---
id: ch9-adoption
type: spine
title: "What slowed uptake: lessons from 21 sub-grantees and nine stakeholder panels"
readingTime: 3
standalone: true
core: false
teaser: "Almost half the funded projects struggled to recruit rural participants. Here is what else slowed them down, what helped, and which survey figures to read with care."
voice: explorer
diagram: diagram-adoption-barriers
recallQ: "Which barriers to engagement and uptake did the PoliRural+ open-call projects report, and what does D6.3 recommend for future calls?"
recallA: "The most common barrier was recruiting local partners and rural participants (47.6 %), followed by project windows of 3–9 months that were too short (42.9 %) and the administrative burden (23.8 %). D6.3 recommends consortium-backed stakeholder matchmaking, 9–12 month windows for Develop and Enhance, standard reporting templates from day one, and faster feedback channels to the core developers."
highlights:
  - "Barrier one: finding rural participants (10 of 21 respondents); trusted intermediaries such as LAGs and cooperatives help"
  - "3–9 month windows are too short for seasonal field tests; D6.3 recommends 9–12 months"
  - "100 % 'replicable' and 81 % 'will continue' are self-assessments, not proof"
  - "The stakeholder database is thin on infrastructure, digital-technology and finance actors"
status: accepted
concept: adoption-lessons
conceptTitle: "Lessons on uptake"
parents: open-calls|multi-actor-approach
lang: en
lens: generic
depth: standard
formalism: none
visuality: balanced
lengthBand: deep
genre: explainer
state: edited
carriers: prose|table|diagram
---

Paying for a tool does not mean people will use it. Two kinds of PoliRural+ evidence show where engagement and uptake ran into friction. The first is the beneficiary survey in D6.3 §4, answered by 21 of the 26 funded projects (80.8 %). The second is the stakeholder monitoring in D2.1 and D5.1. All survey figures are self-reported.

## Four barriers named by the sub-grantees

| Barrier | Respondents | What D6.3 recommends |
|---|---|---|
| **Finding local partners and rural participants** | 47.6 % (10/21) | Allow lead time, work through trusted intermediaries (LAGs, farmer cooperatives), use offline formats; provide consortium-backed matchmaking and introductions to pilot partners |
| **Windows of 3–9 months**, too short for seasonal field tests and adoption | 42.9 % (9/21) | Extend Develop and Enhance from 6–9 to 9–12 months |
| **Reporting and administration** | 23.8 % (5/21) | Standard templates from day one, fewer intermediate deliverables, verification at milestones |
| **Slow feedback loop** with the JackDaw developers (Enhance call) | named, not counted | Liaison channels with the core developers: Code Camps, shared repositories, rapid issue-tracking sprints |

Technical applicants also asked to be told, at application stage, how mature (at what technology readiness level) the core tools such as [JackDaw](#c/jackdaw) were. Some wanted calls open beyond the nine pilot regions. D6.3 suggests keeping the pilot challenges but letting applicants from other regions with the same bottlenecks into the development calls.

## What helped

**Co-design reached across the digital divide.** Conversational interfaces and voice input, combined with hands-on training such as product-photography and prompt workshops, reached older and non-technical producers. Every respondent formed new partnerships; 12 of 21 worked with more than five new organisations. Beneficiaries also asked for peer exchange between winners of different calls. D6.3 answers this with cross-call demo days and peer-learning webinars.

## Reading the good news carefully

D6.3 marks the limits of its own numbers. All 21 respondents called their results replicable, but that is **a self-assessment, not documented replication**. 81 % (17 projects) intend to keep using their tools, which is a statement of intent, not evidence of lasting sustainability. D6.3 can show outputs and immediate outcomes; longer-term impact is left to D6.4.

## The stakeholder side

D2.1 found a reasonable spread across stakeholder types, with three exceptions: **infrastructure providers, digital technology companies and financial institutions**. These are the groups that connect, build and finance tools, and the pilots are targeting them in the project's second period. D5.1 adds a lesson from the Lippitt-Knoster change model: if incentives are missing, change meets resistance. Its Multi-Actor Approach Tool (MAATool) tracks KPIs and estimates how representative each pilot's stakeholders are, so gaps like these show up.

For a future cascade-funding scheme, the first two fixes cost little: introduce sub-grantees to the [Primary stakeholders](#c/multi-actor-approach) of their pilot, and give field projects at least one full season.

**Sources:**
- D6.3 Comprehensive Report on Funded Activities and Impact Assessment, §4.1 Feedback from beneficiaries; §4.2.1 Ability to attract relevant applicants; §4.2.5 Lessons learned; §4.3 Recommendations for future Open Calls; §5.2 Key outputs, outcomes and emerging impacts — [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/437/D6.3_Comprehensive_report.pdf)
- D2.1 Stakeholders identification (v2.0), §3.3 Status of the PoliRuralPlus Stakeholders Database — [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/353/D2.1_Stakeholders_Identification_v2.0.pdf)
- D5.1 Prepared pilot by Stakeholder Multi-Actor Approach, §1.1.3 Lippitt-Knoster model; §4.1 What is the Multi-Actor Approach Tool — [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/150/D5.1_Prepared_pilot_by_Stakeholder_Multi-Actor_Approach_v1.0.pdf)