Work package 4

WP4 will coordinate the communication of the project outputs from the work packages 1, 2 and 3. The tasks are to (i) produce tailor-made dissemination tools to facilitate knowledge exchange based on the scientific and practical agronomic knowledge generated in the project and the needs of the various stakeholder groups and (ii) to ensure the efficient delivery of disseminated information to the farmers, policy-makers, extension services and higher education institutions with interests in agroecological farming. To ensure the local relevance of the project activity, we will communicate the project outputs to the local stakeholder platforms in different formats for maximum outreach to the end-user communities.

A well-designed interactive ECOTWINS project website will be developed and continuously updated during the project. The website will have different interfaces for the project partners and for the other stakeholders. The project partners will have access to the internal website for project management information like different WPs, deliverables, milestones, minutes of the project meetings, etc., whereas the other stakeholders will have access only to general information on the project. A data management plan (DMP) will be prepared that describes the data we expect to acquire and generate during the research project, how we will manage, describe, analyse, and store those data, and the methods and tools we will use at the end of our project to share and preserve data.

The aim of this task is to develop an overall KCIM Plan, based on initial consultations with the stakeholder groups and the WP leaders. The KCIMP will detail the general and specific objectives of the knowledge exchange strategy in addition to the expected impacts envisaged with the implementation of the project. It will provide details of the foreseen target groups (e.g. farmers, advisors, policy makers), the KCIM tools, channels and measures and their indicators and goals. Based on this KCIMP, an Individual KCIM Plan for each country will be designed in collaboration with each project partner. These individual plans will focus on the specific knowledge, communication and impact measures each partner may deploy to most efficiently address the information needs of different target groups We will develop the logo layout, templates for publications, posters, presentations and other communication products to ensure that all the products of the project will have a common visual identity.

The task is to synthesize best practices, tools and methods on agro-ecological production for improved productivity, and environmental performance of cereal-legume intercropping and create a list of relevant practices for each partner country. The list will consist of the practices that are locally relevant and have significant economic importance. This includes a compilation of the best practices from the previous national, regional and EU projects. In this way, we will compile a locally relevant and beneficial database to the farmers for informed decision-making.

The task is to communicate and interact with the stakeholders from the partner countries to maximize the project impacts by reaching out to the wider farming community through the local stakeholder groups. This task facilitates the interaction with stakeholders for validation of project outputs in consultation with the local stakeholder to make the project outputs relevant for the local farming community, advisory services and the policy makers for informed decision making on the adoption of agro-ecological practices.