The need to speed-up innovation has been repeatedly emphasised in recent years and is now a core element of the European Commission’s communication on the future of food and farming.

Agricultural activity has never taken place in a static context. Yet, in the last decades, this context has become more complex with more stringent environmental requirements, more open economic conditions and associated opportunities and risks.

Beyond the primary sector, innovation in rural areas can play an important role in stimulating green and socially inclusive economic growth, mitigating geographic isolation and avoiding economic and social marginalisation.

Successful rural innovation requires human and social capital, including skills that enable actors to perform or initiate activities and links, incentives, shared values and norms that underpin the capacity of actors to trust each other and cooperate.