Description: Modern society can be characterised by the enormous supply of new knowledge. Knowledge and knowledge development seem to be crucial for the functioning and development of society and individuals. On that account, Europe must increase its knowledge base, invest in educating people and take advantage of new technologies. In the knowledge-based society challenged by globalisation and sustainability issues, survival depends on the capacity of organisations to create and exploit knowledge (Boreham and Lammont, 2000). Important in this view is that the creation of new knowledge in these dynamic settings is not a linear process ('technology push'), but an interactive, often interdisciplinary path in which knowledge is being constructed, actively, between individuals, and thus not absorbed, unaltered, by an individual, company or network (Gibbons, 1994). If (vocational) education and training institutes want to be serious players in these developments, they should deliver sufficient starters, respond adequately to the workplace demands, maintain and renew competencies of workers in the region, foster regional innovations and initiate and facilitate the formation of (new) networks in their region (Rosenfeld, 1998). In short, it should deliver competent professionals that can deal with the innovation-tasks of the future and assist (local) communities in their competence development. However, in many branches, education and training agencies still appear at the end of the (often linear) knowledge chain. They primarily play a role in the dissemination of knowledge, in particular knowledge which has already been incorporated in products and techniques on a larger scale. Education and training are not in 'the front line' of the innovation process (Warmerdam, 1999). In order to bridge the gab gap between knowledge production, its application and adoption in innovations, new collaborations in which education and training, research and development institutes and often businesses co-operate, emerge in the agri-food complex in the Netherlands (Lans, et al., 2004). The primary goal of these arrangements is to respond adequately to complex, often multidisciplinary innovation tasks, like customer-driven practices, new requirements for product quality, chain management, food safety, biotechnology, corporate social responsibility, use of renewable energy sources, multiple land use, and so on. At present, education, R&D and businesses use these arrangements (often labeled as communities of practice, learning networks, etc.) as a silver bullet for solving all modern challenges. However, in most cases, it appears to be unclear what people actually mean when they refer to knowledge, knowledge exchange, and knowledge transfer in these arrangements, and what factors conducive are for inter-organizational learning. Hence, in this research the following research question was addressed; What are characteristics of 'good' practices of knowledge sharing between education and research & development institutes? Methodology: To elicit answers to the postulated research question, 11 exemplary cases, in which education and R&D shared knowledge, were followed in the agro-food domain during the year 2005. The cases were monitored and evaluated by conducting semi-structured (group) interviews (n=64), written questionnaires (n=42) and (participative) observations (n=16). To monitor and evaluate these 11 initiatives an instrument was developed to get a better grip on the knowledge 'transformation processes' and the factors contributing to success. This, dynamic, instrument, which also evolved further during the process, was initially based on a model developed by Ehms and Langen (2002), and elaborated in a expert consultation among knowledge managers in the Netherlands. Conclusions: The analysis of the 11 cases with the developed instrument resulted in a 'matrix' for the identification and stimulation of good practices of knowledge sharing between education and research institutes. The four main identified elements in the matrix were: (1) vision/view, (2) support, (3) culture and (4) competence. Besides this result, it appeared that in the monitored cases the interaction between the individual, his/her organization and the networks of these organisations are of crucial importance for efficacy of jointly developed knowledge. On all the three levels, the four mentioned main components play an important role. Integration of the four main elements within these three levels (individual, organisation, network), lead to a matrix of 12 cells. On basis of the monitored practices, the 12 cells were worked out in detail in the form of 'stimulating' factors and 'hindering' factors for sharing knowledge. Accordingly, for every cell an 'appealing' example was described to illustrate the factor for practice. In the presentation the results and the usability of the developed instrument for scholars and practice will be presented and discussed in detail.