180 | Shared pathways in experimental projects: research, territory, and scientific communities compared the example of the initiatives of the Regional Agency for Rural Development – Ersa (Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy)

Simona Rainis | Regional Agency for the Rural Development ERSA, Gorizia, Italy.

Shared pathways in experimental projects represent a crucial leverage for strengthening the relationship between Research, territories, and scientific communities, as demonstrated by the initiatives promoted by the Regional Agency for Rural Development – Ersa, in Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy) (e.g. Interreg Made, Interreg TOP-Value, SISSAR Research project, where different Universities and Institution collaborated, also in an interregional or international exchange). In this distinctive framework, building partnerships capable of bringing together diverse skills and distinct areas becomes essential for fostering innovative and persistent effects. Furthermore, joining heterogeneous generations in the work groups allows creating the perfect mix among the enthusiasm and forward looking spirit of younger members, a powerful driving force, with the practice and wisdom of senior professionals that balance decisions and prevent risky excesses. Similarly, forming teams composed of individuals from assorted countries also promotes broader awareness and enhances the visibility of specific geographical contexts, offering scientists a richer understanding of the regions involved that, upon a close examination, can have also a sort of outcome on the touristic promotion of the area itself. The improvement of qualified networks fosters to overcoming not only spatial boundaries—national and regional—but also conceptual and disciplinary ones, opening the way to new perspectives and methodological approaches. Collaboration among researchers, technicians, farmers, enterprises, and institutions generates a virtuous exchange in which technical insight and territorial expertise interact, enrich each other and converge toward identified common objectives. This, combined with the cultivation of the courage to embrace intellectual risks, become crucial conditions for generating pioneering solutions, especially in a complex and dynamic sector such as rural development. Analysing the support of public institutions, it is evident that lies both in mediating connections with political bodies and in enabling the implementation of results, ensuring concrete positive repercussions on the particular environmental and its stakeholders. At the same time, elaborating exportable best practices should start from an accurate scenario‑building, a long term goals and robust predictive models that contribute to avoid the loss of valorisation of the efforts, the weaken of impacts, decrease overall interest, and inhibit the capacity to address local or worldwide needs. A further fundamental aspect concerns the multiple levels of dissemination of the outputs, which must be adapted to the target audience. Technical and academic information should be tailored for four main categories such as: agricultural enterprises, consultants, consumers, and political, planners and decision-makers bodies. Only a targeted outreach and multi‑level information strategies ensure full transferability of achievements and meaningful beneficial consequences on the background, amplifying the effectiveness of experimentation, promoting the adoption of innovative approaches, and strengthening the collective knowledge. Ersa’s experience highlights how the ability to recognize and value the input provided by each individual, together with careful planning of relationships and their organization is a determining factor in the success of experimental initiatives. In fact, without a clear and rational arrangement and the valorisation of every single other competence, it prevails a fragmentation and energies and deliverables evidence risk to be dispersed, thanks to several critical elements. In conclusion, throughout solid partnerships, specialists’ web, structured communication processes, and the mindful management of the connections and the links can Research be transformed into a true driver of innovation, generating tangible benefits for territories and the communities implicated, in the foreseeable future.