Erratum to: Chapter 4 in: K. Ciampi Stančová and A. Cavicchi, Smart Specialisation and the Agri-food System, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91500-5_4

The original version of the book was revised to include text which was inadvertently missed from Sections 4.5.1 and 4.5.2 of Chapter 4. The sections should read as:

4.5.1 High Technology Farming (Leading Region: Tuscany)

In the context of the Thematic Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food, the region of Tuscany has initiated a partnership on High Technology Farming. Several other EU regions and countries, among them Galicia, South Holland and Estonia, have joined the initiative. The Tuscany region acknowledged that this is an ongoing process that started with the preparation of an Expression of Interest and continued with the consolidation of the Scoping Note, which is a reference document prepared with the purpose of identifying and specifying areas for co-investment. The steps in this process are the mapping and identification of complementarities among the regions participating in the partnership, matching of players, and development of investment plans for joint projects. The region of Tuscany has promoted the partnership because it believes that shifting towards Precision Farming is of the utmost importance for its agricultural system. In general terms, by participation in the Thematic Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food, the Tuscany region seeks to enhance its position within the global value chains in the area of high technology farming, but there are many additional positive implications such as improving its administrative capacity, creating synergies with other territories, and improving the focus of programmes and projects. One of the aims of the partnership is to meet the needs of end-users/companies. It is thus important to ensure that the partnership provides for added value to the industrial and entrepreneurial base within the participating regions, by identifying assets and needs of end-users, who in this specific context are farmers, breeders and silviculturists, and of companies. To this end, Tuscany conducted a thorough Entrepreneurial Discovery Process to explore and understand regional capacities, potential and opportunities in high technology farming. In addition, Tuscany and the partner regions and countries mapped formal and informal networks, their positions within global value chains, flows of goods and services, and cooperation in R&I projects. Based on the data collected, the partners have identified collaborative opportunities for co-investment.

Regarding institutional change, participation in the Thematic Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food initiated organisational change at the level of regional Ministries and behavioural change among regional officers. Communication on smart specialisation among the regional Ministries and collaboration among different operational programmes was improved in Tuscany after the region undertook a coordinating role in the High Technology Farming partnership and organised the Kick- off event of the Thematic Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food in Florence in 2016. This led to more focused connections in the operational phases, for example, better integration and complementarities in EARDF and ERDF operations, and more focused discussion in the RIS3 regional coordination task force. The Tuscany RIS3 governance is based on two entities, an internal coordination task force and an external observation group formed of the main regional stakeholders in innovation. In both entities joint investment opportunities provided by inter-regional cooperation are examined and discussed, then synergies within regional programmes are taken into consideration and integrated initiatives are fostered. Similarly, regional officials working in the agricultural department have had the chance to explore the specific opportunities offered by the smart specialisation strategy roadmaps and related programming and thus contribute in a more structured way to trans-regional cooperation in smart specialisation at European levels. Five value chains have been proposed within this context to cover different agricultural areas and applications:

  • Tree nurseries, viticulture, fruit (relatively more intensive)

  • Outdoor livestock

  • Indoor livestock

  • Arable lands, cereals, vegetables (outdoor)

  • Protected cultivation (different types of greenhouses, highly intensive)

Participating regions: Basilicata, Bretagne, Central Macedonia, Centro, East Middle Sweden, Emilia-Romagna, Estonia, Extremadura, Flanders, Galicia, Gelderland, Limburg, Marche, North Brabant, North East Romania, North Holland, Northern Ireland, Pays de la Loire, South Holland, South Ostrobothnia, Tuscany, Veneto, Weser-Ems, Western Macedonia.

4.5.2 Traceability and Big Data (Leading Regions: Andalusia and Emilia-Romagna)

Andalusia contributed significantly to the creation and the development of the Thematic Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food from the perspectives of the thematic partnership on Traceability and Big Data. For Andalusia, it is imperative to converge regional R&I interests with the national and EU priorities not only in terms of principles, indicators and objectives but also in terms of real harmonisation and coordination to increase innovation potential and leverage a synergetic effect of funding. The Traceability and Big Data thematic partnership aims at encouraging, motivating and facilitating the incorporation of new digital technologies and data applications including big data, open data, biotechnologies, and traceability in agri-food sector value chains. How can we bring together data that we generate at the regional level? What standardisation is needed? How can we capture, assemble and jointly analyse big data and make sense of them at the EU level?

The co-creation process and inter-regional collaboration offer an opportunity for stakeholders in Andalusia as well as those in partner regions and countries to expand their research and business opportunities, and improve their position within the knowledge and global value chains. Although initial identification and involvement of partner regions was not straightforward, mainly for political and economic reasons, the theme of traceability and big data attracted the interest of regions and countries, and this interest was consequently translated into more specific collaboration on the partnership reference document, the scoping note, which describes and specifies an area for co-investment, with high potential business and societal return at the regional and European levels. The design and development of the Smart Specialisation Agri-food Thematic Partnerhip Traceability and Big Data follow a four-step process (learn—connect—demonstrate—commercialise). Curiously enough, in the inception phase, the most interested actors were business clusters, universities or research centres, which had no or only symbolic links with their corresponding public bodies managing the regional smart specialisation strategies. However, these local actors, also with help of Andalusia, have been able to engage their regional authorities and obtain their political and financial commitment. Involving companies and industry from the very beginning in fields as diverse as agri-food and new technologies is a strategic objective, given that these actors will enable trans-regional projects to happen. Activities of the thematic partnership focus on three specific topics and one cross-cutting topic:

  • Specific topic 1: Traceability and Big Data in the “Lifecycles of the value chain”.

  • Specific topic 2: Traceability and Big Data in the “Smart monitoring of the value chain to improve the overall competitiveness of the agri-food sector”.

  • Specific topic 3: Traceability and Big Data to “incorporate consumer experience and the different operators in the food chain in decision-making processes”.

  • Cross-cutting topic: Open data, interoperability, data governance and information security, cyber security.

Participating regions: Andalusia, Basque Country, Brittany, Central Macedonia, Emilia-Romagna, Extremadura, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, Galicia, Hajdú-Bihar, Limburg, Middle Black Sea Region, Navarra, Pays de la Loire, Pazardzhik, Sardinia, Satakunta, South Ostrobothnia, South Savo, Southern Transdanubia.