Call: Data economy in the field of agriculture – effects of data sharing and big data

Transformative changes such as the ones required within the Green Deal are dynamic processes that require appropriate governance. At the same time, to ensure coordination and for collaborative decision-making, governance requires multiple channels and networks that provide readily available data and information coming from different sources.

R&I activities under this destination aim at both: experimenting with new ways to govern the transition process and modernising the governance, in particular by making information and knowledge available and accessible. R&I for governance to support the Green Deal shall provide insights into institutional barriers such as lock-ins, path dependency, political and cultural inertia power imbalances and regulatory inconsistencies or weaknesses.

Innovative governance supporting the Green Deal objectives needs to recognise, cope with and promote resilience in the face of on-going shocks and disruptions both globally and across Europe, whether these be climatic, ecological, economic, social, geo-political or related to health. Critical risk assessment and reduction strategies need to be incorporated, including the diversification of infrastructures, resources and knowledge through more self-sufficiency and autonomy.

Taking advantage of the use, uptake, deployment and exploitation of environmental observations[[The capacity to observe the environment, including space-based, in-situ-based (air, sea, land) observation, and citizen observations]] as well as digital solutions, assessed through the “do not harm” principle of the Green Deal, is key for innovative governance models and a more science-based policy design, implementation and monitoring. To maximise impacts of R&I on the ground and spark behavioural and socio-economic change, the knowledge and innovation produced throughout the whole cluster should be widely disseminated to key stakeholders of the relevant sectors of the cluster. In particular, the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) needs to be reinforced to accelerate the required transformative changes.

Data and information obtained through Environmental Observation is of great value when assessing the state of the planet and is delivering crucial information to support the Green Deal and the climate and ecological transition. Integration of this information from different sources (space-based, airborne including drones, in-situ and citizens observations) with other relevant data and knowledge while ensuring (better) accessible, interoperable or deployable information, delivers information necessary for shaping the direction of the development of policies in the broad context of Cluster 6 of Horizon Europe. A strong link to the European Earth observations programme Copernicus (in Cluster 4) and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth observation programme, as well as support to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), its European regional initiative (EuroGEO) and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is foreseen for topics on environmental observations under this destination. R&I activities relevant to ocean, seas and coastal waters will complement and support the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and UN Decade on Restoration, the G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative, the pan-Commission Destination Earth initiative, the European Global Ocean Observing System (EOOS) and the GOOS 2030 strategy.

Digital innovation, in complementarity with Cluster 4 and Digital Europe Programmes activities, should bring benefits for citizens, businesses, researchers, the environment, society at large and policy-makers. The potential of the ongoing digital transformation, and its wider impacts, positive and negative, need to be better understood and monitored in view of future policy design and implementation, governance, and solution development

This destination will develop innovative digital and data based solutions to support communities and society at large, and economic sectors relevant for this cluster to achieve sustainability objectives. R&I activities will add value to the knowledge and cost-effectiveness of innovative technologies in and across primary production sectors, food systems, bioeconomy, ocean and biodiversity.

Knowledge and advice to all actors relevant to this cluster are key to improve sustainability. For instance, primary producers have a particular need for impartial and tailored advice on sustainable management choices. Knowledge and Innovation Systems are key drivers to enhance co-creation and thus speed up innovation and the take-up of results needed to achieve the Green Deal objectives and targets. This will include promoting interactive innovation and co-ownership of results by users, as well as strengthening synergies with other EU Funds in particular the CAP, reinforcing the multi-actor approach and setting up structural networking within national/regional/local AKISs. AKIS goes beyond agriculture, farming and rural activities and covers environment, climate, biodiversity, landscape, bio-based economy, consumers and citizens, i.e., all food and bio-based systems including transformation and distribution chains up until the consumer.

Expected impacts

Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to innovative governance and sound decision making in policy for the green transition, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:

• Innovative governance models enabling sustainability and resilience notably to achieve better informed decision-making processes, societal engagement and innovation;
• Green Deal related domains benefit from further deployment and exploitation of Environmental Observation data and products ;
• A strengthened Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) [[The European Commission is a member and co-chair of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), as such the European Commission adopted the GEO Canberra Declaration (https://earthobservations.org/canberra_declaration.php and Commission Decision C(2019)7337/F1) and committed to contribute to the GEO objectives, including to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).]];
• Sustainability performance and competitiveness in the domains covered by Cluster 6 are enhanced through further deployment of digital and data technologies as key enablers;
• More informed and engaged stakeholders and end users including primary producers and consumers thanks to effective platforms such as Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS)
• Strengthened EU and international science-policy interfaces to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

When considering their impact, proposals also need to assess their compliance with the “Do No Significant Harm” principle [[as per Article 17 of Regulation (EU) No 2020/852 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment (EU Taxonomy Regulation)]] according to which the research and innovation activities of the project should not be supporting or carrying out activities that make a significant harm to any of the six environmental objectives of the EU Taxonomy Regulation.

Topics under this destination will have impacts in the following areas: “Climate change mitigation and adaptation”; “Clean and healthy air, water and soil”; “Enhancing ecosystems and biodiversity on land and in water”; “Sustainable food systems from farm to fork on land and sea”; “High quality digital services for all”; and “A Competitive and secure data-economy”.

Social innovation is recommended when the solution is at the socio-technical interface and requires social change, new social practices, social ownership or market uptake.

Expected Outcome:

In line with the farm to fork strategy and the Headline ambitions of a Digital Age –the data Strategy in particular - and the headline ambition an Economy that works for people, leaving no one behind, the successful proposals will support capacities to understand, develop and demonstrate the data economy in agriculture and its effects. This topic aims to contribute a) to the enhancement of the sustainability performance and competitiveness in agriculture through further deployment of digital and data technologies as key enablers, and b) to the development of innovative governance models enabling sustainability and resilience notably to achieve better informed decision-making processes through research and innovation related to data economy in agriculture.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Awareness and informed decisions based on the demonstration of the costs, benefits, risks, and added value as well as the economic and societal potential of agricultural data sharing taking an EU perspective.
• Increase in transparency in data sharing in the agricultural value chain.
• Increased sharing of agricultural data, and the effective and efficient use of private and public data for private and public purpose, particularly through the demonstration of the costs, benefits, risks, and added value as well as the economic and societal potential of agricultural data sharing taking an EU perspective.
• Contribute to an increased uptake of digital and data technologies in the agricultural sector and indirectly contribute an increase in environmental and economic performance of the agricultural sector through increased and enhanced used of digital technologies and data.
• Strengthen policy-making and-monitoring capacities in agriculture and data technologies.

Used effectively, agricultural data has the potential to increase the performance of the sector and of businesses along the supply chain in a sustainable way as well to as to serve public good purposes. For instance, agricultural data forms a key input to precision farming applications and can form input to the analysis on environmental conditions as well as to other fields, e.g. bioinformatics. Thus, agricultural data has a value and presents an interesting element for the data economy.

A crucial parameter to the effectiveness and efficiency of the application of data technologies is the quantity and quality of agricultural data serving as basis for such analyses. However, agricultural data, which stems from multiple sources and includes business, personal and public data, is not straightforward accessible, not even for fees/ financial resources.

Next to technical issues related to e.g. data interoperability, questions on the ownership of agricultural data and the readiness to share the data present a burden to the use of agricultural data. Farmers, for instance, need to trust that their farm data is handled and share carefully, and have to see their and societal benefits to share the data, and have a stake in the economic benefits of agricultural data.

Currently, some companies in the agri-food value chain are collecting agricultural data, e.g. through farmers as customers. Not always is the use of that data, e.g. for product development or farm-tailored advertisement, fully transparent. Moreover, some companies with high numbers of customers, easily gain enormous market power and generate income through the use of the collected data and the application of data technologies.

Developments in the agricultural sector as well as in EU policies, which are/ will be addressing those circumstance to increase the readiness to data sharing to increase the benefit for the economy and society and to overcome power imbalances and a lack of transparency in the use of data, occur rapidly. These changing framing conditions offer opportunities as well as challenges to the agricultural sector as well as to the data economy.

Proposals should cover all of the following aspects:

• Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the effects of various data sharing and marketing and use options (considering among others private and public data, private and public actions, and big data opportunities) for the actors along the agri-food supply chain and the development of scenarios for the data economy.
• Implications of the ongoing policy-making process at EU level including the development of relevant legislation in the analyses.
• Effects of multi-level governance systems in the EU under consideration of the situation and conditions in various Member States as well as effects of international (trade) relations.
• Consideration of multiple data-sharing business- and governance approaches and technical solution in data sharing in the agricultural sector.
• Consideration of climate adaptation and reducing administrative burden in the assessment of the potential of agricultural data sharing for the sector and the society.

eligible non-EU countries:

• countries associated to Horizon Europe

• low-and middle-income countries

Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding if provided for in the specific call conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.

Specific cases:

• Affiliated entities - Affiliated entities are eligible for funding if they are established in one of the countries listed above.
• EU bodies - Legal entities created under EU law may also be eligible to receive funding, unless their basic act states otherwise.
• International organisations - International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Unless their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority, other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding. International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country are eligible to receive funding for ‘Training and mobility’actions and when provided for in the specific call conditions.

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions , legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes:

• at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;and
• at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

Proposal page limits and layout:

The application form will have two parts:

• Part A to be filled in directly online  (administrative information, summarised budget, call-specific questions, etc.)
• Part B to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system

Page limit - Part B: 45 pages