A significant result of ATTRACTISS project has been achieved by the initial mapping of the providers of Innovation Support Services (ISS) lead by the team of AKI. With the contribution of the project partners, information about 265 ISS providers from 24 countries have been collected. The ISS mapping includes all actors in the network who, with different titles and degrees, conduct (support) activities to advance the innovation process forward. This will allow the project to study a wide range of cases in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the type of operation of the entities, the scope of ISS providers’ activities, their relevance to the CAP and the types of services they provide to support innovation processes.
The focus of the task was to survey ISS providers with the intention of generating new knowledge about the variety of actors who are providing ISSs in the Member States (MSs), both at local and system levels, the functions that they are performing, their organisational models and the AKIS environment (and governance models) in which they operate. The Task aims at identifying not only the ISS providers but also the services provided by them.
With the first mapping, the aim was to collect as many ISS providers as possible with contacts and key characteristics, so that this database could then form the basis for further tasks/contacts and snowballing exercises.
The service providers in the list are representing several types of entities, most often they are Consultants/advisors and their organisations which represent (19.1%), and Farmer cooperatives/associations/chambers represent (17.6%) of the total. At the same time, Government institutions represent (14.5%), and Agri-research institutions (9.8%) are also very frequent among ISS providers. The mandate for service delivery is dominated by innovation advisors and innovation brokers, but the CAP network support unit and market service are also frequent.
Approximately 60% of the listed providers operate nationally. Whilst a slight majority are specialized in agribusiness and a third of them carry out their activities horizontally without sectoral specialization. Most of the listed providers do not have a dedicated role in the CAP SP.
The task included the organisation of a webinar for ISS providers to better understand their way of operation. As a result, a series of Case Studies were also created. The mapping will be updated regularly (M34, M60) during the implementation of the project, allowing actors to be progressively engaged by ATTRACTISS, to monitor the (hopefully) growth of ISS providers and to identify new practical cases to learn from.
The identification of ISS providers is ongoing throughout the project, so if you think you are an ISS provider, please contact the project: https://attractiss.eu/contact-us/