VEGEPOLYS VALLEY is at the origin of the Plant InterCluster, a worldwide plant network, and sets up annual meetings with clusters and their members,  focusing on the building of European innovation projects.

Our focus:

Nowadays, agriculture is facing the global challenge to feed the world. Climate changes, reduction of pesticides, sustainable use of resources are strongly impacting our sector and particularly plant industry. To overpass these barriers, several plant clusters decided to join their effort and facilitate the linkage between innovative projects.

The Plant InterCluster has almost 10 years and built a strong international network with clusters around those sectors: cider, cereals, fruit and vegetables, ornamental horticulture, medicinal plants, mushrooms, seeds and winegrowing. This international and sectorial network works thanks to a common vision and motivation from its stakeholders. After 10 years of existence, back in 2018, the PIC founders decided to open up the steering committee to 5 others European clusters. Since 2020, the 12 European clusters signed a common MoU. This commitment ensures a sustainable action between clusters with clear objectives and roadmap.

Our objectives are:

• Exchanges of best practices in innovation governance,
• Support of technological cooperation and partnerships for innovation
• Identification of complementary international skills in order to remove technological bottlenecks
• International business opportunities (prospection and commercial values).

Our actions:

• PIC Event: Since 2011, the PIC network organizes a 2-days event with: conferences, thematic workshops, B2B and fields visits. It has been held in France every two years but also, in the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Italy. 
  • PIC 2019 : https://greenportwestholland.nl/pic-2019 
• Monthly online meeting: This regular meeting aims to get a better understanding of our respective ecosystem, identify potential collaboration for EU projects (interclustering or for our members), discuss about new services or events for clusters.
• PIC Webinars: A 1-hour conference online opened to all our members aims to bring a cross-vision on common challenge or topics. Replay are available on our Youtube channel.

EU projects :

Several projects came out from PIC network and PIC meeting. The discussion allows to anticipate better the future calls for proposals and identify the consortium in advance (COSME, Innosup, Erasmus+…).