Work package 4: Business Accelerator Vertical Farming
Work package 4: Business Accelerator Vertical Farming
Work package 4: Business Accelerator Vertical Farming

The speed of innovation and the strengthening of innovative power depend on targeted knowledge circulation and adoption and the adaptive and learning capacity of the parties involved. With a view to making the collaboration within the Field Lab more sustainable, this work package therefore focuses on strengthening the learning capacity of the partners in the project.

The aim of work package 4 is to expand the cooperation within the Fieldlab Vertical Farming into a network from which companies and knowledge institutions can continue to work on accelerating business development in the field of vertical farming. This lays the foundation for a permanent revenue model for the Fieldlab, with which the collaboration can continue after the project and can be further expanded.

The field lab that is being built up within the project is an innovation ecosystem. The parties involved (partners and support parties) are partly competitors of each other, but do see the added value of cooperation to further professionalise and develop the sector. There is an enlightened self-interest in that. During the development of this application, it became apparent that the parties must go through a learning process of awareness and becoming competent in dealing with each other with knowledge development, knowledge sharing and knowledge valorisation. In this work package, a learning network is developed in which the various parties become better attuned to each other based on the various core values ​​that can be contributed. Discovering each other's strengths and exploring the boundaries of collaboration. After all, cooperation is a means and not an end. Constant attention is needed for the 'mine and thine', recording knowledge input, exploitation, maintenance, sharing, etc. A knowledge network bank with experts, knowledge products and contracts can be built up for this purpose. This will be partly closed (for the partners) and partly open.

The activities in work package 4 are aimed at connecting the outcomes of work packages 1-3 and spreading knowledge about the outcomes to stakeholders within and outside the Fieldlab through network and theme meetings and publications. In addition, work is being done within the work package on the development of  paid services (training courses, 1-on-1 advice and consultancy, etc.), with which the Fieldlab can continue to exist in the long term, and an appropriate governance and financing model is being developed. Experience shows that from the start of the project it is important that the partners and future users experience that knowledge is not free. New revenue models must be developed. The companies that invest in¨knowledge development and want to offer this are also looking for revenue models.

By using the first results from the work packages for the organization itself, but also for third parties, an approach is jointly developed to accelerate the knowledge circulation (development, utilization and exploitation). The partnership can develop new projects for new issues that are outside the scope of the work packages. In this way, work can also be done step by step on setting up a knowledge and innovation structure that will be continued after the completion of the ERDF project. The collaboration must have proven added value for the entrepreneurs. The form of the collaboration will be worked out during the project. This can lead, for example, to a legal entity from which funding and subsidies can be requested in the future.