As Woodknowledge Wales work with communities of practices (CoPs) draws interest across Europe, we look forward to expanding this approach to include Forestry & Land Use and a Contractors CoP
Our work with communities of practices is drawing interest across Europe. For the second time this year, we have been invited to present our way of working with peer groups across the entire wood value chain. This invitation was to the Bioeconomy Regions Summit, a high-level event hosted by the representation of the state of North-Rhine Westfalia to the EU and EFI Bioregions Facility.
How do we make best use of our natural resources?
The core question from leading regional bioeconomy clusters like Basque Country, Catalonia, North-Rhine Westfalia or Baden-Württemberg to cross-regional initiatives like Bioeconomy Austria, European Regions for Innovation in Agriculture, Food & Forestry ERIAFF or the Vanguard Initiative: How do we make best use of our natural resources? How do we develop purposeful value chains? And how do we recruit, train and retain people within our industry? Collaboration, cooperation and mutual learning appear to be recurring topics in discussions between regions and presentations from EU officials, whilst also placing high emphasis on ‘remaining competitive’.
Communities of Practice are key
For Woodknowledge Wales, our communities of practice are a key instrument in facilitating this agenda. They provide a space for industry members to meet and discuss in an open and transparent setting. To share concerns, opportunities, hopes or frustrations. This is where new ideas are born that we can take further in the form of projects, policy briefings, or webinars etc. Our experience shows that these more or less formal groups provide great value to our members and that they are genuine catalysts for action. And they are evolving: As our member base grows, we’re looking to launch a Forestry & Land Use CoP as well as a Contractors CoP.
As well as the technical solutions we apply and how we apply them, pf particular interest to other regions is: How our communities of practice are coming together around topics of shared concern and priority defined by group members themselves? How this contributes to the weaving of relationships that facilitate innovation? How we work together as an industry? And, how we are investing into evolving our own capabilities in facilitating ongoing change through our so-called “CoP of CoP’s”? This group brings together all CoP Leads in the team once a month.
Further invitations to share our approach
Several regional bioeconomy clusters and cross-regional networks have now been in touch to invite us to come and talk about our approach to their members.
This keen interest has sparked the idea of a community of practice for facilitators and conveners of bioeconomy clusters with a focus on forestry. First conversations are currently taking place with those who have expressed a high interest in our approach. We will explore this idea and its financial viability further over the next few months.
