agROBOfood: Towards a European network and effective adoption of robotics technologies

Many end users in agri-food are not aware of the opportunities robotics can offer to their company. Perhaps they have even never thought about it. The agROBOfood network will raise awareness by organising events, showcasing demonstrators and reaching out to these end users through the DIHs. When end users become aware of what is possible, they often do not know where to find the right support. One of the goals of agROBOfood is to change this. We will actively promote the one-stop shop principle so that everyone who wants to use robotics knows where to go to find the help that they need. Which goals do we want to achieve?

agROBOfood aims to create an open, expanding, and sustainable ecosystem of a wide range of stakeholders (DIHs and CCs, SMEs, farmers and agribusiness suppliers, traders and technology providers, Research, Government, Investors, the Public) combining various competences and addressing multiple dimensions (technical, human, financial) towards a common vision for the uptake and integration of robotic technologies in the agri-food sector. The agROBOfood network includes 7 Regional Clusters covering the whole of Europe with representative organizations as leaders, each coordinating DIHs in their own region.

Digital Innovation Hubs are one-stop-shops that help companies to become more competitive with regard to their business/production processes, products or services using digital technologies. They are based upon technology infrastructure (competence centre) and provide access to the latest knowledge, expertise and technology to support their customers with piloting, testing and experimenting with digital innovations. DIHs also provide business and financing support to implement these innovations, if needed across the value chain. As proximity is considered crucial, they act as a first regional point of contact, a doorway, and strengthen the innovation ecosystem. A DIH is a regional multi-partner cooperation (including organizations like RTOs, universities, industry associations, chambers of commerce, incubator/accelerators, regional development agencies and even governments) and can also have strong linkages with service providers outside of their region supporting companies with access to their services.

More information can be found here.

Digital Innovation Hubs, as an innovation ecosystem that provides access to the services, facilities and expertise of a wide range of partners, ensure that individual customers get the services they need; that the target market segments receive innovative, scalable solutions; and that DIHs cooperate effectively with each other. Proximity between DIHs and companies is an important factor and the first point of contact for companies will often be a DIH in the same region.

DIHs will actively approach companies themselves to share their knowledge in robotics and explain their service portfolio. Amongst others, DIHs can guide and teach companies, help them to discover robot abilities and how these relate to their needs, and if needed identify sources of financial support for automation. Finally, this will result in a large community of competitive (aware and able) digitized European companies.

The Open Calls aim to:

Support industry, in particular SMEs of the agrifood sector, in their digital transformation, through demonstrators and platforms development, technology transfer experiments and other services.

Allow the European automation industry (agricultural machinery, material handling, etc) to benefit from the opportunities of guiding, supporting and teaming up with start-ups and SMEs from the robotics sector.

Mobilize private matching funds (e.g. acquisitions by big industrial players, corporate VC investments, that will support the scale-up of robotic technologies and accelerate the digital transformation of the agrifood sector.