The Interreg Project “Hub Iberia Agrotech” (called HIBA) is an initiative that joins multiregional actors from Portugal and Spain with a budget of €5,3 million. The project aims to build a multiregional ecosystem devoted to the agrifood sector through Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs).
HIBA is led by the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development of Andalusia through the Andalucia Agrotech DIH. The project will create testing services on technologies related to earth observation, robotics, internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence; it will include training on digital transformation and entrepreneurship for vocational training, university and civil society; in addition, it will implement an assessment service on digital transformation for agrifood SMEs.
The Traceability and Big Data Partnership is formed by 24 regions, that contribute with their regional ecosystem, and 13 associated members. Each region has created their nodes, formed by companies, competence centres, public administrations, etc. They are adopting the form of regional DIHs. It is coordinated and lead by the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development of the Junta de Andalucía (Spain) and co-lead by Emilia Romagna Region (Italy).
The methodology used by the Partnership since its creation has been recognised by the European Commission for its distributed and solid leadership, framed in a multilevel governance model involving quadruple helix actors in each regional node.
The Regional Cluster Iberia is part of the SmartAgriHubs project whose objective is to build a wide pan-European network of DIH connected with the centers of competence and with innovation experiments in which ideas, concepts and prototypes are developed and introduced into the market.
Andalucía Agrotech DIH participates in this cluster that is led by the Andalusian Ministry of Agriculture.
The European DIH4CPS project seeks to create an integrated and interdisciplinary network of DIH and solution providers, focused on cyber-physical and embedded systems, bringing together knowledge and technologies from different domains and connecting regional clusters with pan-European DIH expert groups.
Andalucía Agrotech DIH is developing the agroCPS experiment together with the companies Grupo Hispatec and Fede Pulverizadores, within the framework of this initiative, which aims to improve the digitization of the field notebook through cyber-physical and integrated systems (CPES).
REGIONS4FOOD seeks to solve new challenges through an approach to exchanging experiences and a work plan that allows the seven members regions to create synergies and opportunities by identifying good practices implemented in other territories.
The partners will work in close cooperation with stakeholders to interconnect regional innovation ecosystems, including Andalucía Agrotech DIH. The best practices for each region will be integrated into their action plans to improve the governance of specific policy instruments or to implement projects that contribute to achieving the objective mentioned above.