July 15, 2025
Co-creation in Focus: Reflections from the ccCoP3 Online Workshop
On July 9, 2025, the modernAKIS project hosted its second cross-country Community of Practice workshop focused on connecting research to practice (ccCoP3), bringing together researchers, advisors, and practitioners from across Europe for a dynamic online session titled “From Co-Creation Intent to Impact.” The event explored what it truly takes to make research-practice collaboration work in agricultural innovation.
With co-creation gaining traction in EU policy and funding circles, the workshop aimed to go beyond the buzzword, unpacking real-world experiences, surfacing challenges, and identifying enabling conditions that support meaningful collaboration.
The interactive agenda guided participants through structured dialogues in three breakout groups, where they shared stories of both challenges and successes. One group examined tensions in a large-scale regenerative farming project, where researchers unintentionally dominated the process, sidelining farmer voices. Another reflected on a case in which a young farmer was invited to join a project’s advisory board, an initiative meant to promote participatory governance. However, due to the meeting format, lack of flexibility, and time-consuming tasks, the farmer ultimately withdrew. The story highlighted how tokenistic involvement without real support can lead to disengagement and missed opportunities for genuine collaboration.
Participants from 11 countries (Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, France, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovakia) brought a rich diversity of perspectives and national contexts to the conversation.
Common themes emerged across the discussions: power imbalances, unclear roles, a lack of mutual understanding, poor compensation schemes, and the need for better communication practices. However, the session also revealed promising strategies, such as appointing neutral facilitators, fostering peer-to-peer learning environments, and setting shared goals early on.
Insights from the ccCoP3 workshop will inform the ongoing work of the modernAKIS project, which supports co-creation in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS) across Europe.
