VALERIE - knowledge exchange for innovation in agriculture and forestry

VALERIE (Valorising European Research for Innovation in Agriculture and Forestry – www.valerie.eu) is a European funded research project (FP7-KBBE-2013-7), which aims to improve the availability and flow of new knowledge and information to drive innovation in agriculture and forestry around six themes: i) crop rotation, soil cover management and integrated pest management; ii) ecosystem and social services in agriculture and forestry; iii) soil management in agriculture; iv) water management in agriculture; v) integrated supply chain services and tools; and vi) recycling and smart use of biomass and food waste.
This is being achieved through: i) repeated cycles of knowledge exchange in 10 case studies working with practitioners to identify current challenges for sustainability in agriculture and forestry; ii) extraction of knowledge from European research projects to help meet these challenges; and iii) the development of the ask-Valerie.eu search engine to improve access to information.
The ten VALERIE case studies cover: i) catchment scale resource use efficiency, UK; ii) soil management in livestock supply chains, UK; iii) sustainable forest biomass, Finland; iv) agro-ecology (managing plant protection, France); v) innovative arable cropping, France; vi) sustainable forest management and ecosystem services, Spain; vii) improving milling wheat quality, Italy; viii) drip irrigation management in tomatoes and maize, Italy; ix) sustainable onion supply chains, Netherlands; and x) sustainable potato supply chains, Poland.
Knowledge extraction has focused on the identification of more than 300 innovations, defined in VALERIE as a tool, practice, or piece of software that can solve a problem for a farmer or forest manager. For each innovation, a mini-factsheet will be produced containing useful information on the problems that the innovation aims to solve (the innovation challenge); a list of references; and a list of projects connected to the innovation.
Finally, VALERIE will develop an advanced search engine and repository of structured information that will interactively provide easy access to knowledge created in EU and other research projects for farmers, agricultural organisations and researchers. The ask-VALERIE.eu search tool will allow users to retrieve relevant and useful information using available and reliable sources. The first version of ask-Valerie.eu was tested by case study leaders in June 2015. Through these activities, VALERIE will promote interactions between practitioners, advisers and researchers in agriculture and forestry by improving access to relevant scientific knowledge and results, thereby boosting the process of