Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FLIARA (FLIARA: Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-01-01 al 2024-06-30
FLIARA (Female-led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas) is designed to address critical needs and challenges facing European rural areas and farming, particularly related to sustainability, gender inequalities and innovation. The FLIARA project addresses specific challenges such as the untapped resource of women's innovation and entrepreneurial potential, as well as the under-utilisation of their future contribution. Currently, the contributions of rural women to innovation are often underrecognised. FLIARA works to improve understanding, awareness and recognition of women’s role in a more sustainable farm and rural future. The project combines future foresight analysis and case studies to understand women’s current and potential future contribution to rural innovation and sustainability. The evidence generated also sheds light on the pathways successful women innovators take, as well as the current policies and future policy needs to further enhance women’s role in rural sustainability and innovation. Beyond this core new knowledge created, the project is also building a Community of Practice network bringing together women innovators and a broader range of stakeholders to share knowledge and further understand the current policy strengths and the future policy improvements needed. The Community of Practice network also spotlight women’s innovation achievements through involving 20 Innovation Ambassadors in this network as well as a wider Campaign of Visibility for women-led rural innovations. The scale of FLIARA’s reach and impact is European-wide. Through the case studies FLIARA has engaged directly with 200 female innovators and these activities span across ten European countries. The Community of Practice involves 20 Innovation Ambassadors from ten European countries. Physical network events are held in four countries spread across geographically dispersed European regions.
FLIARA commenced with a review of existing knowledge related to women-led innovation in farming and rural areas. This was followed by the development of a conceptual framework to deepen our understanding of the pathways to successful women-led innovation. This knowledge base shaped a selection and analysis framework for the 20 FLIARA case studies that were carried out in 10 countries. FLIARA also undertook a three-step future foresight envisioning process to identify and assess the role of women in the innovations demanded for sustainable farm and rural futures. FLIARA has also built a broad knowledge base of policy and legal frameworks impacting women-led innovation in rural and farming contexts, looking at the EU level and 10 European countries. The project also commenced its work on policy benchmarking by reviewing the current situation and developing guidelines for our future work, drawing out lessons from the FLIARA knowledge, concept, and policy review. FLIARA has also built a strategic plan for its Community of Practice and held the first online and face-to-face events associated with this network. Design and planning have also commenced on the FLIARA Toolkit, which will provide an end-user focused practical toolkit for women engaged in and seeking to become involved in farm and rural innovation.
The new knowledge generated by FLIARA brings together underexplored areas and investigates their intersections, namely rural and farm-based women-led innovation and the rural sustainability transition. Through the future foresight analysis of sustainability innovations, FLIARA has identified areas of opportunity for sustainable rural development in relation to farm and rural women-led innovation and explored the specific policy measures needed to realise this opportunity. The case studies carried out have analysed successful women-led innovations that interact with the four dimensions of sustainability (social, economic, cultural, and environmental) to better understand the core challenges, capacities needed, and pathways to successful women-led innovation. This uncovers key factors that can hinder the realisation of untapped potential and the upscaling of existing successful women-led innovation. The Community of Practice network has commenced and works to dismantle existing silos where a range of stakeholders (policy, research, innovation practice) in the field of women-led innovation are brought together, providing a dynamic space for women to influence in decision-making and to learn together utilising the novel, participatory multi-actor approach. The Community of Practice network will not only support current innovators, but the 20 Innovation Ambassadors in this network and the wider Campaign of Visibility aims to inspire future generations. This promotes the breaking down of cultural norms, where women-led innovation becomes a more standard and expected practice than the exception.