Occitanum
Living lab
A living lab putting digital technologies at the service of agroecological transition within the Occitanie Region (Southwestern France).
Occitanum main goal is to codesign and evaluate digital technologies to foster the agroecological transition of agriculture and local food supply. Occitanum is an archipelago of 13 Living Labs deployed on different pedo-climatic sites and production systems across the Occitanie Region. These users-centred labs bring together the local and regional stakeholders, including farmer communities, local authorities, agricultural development actors, AgTech firms, citizens as well as researchers, engineers, technicians, and academics, to develop innovative projects for a variety of agricultural systems (orchards, beekeeping, livestock, field crops, vineyards and market gardening) and local food systems.
Background information
Aim
Deploying digital technologies to foster agroecological transition of agriculture and local food supply.
Occitanum brings together almost 50 regional actors of the agriculture and agrifood sector, including the Occitanie Region.
Occitanum is led by INRAE due to its expertise on agriculture, digital tools and participatory approaches with a strong participation of a larger network including the Chambres d’Agriculture, the Agriculture Cooperative Federation, local authorities, the Higher Education and Research Agronomy institute – AGRO Montpellier, the technical institutes, the Competitivity cluster called AgriSudOuest Innovation.
Occitanum follows an original structure allowing flexibility and complementarity. It is based on seven open lab based on six production systems (beekeeping, orchards, vineyard, filed crops, livestock, market gardening) and one on local supply chain. Each open lab is dispatched on different pilote sites. And on each pilot site, different innovative projects can emerged. In the Open Labs, each site organizes its specific governance to conceive and support Innovative Projects. General governance is manage through the CORE entity allowing for the general coordination, research and training actions, valorization and financial actions.
Funding structure
The project is a winner of the "Territoires d'Innovation" Grand Plan d'Investissement, Banque des Territoires.
The Occitanie Region supports OccitAnum as part of the the green newdeal action plan.
Achievements
49 partners involved
25 emerging innovative projects
7 working group to cobuild (data, research, ideal open lab, formation, CMI, assessment)
Methods, stakeholder engagements and tools
Different tools are used to get a stron stakeholder participation and involvement:
Regular meetings even during the Covid crises using participatory remote tools
Transparent and clear method to go from the stakeholder’s need to the requirement for AgTech to develop new products.
Call for interest to the AgTech enterprises to propose and codevelop if needed solution to farmers
Development of robust protocol to evaluate innovative solution on real life (environmental, economic and social evaluation)
Capacity building on AgTech to motivate the different stakeholders
Further information
Film about general assembly: Youtube Link
Activities
Design and implement innovative projects:
test new or already existing but not used digital solutions in a real-world environment
develop co-innovation with stackeholders
Codevelop innovative methods
Foster involvement of AgTech Firms in open innovation process
Develop multidisciplanarity research
Assessment of the potential of digital technologies used in Open Labs
