Final Report Summary - RTD2FARM (Enhancing collaboration in research for Livestock)
Executive Summary:
Within various scientific projects financed by the European Union a large amount of knowledge is generated, which is only known to the scientific community and hardly translated into products. Especially in the field of agricultural sciences there is a lack of knowledge transfer from scientific groups to livestock farmers. It is the aim of the project to bring together farmers and multipliers (i.e. farmers’ associations, veterinarian organizations, governmental agencies) with the scientific community, in order to improve co-operation and knowledge transfer. The project RTD2Farm is concentrating on pig related science fields and pig farming as pigs are the main animals for meat production in the EU. The project covers the main big areas of interest; Genetics/Breeding, Farm Management and Feeding.
The first objective was to gather information on the research activities currently implemented in Europe or that have been recently completed, and to organise the information in a clear and well-structured way in order to disseminate at the end of the project the results to the final beneficiaries of the project. Each project has been described using standardised template. The collected knowledge was used for the development and as content of the innovation window “Wikipigs” and partly for the development of the RTD2Farm materials for the lifelong learning platform “Pigsci”.
The next step in the project was to map the pig famers’ interest in specific topics and to map existing national and transnational technology transfer instruments. In order to analyse farmers’ needs and interest a questionnaire was conducted. Based on these results and the collected research project a matrix was developed, which allows a matchmaking between farmer needs and scientific/technology knowledge. In addition to the collection of research activities existing regional, national and international (including non-EU) knowledge & technology (KT) transfer techniques have been mapped. The survey showed, that KT transfer straight forward to the pig farmer is very diverse and fragmented. KT transfer usually happens via ad hoc and non-harmonized channels of interaction between public, or private (research) organizations and other pig farming stakeholders. The survey can be donwnloaded via the project website.
Based on these findings, discussion with multiplier organisations and interaction with farmers via various workshops and trainings the RTD2Farm project developed two information platforms: The innovation window Wikipigs - an online interactive platform which provides information on European or national public financed project results in the field of agricultural pig sciences. The second developed tool is the pig related online tool Pigsci, which is an information and lifelong learning platform for farmers and multipliers. Pigsci is at the moment available in the national languages of the RTD2Farm project partners.
Wikipigs and Pigsci form the virtual European Center for Excellence in Pig Sciences (EUCEPS) which wants to encourage interaction and co-operation along the whole pig value chain, between scientists, pig producers, associations, funding organizations, politicians towards multipliers and stakeholders.
www.euceps.eu/www.pigsci.eu/www.wikipigs.eu/www.rtd2farm.eu
Project Context and Objectives:
Within various scientific projects financed by the European Union a large amount of knowledge is generated, which is only known to the scientific community and hardly translated into products. Especially in the field of agricultural sciences there is a lack of knowledge transfer from scientific groups to livestock farmers. It is the aim of the project to bring together farmers and multipliers (i.e. farmers’ associations, veterinarian organizations, governmental agencies) with the scientific community, in order to improve co-operation and knowledge transfer.
The project RTD2Farm is concentrating on pig related science fields and pig farming as pigs are the main animals for meat production in the EU. The project covers the main big areas of interest; Genetics/Breeding, Farm Management and Feeding. The RTD2Farm project tries to establish a strong interaction link towards multipliers and stakeholders. Stakeholders involved in the pig business are not only pig producers, but also e. g. scientists, associations, funding organizations, politicians etc. The project includes 11 partners from 3 countries which represent a diversity of livestock farming in the EU: Benelux represented by Belgian partners has a similar “farm landscape” (farm size and production technologies), covers a small area and has a high uptake of new knowledge and technologies. Austria has a very diverse farming landscape with a diverse uptake of new knowledge and technologies. Italy has more small farms where dissemination of knowledge and technology is especially challenging.
The first objective was to gather information on the research activities currently implemented in Europe or that have been recently completed, and to organise the information in a clear and well-structured way in order to disseminate at the end of the project the results to the final beneficiaries of the project. Each project has been described using standardised template that includes the following sections: project acronym, project title, project type, duration, contact details, overall project description/abstract, keywords, project aims, research results, beneficiaries of the research results, expected practical applications of the results, final beneficiary type. The data was collected from information available on the internet and by telephone interviews with the respective projects’ contact persons. The collected knowledge was used for the development and as content of the innovation window “Wikipigs” and partly for the development of the RTD2Farm materials for the lifelong learning platform “Pigsci”.
The next step in the project was to map the pig famers’ interest in specific topics and to map existing national and transnational technology transfer instruments. In order to analyse farmers’ needs and interest a questionnaire was conducted. Farmers’ needs were collected at different levels: personal/telephone interviews with farmers, contacts with groups of farmers, literature reviews, journals and magazines. Based on these results and the collected research project a matrix was developed, which allows a matchmaking between farmer needs and scientific/technology knowledge. In order to standardize/translate the matrix from the science base side and farmer needs, it was necessary to focus on keywords in order to facilitate the link between these two sides (sciences and needs) of the matrix. Keywords were standardised and provided for each area: nutrition, farm management and breeding/Genetics. This matrix has been the basis for the development of the information-tool “Wikipigs” and has also been partly used for structuring the lifelong learning platform “Pigsci”.
In addition to the collection of research activities existing regional, national and international (including non-EU) knowledge & technology (KT) transfer techniques have been mapped. The survey showed, that KT transfer straight forward to the pig farmer is very diverse and fragmented. An integrated and unified system can be found in USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, a very basic system can be found in China and Brazil and a nationalized process for knowledge transfer is established in most of the EU countries. For the EU27 region, pig production is concentrated in countries like Spain, Germany, Denmark, France, Poland and the Benelux region inhabiting more than two thirds of the European breeding pigs. Among those Denmark, The Netherlands (starting-up) and Belgium (starting-up) have implemented harmonized national KT transfer processes in place. In most other pig producing EU countries, their approach for KT transfer is understood as a mostly interactive person-2-person learning process. This mainly results in KT transfer via ad hoc and non-harmonized channels of interaction between public, private research organizations and other pig farming stakeholders. In order to have a deeper insight in knowledge and technology transfer methods the project partners provided five to six examples/case studies for knowledge and technology transfer for each country. Summarizing the results of the case studies and a SWOT analysis of the existing KT transfer systems in a short way it has to be said that the most important fact for successful KT transfer is on the one hand the co-operation between research, politics and end-users and on the other communication and promotion in an understandable way.
Based on these findings, discussion with multiplier organisations and interaction with farmers via various workshops and trainings the RTD2Farm project developed two information platforms: The innovation window Wikipigs - an online interactive platform which provides information on European or national public financed project results in the field of agricultural pig sciences. The second developed tool is the pig related online tool Pigsci, which is an information and lifelong learning platform for farmers and multipliers.
The innovation window WikiPigs is an online interactive platform which provides information on European or national public financed project results in the field of agricultural pig sciences. The focus groups of the Wikipigs database in English language are scientists and multipliers. For the stakeholders of the pig industry the innovation window offers the advantage of free access to European and national financed research projects and the access to knowledge based information without any intention to sell a product. For the scientists the information tool provides an overview on current pig research projects, wide dissemination of research results and feedback by stakeholders of the pigs industry.
The pig related online tool PigSci is an information and lifelong learning platform for farmers and multipliers. PigSci provides information in national farmer-friendly languages: The partners of the platform translate information from scientific language into colloquial language using understandable wording for all educated classes. This is done for various national languages. PigSci offers information in different levels: one level includes information for beginners; another includes more details for experts and practitioners. PigSci includes the possibility to get information via different ways: Tailored search can be executed either via a keyword search, an assisted search or via the info section; registration for PigSci allows customization and customized approaches for individual learning. In addition PigSci provides latest news of the world of agriculture with a focus on pig related topics as far they are made available via RSS feeds. In order to reach the local farmers in their mother tongue PigSci follows a national (local) approach with requires the need of additional national partners. In comparison to collaboration on a scientific level where English is used as single language, co-operation between pig multipliers and farmers face the challenge of a big variety of national languages. Based on the farmers’ feedback in the questionnaires, the exchange of views in the networking meetings and national personal discussions the RTD2Farm team realized the urgent need for science based information in different national languages. For providing information in different languages a national responsible partner, who has also to own the national Pigsci domain and who is therefore from a liability point of view responsible for the content, is required.
Wikipigs and Pigsci form the virtual European Center for Excellence in Pig Sciences (EUCEPS) which wants to encourage interaction and co-operation along the whole pig value chain, between scientists, pig producers, associations, funding organizations, politicians towards multipliers and stakeholders. EUCEPS will be the contact point for all potential partners; the focus will lie on individual researchers contributing to the Wikipigs database and on organisations around Europe wishing to become a national partner in the virtual Center for Excellence in Pig Sciences for their respective countries in order to offer a national Pigsci version for their national farmers and multipliers
Project Results:
The two information platforms Wikipigs and Pigsci are the main output of the RTD2Farm project. Both info-tools form together the virtual European Center for Excellence in Pig Sciences (EUCEPS), which wants to encourage interaction and co-operation along the whole pig value chain, between scientists, pig producers, associations, funding organizations, politicians towards multipliers and stakeholders.
Wikipigs
The innovation window WikiPigs is an online interactive platform which provides information on European or national public financed project results in the field of agricultural pig sciences.
The Wikpigs database offers the following main advantages:
For scientists
• Overview information on current pig research projects and the responsible key researcher or co-ordinator
• Wide dissemination of research results: After registration it is possible to upload information on own current research projects. Via contacting the Wikipigs administrator interaction and co-operation between various researchers is possible
• Feedback by stakeholders of the pigs industry: After registration users have the possibility to leave comments and to rank the projects
For stakeholders of the pig industry
• Free access to European and national financed research projects
• Knowledge based information without any intention to sell a product
Searching WikiPigs is easy and convenient. WikiPigs offers different ways of finding data: a full-text search over all documents and data by just entering your search criteria below and clicking the search button or an extended search which allows you to specify form fields and specific search criteria for the datasets you are willing to find. The focus groups of the Wikipigs database are scientists and multipliers.
Pigsci
The pig related online tool PigSci is an information and lifelong learning platform for farmers and multipliers. PigSci is the public access to information gathered, aggregated and transformed by the RTD2Farm project.
The lifelong learning platform PigSci is characterized by the following qualities:
• PigSci is embedded in the various national concepts of lifelong learning and knowledge transfer different in each European country. National contact points for the national pigscis are established institution well known for close contact to pig farmers, multipliers and other actors in the value chain.
• PigSci provides information in national farmer-friendly languages: The partners of the platform translate information from scientific language into colloquial language using understandable wording for all educated classes. This is done for various national languages. PigSci offers information in different levels: one level includes information for beginners; another includes more details for experts and practitioners.
• PigSci includes the possibility to get information via different ways. Tailored search can be executed either via a keyword search, an assisted search or via the info section.
• PigSci provides latest news of the world of agriculture with a focus on pig related topics as far they are made available via RSS feeds.
• PigSci offers the possibility for a pig-focused social network (depending on the national contact point) and for interaction and exchange between the users of the platform.
• Registration for PigSci allows customization and customized approaches for individual learning.
The developed service offers a quick access to research results for farmers and multipliers and allows the identification of gaps in research and innovation by an increasing demand from farmers on a given topic.
The EUCEPS will be the contact point for all potential partners, the focus will lay on individual researchers contributing to the Wikipigs database and on organisations around Europe wishing to become a national partner in the virtual Center for Excellence in Pig Sciences for their respective countries in order to offer a national Pigsci version for their national farmers and multipliers.
Potential Impact:
IMPACT
It has been the declared goal of the RTD2Farm-consortium to provide most recent information from basic and applied sciences in pigs to farmers and multipliers and to encourage interaction and co-operation along the whole pig value chain, between scientists, pig producers, associations, funding organizations, politicians towards multipliers and stakeholders.
Based on recherché-work and discussions with external experts and team-members the following findings could be noted:
• At the moment there is a lack of harmonized systems for knowledge transfer towards the pig farmer on European level. European bodies like The European Pig Producers (EPP) (http://www.pigproducer.net/) and the European Pig Selection and Production Association (EPSPA) (http://www.epspa.eu/) exist, but do not put emphasis on this issue right now.
• Knowledge transfer is sometime organized at national level, but there exist also many regional initiatives. Existing initiatives are limited to regions defined by language and thus supported only on a national level.
• Knowledge transfer mainly is realized via many different and not harmonized channels. These build on networks, study tours and workshops and agricultural press releases. Some countries support collaborative research projects between universities and stakeholders along the value chain.
• The discussions showed that there are two most effective ways to inform farmers on the latest knowledge and technologies are either through personal contacts or by developing farmer attractive solutions, which lead to an increase in farmers’ income. This approach is documented by the fact, that experts and practitioners agreed on the topic nutrition issues/production efficiency (kilogram meat produced out of kilogram feed) as one of the hottest topics for farmers.
The RTD2Farm project developed two information platforms: The innovation window Wikipigs - an online interactive platform which provides information on European or national public financed project results in the field of agricultural pig sciences. The second developed tool is the pig related online tool Pigsci, which is an information and lifelong learning plat-form for farmers and multipliers. Both platform aim to offer science-based information and science- based learning tools.
It is inherent to adult education systems, that they are consulted voluntarily. While parents and teachers take care and control of their learning children, adults must motivate themselves or find external motivation. The most motivating effect has the fact, that invested time and efforts in educations do pay off. This is the case, if the presented content has a high level of usability. The Italian “NutriCarcass”-initiative is an example, where scientists were able to turn their findings into practically realizable measures for increasing the quality of thighs for the ham production. Another motivation can be a legal obligation or official acknowledgement of such learning efforts. The Austrian “Tiergesundheitsdienst” is such an example, where national regulations are in force, which support this network. Another benefit is the prevention of epidemic diseases, which is a main goal of this Austrian information platform.
In addition the developed platforms shall highly contribute to the qualification of farmers for future challenges in the farm business. With regulations getting the more and more precise and consumers being the more and more critical, market opportunities are getting even harder to tackle. Managing the farm business on a high level with scientific background should facilitate it for farmers to meet future requirements and enable them to respond to the ever changing requirements.
The main challenge for a harmonized knowledge transfer towards the pig farmer on European level is the variety in European languages. The target group of the LLL-platform is farmers and practitioners in the agricultural sector, who are normally not multilingual. This is a very important fact and a critical constraint to the knowledge-transfer-plans that shall be achieved. This language barrier is hard to overcome and a major reason for the limitation of the existing information services to the national level. It is obvious that language is the most important obstacle to a free information flow and exchange of ideas and views. In addition in most countries the owner of a domain is responsible for the content of the homepage and has to take care for inappropriate and dubious uploads or forum posting etc. These liability reasons cause the need of national owners of the domain for contents in various language, therefore multi-lingual platforms and content cannot be hosted a in a centralized manner.
In spite of the discussed challenge the developed instruments Wikipigs and Pigsci are a nucleus for a future increased co-operation in knowledge and technology transfer for the pig industry on a European level.
DISSEMINATION
In the course of the project all consortium partners have developed individually general pro-motion activities. In accordance to their institutional role and internationalisation level, their dissemination activities have been more targeted to a type of stakeholder and performed at national and/or EU-level. For the different dissemination actions the consortium studied the different events and publishing channels of interest. Then per consortium country (Austria, Belgium and Italy), the partners organised themselves to approach the different stakeholders at country-level optimising efforts.
Within the project period team members organized or participated three major dissemination events:
• The presence of the whole consortium at the EAAP Annual Meeting 2012 in Bratislava in close cooperation with the European Association for Animal Production itself. The main purpose was to present major outcomes of RTD2Farm and engage the scientific community – holders of results of interest for the pig farming sector - with the project.
• The presence of several partners at Eurotier 2012 in Hannover: At Eurotier the consortium targeted the pig industry and veterinarians with the Vetmeduni holding a presentation at the connected Bpt-congress (more targeted just to veterinarians).
• The RTD2Farm final conference was organized on the 18th of April 2013 on the international fair trade “Rassegna Suinicola Internazionale” (International Pig Farm Show 2013) – a fair trade for pig producers, pig farmers and multipliers in Reggio Emilia in Italy. Lead by partner CRPA, the consortium organised the RTD2Farm final conference with internal and external experts around the topic “Knowledge and Technology Transfer for pig producers; Suggestions for better co-operation between Scientists and Farmers”. Here the consortium introduced the project and presented its main outcomes, the (Wikipigs and PigSci Life Long Learning online).
Following the willingness to enhance a transnational cooperation approach, RTD2Farm organised the following meetings with European multipliers from the pig farming sector and other stakeholders (scientists, other European projects).
• RTD2Farm meets Eastern Europe pig farming (28 June 2012, Vienna): The net-working event had the focus to develop contact to multiplier organizations, scientists and other European projects with a focus on the Eastern European countries. The meeting took place in the facilities of the Austrian pig farmers’ association in Vienna. The selection for invitation was mostly based on personal contact (regular taking part in the same meeting, previous co-operations within the same projects etc.) or on recommendation.
• RTD2Farm Networking and Training event in Bucharest ( 27 November, 2012 Bucharest): As an direct output from the Eastern European networking meeting in Vienna the project team decided to organise an additional meeting in co-operation with the National Research Development Institute for Animal Biology and Nutrition (IBNA Balotesti) and the Romanian Association of pig meat producers. The focus of the event lay on nutrition topics. Talks included an overview on mycotoxins in feed, a presentation on improving pig meat by feed quality and an introduction to the RTD2Farm project. Although the participants were interested in the information, the discussion was quite difficult because a translation service had to be used for communication. The event underlined the importance for information in local languages and customization by a local partner. “
• RTD2Farm meets West-European Pig Associations (4 October 2012, Brussels): Whilst the first meeting in Vienna was addressed to Eastern organisations, this time the meeting gathered representatives from Western European pig producing associations. In these meetings, the participants got an overview of the European pig farming landscape and discussed the different alternatives for technology transfer and the possible contents of a Life-Long Learning (LLL) system for farmers.
As for the publishing, pigs farming associations and RTD providers in the consortium have published articles in national pig sector publications presenting RTD2Farm project, summa-rising outcomes from the national brokerage workshops and trainings, and presented the Wikipigs database and the Pigsci online platform. On the whole, the consortium has achieved the publication of more than 30 articles in different media about RTD2Farm with impact in Austria, Belgium, Italy and at EU level.
In addition, a Layman´s report, a printed publication which summarizes project outcomes in a compact and understandable way, was developed. This type of report is targeted at a non-specialist audience and serves to inform decision makers and non-technical parties of the project objectives and results, in the case of RTD2Farm targeted the report at pig producing related multipliers and policy makers. The first part of the report presents general information and aims of RTD2Farm project. The second part focuses on the demonstration of a new de-veloped tool to support knowledge and technology transfer for pig producers (PigSci Life Long Learning platform). Different parts of LLL are presented more in detail, future prospects are mentioned as well. The next part deals with Wikipigs, an online interactive platform with relevant European pig research results. The last part presents current knowledge and tech-nology transfer towards the pig farmer and discusses new developed Guidelines and Golden Standards for knowledge and technology transfer towards the pig farmer.
List of Websites:
www.rtd2farm.eu
www.pigsci.eu
www.pigsci.at
www.pigsci.it
www.pigsci.be
www.wikipigs.eu
Contact: Sabine Ecker, sabine.ecker@vetmeduni.ac.at;
Contact: Evelyne Mann, evelyne.mann@vetmeduni.ac.at
