Report on Workshop “Connecting Research to Practice in the Potato Sector—Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches”

Abstract

Participants were the following: Borghild Glorvigen (Norway), Leah Tsror (Israel), Jussi Tuomisto (Finland), Francine Pacilly (The Netherlands), Paola Gaiero (The Netherlands-Uruguay), Jaap Delleman (The Netherlands), Adrian Cunnington (United Kingdom), Michel Martin (France), Kurt Demeulemeester (Belgium), Lars Bodker (Denmark), Pierre Lebrun (Belgium), and Jean-Pierre Goffart (Belgium). The objective of the workshop was to formulate, for the potato production sector, the best ways to connect research with practice (farmers, advisors, and enterprises) using bottom-up as well as top-down approaches. The workshop was organized as an exchange between participants interested in the need to create a useful and successful connection between research and practice in the potato sector. Through examples of initiatives in this scope, the workshop was based, in the first part, on three lectures given by representatives of institutions or associations active in the development of transfer and services for end-users or stakeholders of the potato chain, using either the top-down or the bottom-up approach. In the second part, the participants were given sheets with a series of questions on the topic on which they could write down their answers. Questions were discussed during the workshop and participants were invited to submit the sheets with their answers. Deliverable was a report on the lectures content and on the discussions and answers to the questionnaire. Finally, an attempt of guidelines was proposed. Potato Research DOI 10.1007/s11540-014-9277-x