The European Innovation Partnership for Agriculture Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI) is an exciting and novel approach to research and innovation. EIP-AGRI is one of five European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) launched to boost the EU’s capacity to innovate.  EIP-AGRI focuses on agriculture and forestry. Other EIPs target issues related for example to healthy ageing and smart cities.

EIPs are challenge-driven and focus on societal benefits and modernisation. EIPs support cooperation between research and innovation partners in order to achieve better and faster results compared to existing approaches.

The overall aim of EIP-AGRI relates to the pooling of expertise and resources by bringing together public and private sectors at EU, national and regional levels. EIP-AGRI works to:

• Combine supply and demand side measures
• Focus on forming partnerships, using bottom-up approaches
• Link actors in different types of interactive innovation projects such as Operational Groups (OGs) under Rural Development Programmes (RDPs).

The National Rural Network (NRN) works closely with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to support and build networks between Ireland’s OGs, as well as research and disseminate information on Ireland’s EIP-AGRI projects.