The EENOVA consortium met in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on 27–28 October for its fourth consortium meeting, bringing together partners from across Europe at a decisive moment for the project. With EENOVA entering its final year, the meeting focused on consolidation, alignment, and preparing the next phase of joint work across the five pilot regions.
Day 1 – Consolidation and direction
The first day was dedicated to structured reporting, cross-work-package alignment, and forward planning. After three completed rounds of regional roundtables, discussions confirmed that the project is ready to move into its final participatory phase. The emphasis was on consolidating what has been learned so far and ensuring coherence between regional results, technical work, and policy-oriented outputs.
From EEIP’s perspective, this moment is critical. The value of EENOVA lies not only in individual company improvements, but in the collective learning process across regions and value chains. The meeting underlined how this shared knowledge base has matured and is now ready to be synthesised.
From methodology to achievements
A dedicated session revisited EENOVA’s roundtable methodology, which follows a clear sequence: starting with the assessment of the status quo, moving through action planning and scenario development, and now progressing towards the fourth and final round focused on achievements. This last roundtable cycle will bring together the experience, data, and conclusions from earlier phases, with the aim of validating results and strengthening the project’s replication potential.
At this stage of the project, leadership of the roundtable process has formally transitioned from AgriFood Lithuania DIH, which successfully led the third round under Work Package 4, to AgroTransilvania Cluster, now leading Work Package 5. This handover reflects EENOVA’s collaborative structure and strong regional ownership.
Day 2 – Learning from practice
On the second day, partners visited Moldovan, a meat-processing company participating in the Romanian pilot. The guided tour provided a concrete view of production processes and operational practices, linking EENOVA’s analytical and participatory work to real industrial settings. For EEIP, such site visits are essential to ground project discussions in practical realities and to test the relevance of proposed solutions.
Looking ahead
The Cluj-Napoca meeting confirmed that EENOVA is entering a phase of consolidation and delivery. With the final round of regional roundtables ahead, the focus will be on turning shared learning into robust, transferable outcomes for the agri-food sector and beyond.
EEIP remains committed to supporting this process by fostering cross-regional exchange, ensuring coherence between technical and strategic work, and strengthening the visibility and uptake of EENOVA’s results as the project moves into its final year.
