© 2025 HCC. All Rights Reserved.
The AgriLink project provided evidence on how advisory systems shape farmers’ choices and how to make them more effective for sustainable agriculture in Europe.
As co-leader of the Communication & Dissemination work package, HCC designed and delivered the project’s outreach strategy, ensuring that research findings reached policymakers, advisors, and farming communities across Europe.
Beyond dissemination, HCC contributed directly to research and data collection and spearheaded the Romanian Living Lab, where innovative advisory approaches were tested in practice with local farmers and stakeholders. This unique combination of strategic communication, hands-on experimentation, and advisory system expertise underlines HCC’s strength in bridging science, policy, and practice to foster sustainable agricultural innovation.
Retro-innovation in hay-making (Brașov): HCC explored how small farmers in High Nature Value grasslands are modernising traditional hay-making through mechanisation. Our work showed how peer-to-peer learning, NGO involvement, and community resilience drive innovation, helping sustain biodiversity-rich landscapes while adapting to labour shortages and migration. Direct marketing for small farms (Giurgiu): HCC analysed the emergence of new market channels (farm shops, online sales, and supermarket partnerships) linking small farmers with Bucharest consumers. We revealed both the entrepreneurial success of pioneers and the systemic advisory gaps holding back others, strengthening understanding of how advisory systems can better support farmers in capturing added value.
HCC led the Romanian Living Lab, where we co-created concrete solutions to respond to the pressing needs of small farmers. A major achievement was the design and delivery of a full training programme and a practical guide on fiscalisation, helping farmers and cooperative members navigate complex tax and administrative requirements at a time when such support was largely absent. By combining participatory facilitation with tailored knowledge tools, HCC enabled small producers to strengthen their business skills, build trust with institutional actors, and better access local markets—demonstrating our ability to turn Living Lab processes into tangible, farmer-oriented outcomes.
As leader of AgriLink’s Communication and Dissemination work, HCC designed and implemented the project’s digital communication strategy, with a particular focus on developing, creating, and managing both the project website and its legacy site. Beyond technical management, HCC curated and translated complex research outputs (including case studies, practice abstracts, and Living Lab results) into accessible content tailored for farmers, advisors, policymakers, and researchers. By ensuring regular updates, storytelling through digital formats, and long-term hosting of resources, HCC positioned the website as the central hub for knowledge exchange during the project and safeguarded its impact beyond the project’s lifetime.
The AgriLink consortium brought together academic and practitioner partners from multiple disciplines to better understand the role of formal and informal farm advisory services, strengthen knowledge flows, and stimulate innovation across diverse farming systems in Europe. Building on a comprehensive conceptual framework, the project investigated how farmers access, exchange, and apply information, while six Living Labs tested new ways of connecting farmers, advisors, and researchers to co-create more effective support services.
AgriLink combined academic and applied objectives. At research level, it developed a multi-level theoretical framework, examined the role of regional farm advisory systems (R-FAS), and assessed how governance and funding schemes shape farmers’ micro-AKIS. At practice level, it delivered recommendations for improving advisory systems, validated innovative tools and services, and pioneered new learning and interaction methods to equip advisors with the skills needed to support innovation in farming.
Funding program: H2020-RIA-Research and innovation action
Project number: 727577
Period: 1 June 2017-30 November 2021
HCC key persons: Mark Redman, Alina Alexa
Key words: #AKIS #Agriculture #LivingLabs
Resources: https://www.agrilink2020.eu/
