The consortium is composed of 3 different categories of partners:
- Universities, through their Agriculture Faculties (University of Florence (IT), Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (ES), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR), Universidade de Evora (PT))
- Companies providing advanced services to companies/farms (CSIC – research center on mechanization and robotics (SP); AgroSAP (Precision Agriculture consultancy (SP); ErreQuadro – technology foresight (IT); Valuedo – entrepreneurial education (IT))
- Farms adopting PA technologies (Quinta de Cholda (PT) – arable crops sector; Passalidis Ioannis,(GR) – fruit growing ; Mazzei 1435 (IT) – viticulture)
The main reasons for composing the partnership are:
1) Geographical distribution:
SPARKLE partnership is focused on Mediterranean countries and is specialized on Mediterranean typical productions. This choice was made in order to be able to work on sectors here all the University partners have specific expertise. SPARKLE results can be transferred also to other countries, as they won’t be focused just on the agricultural sectors choice, but we wanted to focus on a specific geographical area for being able to elaborate high level outcomes.
2) Multidisciplinarity and involvement in previous projects
The main idea at the foundation of the partnership rationale was to keep together Universities and farms already adopting PA technologies, in order to create high valuable outputs, crossed-checking them with farms’ needs. Company providing advanced services are important because they can fill the educational gaps of the partner Uni. in advanced sectors. UPM, UniFi, CSIC and SAP have a long tradition of collaborations in EU projects.
3) Coherence with the project objectives
The partners present skills, expertise and competencies that guarantee a successful development and implementation of the innovative educational results envisaged by the project.
- The applicant (UniFi), besides has strong competencies in PA technologies. The team researchers have a proven expertise in the fields of PA technology and business and innovation management.
- UPM (P3) and Uni Evora (P4) are collaborating from many years, and they tried together to create a specific transnational Master course in PA. They have the expertise for creating the e-learning materials, but they need to be supported by other university and technology providers partners in order to complete the topics to be addressed in such a course.
- ValueDo is also a entrepreneurial education center and owns a coworking space in Florence. Its main expertise are in managing EU projects and is currently part of a Knowledge Alliance project (beFORE) as technical partner in support to the Applicant.
- CSIC and AgroSAP, even if they are a public research center and a private company, have a core business the support to traditional farmers in order to adopt PA technologies. Their support will be fundamental for giving the partnership a constantly updated vision on the sector.
- ErreQuadro, is a foresight consultancies representing one of the highest European excellences in the field. It’s also partner of the same KA2 project, focused on Foresight Literacy (beFORE)
The 3 farms already adopting PA technologies will represent the “benchmark” for evaluating all the results produced in the project.