Smart AKIS held in March 21 and 22 a second transregional Innovation Workshop, hosted by BioSense Institute in Novi Sad, Serbia. More than 40 partners and stakeholders from the 7 Innovation Hub came together on an event with 2 distinct goals:

On the one hand, stakeholders got the chance to reflect and share recommendations in order to overcome the barriers identified for Smart Farming adoption in Europe, coming up from the regional innovation workshops held in the 7 Hubs and contrasted with experts in a first transregional Innovation Workshop held in Pamplona, Spain, in November 2017.Following an interactive method, working on 5 smaller groups, stakeholders got to propose recommendations in the fields of the Economic and Technical barriers, Data Management  and Advisory Services’ role. The inputs collected in the workshop will support CEMA – European Agricultural Machinery and Iniciativas Innovadoras in the drafting of the Policy Briefs and Recommendations that will be available in June 2018.

On the other hand, stakeholders from the 7 Hubs presented and shared 16 Posters on Project Ideas generated in the framework of the regional Innovation Hubs, in the fields of Sensors, Fertilization, Crop Protection and Smart Irrigation. Exchange of needs and ideas ensued between participants in a lively and interactive process that will lead to future collaborations between farmers, researchers and companies from the 7 Hubs.

The event ran in parallel with other meetings and events of ANTARES project funded by Horizon 2020 programme, that is turning BioSense Institute into a European Centre of Excellence (CoE) for advanced technologies in sustainable agriculture.

A Smart AKIS project meeting also took place on the afternoon of March 22, where the progress and next steps in preparation for the project closure were exchanged. Next project meeting will take place on June 26, in Brussels, on the eve of Smart AKIS Final Conference, agreed to take place on June 27.