The Smart Specialisation Platform for Agri-Food (S3P Agri-Food) established at EU level aims to accelerate the development of joint investment projects in the EU by encouraging and supporting interregional cooperation in thematic areas based on  smart specialisation priorities defined by regional and national government linked to agriculture and food. Through the S3P Agri-Food, EU regions and member states are able to implement more efficiently their smart specialisation strategies, and regional stakeholders benefit from the new cooperation opportunities with partners from other regions.

The key objective of the S3P Agri-Food is to orchestrate and support the efforts of EU regions committed to work together for developing a pipeline of investment projects connected to specific thematic areas of smart specialisation priorities through interregional cooperation. The S3P Agri-Food will be co-developed and co-led by the regions themselves ensuring an active participation and commitment of industry and related business organisations and clusters as well as research institutions, academia and civil society.

The S3P Agri-Food will focus on RIS3 priority areas related to agriculture and food and further proposed by the regions which are keen to act as coordinating/leading region(s). To submit the proposals, interested region are invited to fill in the Expression of Interest on-line form.

The investment opportunities generated by the S3P Agri-Food will contribute to a more competitive and sustainable EU food supply chain, more resilient food systems, and to a more effective targeting of the EU regional funds on growth and jobs, especially through the numerous SMEs and micro-companies that make up this chain. The Platform will also promote the complementarity of funding instruments in the support of an investment project pipeline.

• 2019 Autumn Agri-food Working Committee Semi-annual Meeting was organised within the context of the event entitled Digitalisation and New Technologies in Agri-food and took place on 3-4 December 2019 in Malaga, Spain.
• 2019 Spring Agri-food Working Committee Semi-annual Meeting took place on 27 March 2019 in Florence. Presentations are available on the event webpage.
• The Joint S3 Thematic Platforms Conference and Meetings were held on 27 and 28 November in Bilbao. The Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food held its Working Committee Semi-annual Meeting on 28 November. Please visit the webpage for further information, presentations and the final report.
• Another S3P-Agri-food Semi-annual Working Committee meeting took place in Seinäjoki, Finland on 11 June 2018. The Working Committee consists of all regions participating in Agri-food thematic partnerships. As a result, these Working Committee Meetings bring together the European Commission services and representatives of all Agri-food thematic partnerships. Further information and presentations and the report are available here.  
• Smarter Regions 2.0 Conference: the 2nd High-level Smart Regions event, took place on 1-2 June 2017 in Helsinki, and provided the opportunity to national and regional authorities to share experience of how Smart Specialisation has been implemented in their countries and regions. Further information is available here. 
• The Kick-off event of S3P-Agri-Food took place on the 6-7 December 2016 in Florence, Italy. This meeting resulted in the first group of partnerships formally joining the Agri-Food S3 Platform as members. At the same time, it resulted in agreed working arrangements to prepare partnerships in thematic areas and establish a project investment pipeline, in particular for pilots and demonstrators in the targeted areas.  The European Commission is committed to develop support and advisory services to accelerate this project pipeline. Presentations are available here.

• Ciampi Stancova, K. 2019. Interregional Cooperation in agri-food smart specialisation. Regional Studies Asociation. Regions e-Zine, Issue 3.
• Ciampi Stancova, K. and A. Cavicchi, 2018. Smart Specialisation and the Agri-food system: a European perspective. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Radosevic, S. and Ciampi Stancova, K. 2018. “Internationalising Smart Specialisation: Assessment and Issues in the Case of EU New Member States.” Journal of the Knowledge Economy, March 2018, Vol. 9, Issue 1 pp.263-293.
• Ciampi Stancova, K., and A. Cavicchi. 2017. Dynamics of Smart Specialisation Agri- food Trans-regional Cooperation, JRC Technical Reports.
• Cavicchi, A. and K., Ciampi Stancova. 2016. Food and gastronomy as elements of regional innovation strategies. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Spain.
• Brennan L., Rakhmatullin R. 2015. Global Value Chains and Smart Specialisation Strategy. Thematic Work on the Understanding of Global Value Chains and their Analysis within the Context of Smart Specialisation. JRC S3 Policy Brief.

S3P Agri-Food
DG REGIO - DG for Regional and Urban Policy
REGIO Smart Growth
European Commission