The work performed in the second reporting period (RP2) followed the initial plan and executed the corresponding activities of five work packages. Overall, DRAGON implementation in RP2 achieved expected goals and KPIs, even with changes due to COVID-19 pandemic. DRAGON activities in RP2 significantly contributed to the raising of BIOS research, innovation and communications capacity via participation of young BIOS researchers in the international research through DRAGON short term visits and at the conferences. DRAGON ML HACKATHON: Plant Your Code with Microsoft Development Center Serbia and DRAGON workshops further impacted larger community of students coming from Serbian universities and raised awareness on the challenges in agriculture and food sector and the need for data driven solutions. Info-days and B2B meetings were also very important tools in achieving near- and long-term impact of the DRAGON project, particularly when reaching different stakeholder groups. Developed DRAGON Online Course is a major tool for long-term impact. Importantly, Centre for Information Technologies (CIT) was formed in Biosense Institute within DRAGON project duration.
WP2 has focused on enhancing the S&T expertise of BIOS researchers. Intensive mobility (in modified, online format to adapt to COVID-19-related circumstances) was performed a) 3 virtual expert visits of the senior researchers to BIOS (1 from WU, 2 from Agri-EPI) and b) 10 short-term visits (3 physical STVs and 7 virtual STVs) of the young BIOS researchers to the partners’ institutions (5 to Agri-EPI, 5 to WU). 3 dedicated workshops were held in RP2, while BIOS researchers had 18 participations at conferences during RP2.
WP3 concerns COMMunication skill transfer, adopting the 2-step model co-creation (CoC) events, providing opportunities for close interactions with the end-users to capture their needs in turn enhancing the trainings in COMM skills of the BIOS-researchers. The 1st step comprises preparatory lectures by the experts from Agri-EPI, WU and invited speakers on to the most effective methods to present data/information/knowledge while the 2nd step involves CoC events with various stakeholders. In RP2, COMM-related expert visits from Agri-EPI (3) and from WU (3) occurred and further 3 info-days, 1 hackathon and 4 types of B2B meetings – at conferences, on-demand, at Info-days and at Expo 2020 Dubai event were organized. The first successful exploitation took place in RP2 within WP3, when a commercial contract was signed with Frikom - the largest producer of frozen fruit in Serbia, as a direct consequence of the DRAGON B2B on-demand meetings.
WP4: Dissemination and Outreach focused on promoting project results and raising awareness of PA technologies in Serbia and the region. Careful planning and coordination according to previously developed PEDR enabled efficient interlinking of the WP3 and WP4 activities, with WP3 CoC events presenting excellent opportunities for engaging the relevant stakeholders and networking. WP4 yielded a wide range of dissemination tools and materials, both in the digital and printed form, all prepared under the same DRAGON visual identity. Very important WP4 exploitable result is the DRAGONx online course on WageningenX (EdX) platform.
WP5 was dedicated to fulfilling the Protection of Personal Data. Open Science aspect was fully achieved with 29 published results (13 journal papers, 4 full conference papers and 12 abstracts), all with gold or green open access, as well as 2 publicly shared datasets.
