercise to collect the expectations on the Network’s objectives
The Network members also discussed the draft concept of the monitoring and evaluation framework presented by Jan Hassink (Wageningen Research) and the plans for the internal communication within the Network presented by Titta Tapiola (LUKE) – including the Network newsletter, which would regularly inform members about each other’s activities, the partnership in general and its open calls, as well as upcoming events (e.g. meetings, workshops, seminars, webinars).
Overall, the 17 members were successfully onboarded during the summer marking the official launch of the partnership’s Network, which prepared them for joint activities and collaborations in the coming years. The Network is expected to grow gradually until 2030 through yearly application waves. ÖMKi is now preparing for the first in-person Network Meeting that will take place between 6-8 November in Helsinki (Finland) hosted by the Natural Resource Institute Finland (LUKE). The focus of the meeting will be to co-create an action plan for the Network and to finalise the preparations for the launch of the 1st wave of applications into the Network expected in December 2024.