Call: EU agriculture within a safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries

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:

Successful proposals will set out a credible pathway to contributing to innovative governance and sound decision making in policy for the transition of European agriculture required by the European Green Deal.

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

• Boost EU and Associated Countries analytical and modelling capacity in agriculture in both bio-physical and socio-economic domains
• Develop an analytical and policy framework and timeframe for the European farming sector to operate within safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries and achieving EU climate change policy objectives
• Analyse policies and develop policy recommendations for the agricultural policies in Europe in 2030

Scope:

In order to enable the transition to sustainable agriculture, it is crucial to establish the necessary policy framework and related monitoring and evaluation activities. This implies the development of appropriate tools for measurement and monitoring of socio-economic and biophysical data in order to model and project scenarios and derive the necessary targets, trajectories and relevant policy measures and the development of relevant analysis.

Projects should:

• operationalise the concept of safe and just operating space, including planetary boundaries, in the case of the EU agriculture and at different spatial scales;
• boost the analytical and modelling capacity of the EU and Associated Countries in the farming sector with a view to informing impact assessments and formulating policy recommendations, with a particular focus on conditions and policy measures for the EU farming sector to respect planetary boundaries, in particular regarding climate change and biodiversity, and safe and just operating space;
• work at various geographical scales, from local, national, EU to global levels, and simulations and projections should range from short / medium term (to capture the accelerating impact of climate change) to long term policy scenarios;
• Within a foresight exercise, develop post-2027 science-based targets for European farming allowing the sector to remain within the planetary boundaries and a safe and just operating space, and the conditions to achieve the targets, and develop a roadmap and the related policy framework to reach those objectives;
• mobilise running Horizon 2020 projects and build on their main results. It should aim to bridge gaps in modelling approaches relevant to the exercise, including those identified by the Horizon 2020 project Suprema. Projects should link in particular with the projects financed under RUR-03-2018 (CONSOLE, Contract2.0 and EFFECT) and RUR-04-2018-2019 (Mind Step, BESTMAP and AGRICORE);
• include a task to collaborate with other projects financed under this topic and under topic HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-13 “Modelling land use and land management in the context of climate change”;
• work in a multidisciplinary manner and involve a broad community of scientists including climate, land, biodiversity, health, human, economic and environment sciences;
• establish a regular dialogue with the European Commission regarding objectives, timeline and main deliverables with the goal to provide analyses, analytical tools, simulations and policy recommendations for the common agricultural policy (CAP) post 2027, as well as other relevant EU programmes (for instance EU climate and biodiversity policies). The possible participation of the JRC in the project will ensure that the approach proposed will be compatible with and improve the tools used at the European Commission. Project duration should not be shorter than four years;
• ensure that the proposed approach will be compatible with and improve the tools used at the European Commission.

As an option, necessary additional analysis and modelling may be supported through grants to third parties. In this case, the proposal must define the process of selecting entities for which financial support will be granted, of up to 60.000 EUR per third party. Grants to third parties may be utilised to ensure a comprehensive coverage of technical issues and the participation of pluralistic approaches to the analytical work on a series of key issues.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.

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