Author: Serafin Pazos-Vidal (AEIDL)
The European Commission has just unveiled its new Strategic Approach to Research and Innovation for Agriculture, Forestry, and Rural Areas.
As negotiations for the post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) heat up, this document outlines a clear roadmap for where the future of rural development and agri-food funding is heading to.
The new Framework is more forward-looking than many local development stakeholders had previously anticipated. For everyone looking closely at how the EU plans to support rural communities under the upcoming EU research fund (FP10) and the new European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), here are the critical takeaways:
- CoCreation at the Core of FP10: strategic direction for the next Framework Programme is deeply rooted in multi-actor approaches. Through AgRI 2040 and Food 2040, the Commission wants farmers, foresters, and rural entrepreneurs to be active drivers of research—not just end-users. The strategy promotes a fast-track-to-innovation scheme featuring smaller consortia and shorter time-to-grant periods to ensure practical solutions reach the ground faster.
- LivingLabs as Innovation Ecosystems: innovation must be place-based. The roadmap emphasises the scaling of Living Labs to foster long-term, transdisciplinary collaboration. These real-life testing environments will bridge the gap between “lab and fab,” allowing local communities to co-design and test technologies that are genuinely tailored to regional and territorial realities.
- Regulatory Sandboxes for Rural Flexibility: to cut through bureaucratic complexity, the strategy highlights the use of Regulatory Sandboxes at a local scale. These controlled testing environments will allow rural areas to pilot innovative business models, public service delivery, and new technologies safely, providing vital regulatory learning before widespread deployment.
- Synergies with the European Competitiveness Fund and Cohesion Funding: roadmap seeks to link future collaborative research with the ECF InvestEU Instrument to help local scaleups overcome financial barriers. Crucially, it reinforces connections with Cohesion Policy—specifically the ERDF and Smart Specialisation Platforms (S3), and a new JRC Centre, to ensure that territorial fairness is maintained and that benefits are shared across generations and regions.
It is welcome that the Commission continues to recognsie that true resilience cannot be achieved from a distance; it must be built from the ground up through active co-creation, adaptive testing, and robust financial support. The AGRI2040 Conference in Brussels will be the first opportunity to discuss the way forward for this new Framework.
From strategy to priorities: the EU AgRI 2040 Conference
The next step in this process took place in Brussels on 24–25 September at the EU AgRI 2040 Conference, a two-day event dedicated to “Future-proofing EU Agri-Food through research and innovation”. The conference moved the discussion from the Communication to co-identifying priorities for the next generation of EU research and innovation support. For CODECS, the event is particularly relevant as it addressed many of the challenges at the heart of the project’s work, including how research and innovation can support a more sustainable and inclusive digital transition in agriculture.
Over the two days, policymakers, researchers, farmers, foresters, businesses, innovators, start-ups, SMEs, advisers, NGOs and other stakeholders exchanged ideas and co-identified priorities for the next generation of EU research and innovation for agriculture, forestry and rural areas (AgRI 2040).
The discussions took place through nine thematic breakout sessions addressing climate change and biodiversity; soil, agri-ecosystems, water and nutrient capital; cropping systems; livestock systems; bioeconomy in agriculture, forestry and rural areas; multifunctional forests; rural areas; stronger agri-food value chains; and digitalisation, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Through its network of Living Labs, CODECS works with farmers and Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) actors to understand digitalisation in real farming contexts. Its work examines the role of digital ecosystems and the connections between different actors in enabling sustainable digital transitions in agriculture.
As discussions on the next generation of EU research and innovation priorities move forward, the themes addressed at AgRI 2040 connect with questions explored by CODECS: how digital technologies perform in practice, what influences their uptake by farmers, and how different actors within agricultural knowledge and innovation systems can support the digital transition.
