WP2: NPGs, facilitators and co-creation

by Cristina Micheloni (AIAB)

Despite COVID-19 restrictions facilitators managed to keep in contact and fine tune the methodology to set up and manage the National Practitioner Groups (NPGs) on Poultry (in Italy, France, Germany, Belgium-Netherlands, and Denmark) and on Pigs (in Italy, France, Belgium and Romania). 7 out of 9 NPGs had already a first meeting, either face-to-face or online, allowing the groups to share concerns, relevance, priorities and potentials on animal welfare. Part of the discussion was also dedicated to identification of potential levers for welfare improvement and to the co-creation of welfare assessment apps. To reorganize the methodology for distance interaction was quite a challenge, but it is giving results and somehow also opens up to participation of actors who would not be able to be involved in the case of exclusively face-to-face meetings. By the end of October, the next step will start, with the second round of meetings for the presentation of first project outcomes to the national practitioners, collect their feedback to orientate the next phase of the project and start discussing about some practical implementation of selected innovations (that will take place starting from next springtime).  Beyond the challenge of interacting despite social distancing, a further challenge for the facilitators will lay in passing the information from the researchers to the practitioners and vice-versa, bridging language and lexicon barriers, as well as strong believes and personalities (from both sides) and needs of site specific solutions.