South Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency (STRIA) is a partner in the Regions 4 Food Interreg Europe project. The project focuss on promoting digitalisation in the agricultural sector, which will help Europe move towards a greener Europe, and on promoting the dissemination of modern information and communication technologies and big data applications in the food chain (agro-production, food industry, trade).
After 2021 spring elaboration, STRIA and the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences (Kaposvár Campus) have been awarded its pilot action proposal for the purpose of transferring the agrifood innovation and digitisation Master programme pf the University of Sevilla. This enabled the Hungarian partnership to start the implementation of the pilot action from September 2021.
The action is entitled “Transfer of the MSc programme “Digital Agriculture and Agri-Food Innovation” of the University of Seville (Andalusia, Spain) to South Transdanubia to test a new higher education approach”. The objective is to test the feasibility of a new and complex approach to knowledge transfer of the Spanish MSc programme “Digital Agriculture and Agri-Food Innovation” of the University of Seville to South Transdanubia. Linked to this, it also aims at expanding and developing the digital agriculture and agri-food innovation portfolio of Hungarian higher education institutions. Furthermore, it strives to demonstrate the added value of this new and complex higher education approach as one of the potential new eligible activities of Hungary’s Digital Agricultural Strategy (2019-2022).
At the University of Seville the Master Program has been operational since September 2018, with 30 lecturers, 20-24 students per academic year and a budget of approximately 80.000, EUR / two academic years. The programme includes nine modules, which are:
- 7 technical (1. IT and precision farming, 2. Geomatics and drones, 3. smart production and monitoring systems, 4. data analytics and decision support tools, 5. smart irrigation systems, 6. robotics and 3D, 7. business challenges), and
- 1 agri-food project developer and,
- 1 (optional) corporate internship module.
Within the framework of the pilot action, a number of proposed activities have been selected. These are:
- A project launch event,
- Pilot curriculum development,
- Pilot training,
- Policy recommendation formulation,
- Project closure event.
The action is implemented from 1 September 2021 and end at 31 October 2022.
More information about the project: https://www.interregeurope.eu/regions4food/
The Region4Food project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and Hungary within the Interreg Europe Program.