AGROBOOST
HORIZON European Project
AGROBOOST Holds Online General Assembly, Marking First Milestones in Its Mission to Improve Farm Working Conditions!
On 30 June 2026, the AGROBOOST consortium held its General Assembly online, hosted by University College Dublin (UCD). Partners from across Europe joined to review progress since the project’s Kick-off Meeting in Dublin last December, covering everything from early research findings to the first steps of technology development.
About AGROBOOST
AGROBOOST is a Horizon Europe project (Grant Agreement No. 101182954) running from 2025 to 2030, with additional support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). The project develops augmented and virtual reality tools, autonomous robotics, and AI-driven decision-support systems to make agricultural work safer, more efficient and more inclusive — with a particular focus on the wellbeing of farmers, seasonal and migrant workers, and under-represented groups such as women in agriculture and farmers with disabilities. Pilot activities take place across six countries, including Switzerland and the UK.
Highlights from the General Assembly
The day-long meeting covered progress across all of AGROBOOST’s technical work packages:
- Socioeconomic research into working conditions and labour shortages in agriculture, including stakeholder mapping and the first rounds of focus groups and interviews;
- Early development of autonomous robotic systems for pruning and thinning, AR-based automated weeding, and AR-enabled selective harvesting;
- Progress on AI systems for scene recognition, animal-robot interaction in poultry management, and human-robot collaboration for safer working conditions;
- Planning for the project’s pilot campaigns and its upcoming Open Calls, which will bring additional solutions into the AGROBOOST ecosystem;
- An update on dissemination and communication activities, and on AGROBOOST’s engagement with the wider Horizon Europe governance cluster.
Strengthening Ethics and Data Governance
In July 2026, Wisefour — which leads AGROBOOST’s ethics, legal and data governance work — ran a dedicated Ethics and Data Governance session for the full consortium. With AGROBOOST’s technologies involving wearable devices, on-field cameras, and AI-driven recommendations that directly affect agricultural workers across six countries, the session walked partners through the project’s ethics-by-design lifecycle and the practical tools that keep the project compliant with GDPR and the EU AI Act — from data mapping and informed consent through to Fundamental Rights and AI trustworthiness assessments.
“AGROBOOST puts wearables on people and cameras in the fields where they work — including some of the most vulnerable people in European agriculture,” the Wisefour team noted during the session. “Getting the ethics and data governance right isn’t paperwork for its own sake — it’s what protects them, and the project.”
Looking Ahead
With its socioeconomic research underway and its first technical solutions in development, AGROBOOST is moving toward its first pilot campaigns. Follow the Wisefour blog for further updates as the project progresses toward its 2030 conclusion.
AGROBOOST is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme under Grant Agreement No. 101182954, with additional funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority.
Project's implementation
Τhe consortium
- UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN – NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF Ireland Coordinator
- ETHNICON METSOVION POLYTECHNION – Greece Partner
- NETCOMPANY-INTRASOFT SA – Luxembourg Partner
- WISEFOUR INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENTORGANISAT – Cyprus Partner
- KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN – Belgium Partner
- HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY – United Kingdom Partner
- GEOPONIKO PANEPISTIMION ATHINON – Greece Partner
- INESC TEC – INSTITUTO DE ENGENHARIADE SISTEMAS E CO – Portugal Partner
- UNIVERSITY OF LINCOLN – United Kingdom Partner
- DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET – Denmark Partner
- INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGAÇAO AGRARIA E VETE – Portugal Partner
- SINOPSIS SOCIALLY INTEGRATED INNOVATION S.R.L. -Romania Partner
- GREEN & DIGITAL IDIOTIKI KEFALAIOUCHIKI ETAIREIA – Greece Partner
- ASSOCIACAO DOS JOVENS AGRICULTORES DE PORTUGAL – Portugal Partner
- Federación de Asociaciones de Mujeres Rurales- FADEMU – Spain Partner
- MARTEL GMBH – CH Switzerland Associated
- FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT FUR BIOLOGISCHEN LANDBAU STI – Switzerland Associated
- ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE – Switzerland Associated
Start date 01-11-2025 – End date 31-10-2030
The project is co-funded by the European Commission, and by Horizon Europe.
Project Number: 101182954— AGROBOOST — HORIZON-CL6-2024-GOVERNANCE-01
The AGROBOOST project has received funding from the Horizon Europe’s project call HORIZON-CL6-2024-GOVERNANCE-01 under Grant Agreement n. 101182954
