Innovative tools and methods to evaluate the design and support, monitoring and implementation of effective CAP strategic plans
HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-CL6-2022-GOVERNANCE-01-05
- Programme
- Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- October 28, 2021
- Deadline
- March 10, 2022
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €23,000,000
- Keywords
- Political systems and institutions, governanceAgriculture, Rural Development, FisheriesForesightDigital AgendaEnvironmental regulations and climate negotiationsEnvironmental sciencesAgriculture, Forestry, and FisheriesCommon agricultural policy (CAP)Agricultural economicsFarm to ForkCAP post-2020Green DealCAP strategic plansCommon Agricultural PolicyBiodiversity strategy
Description
The successful proposal will contribute to innovative governance and sound decision making in agricultural policies for the green transition. In particular, they will contribute to achieving better informed decision-making processes, to establishing and monitoring innovative governance models enabling sustainability and resilience through enhanced and shared use of new knowledge, tools, foresight, and environmental observations as well as digital, modelling and forecasting capabilities. They will also contribute to strengthened EU science-policy interfaces to support the European Green Deal and to achieve the sustainable development goals.
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- policymakers are supported with cutting-edge tools and methods to design, monitor and implement tailored and results-based common agricultural policy (CAP) strategic plans that fully reflect the ambition of the Green Deal, in particular the farm to fork strategy and the biodiversity strategy;
- accountability of the CAP strategic plans is improved through SMART[1] targets for improved performance against clear baselines, which are coherent with EU objectives and international commitments; and
- good practices on the application of innovative tools and methods are widely shared and used across Member States.
Agri-food systems are key sectors for the delivery of the objectives of the European green deal while the CAP is the most important EU policy mechanism with the capacity to have a significant impact on the agricultural dimension of these systems at European level.
In the new results-based delivery model of the CAP, Member States are in charge of tailoring CAP interventions to maximise their contribution to EU objectives and to achieve agreed targets. In developing their CAP strategic plans, Member States need to analyse their specific situation and needs, set their targets and design the interventions that will allow them to reach these targets, while being adapted to the national and specific regional contexts.
They also have a say in designing the compliance and control framework applicable to beneficiaries while continuing to ensure effective monitoring and enforcement of the attainment of all policy objectives.
Proposals should:
- Review and benchmark existing tools and/or methods used in different Member States to support the development, implementation and monitoring of effective CAP strategic plans.
- Develop, test and demonstrate a set of innovative tools and/or methods, both qualitative and quantitative, to evaluate the design and support the implementation and monitoring of effective CAP strategic plans.
- The proposed tools and/or methods should:
- take into account all objectives and policy instruments post-2020 CAP;
- enable analysis of coherence between the multiple instruments of the CAP as well as with other EU policies and international commitments;
- be compatible with and/or innovative in relation to the tools and methods used by the European Commission.
- Apply and evaluate potentials and limitations of the proposed tools to different case studies within Member States, with attention given to balanced geographical coverage and taking into account the diversity of farming systems across the EU, including the outermost regions, and different government structures, e.g. regional / federal administration approaches.
- Develop methodological protocols and guidelines for the users of the tools and methods.
The possible participation of the JRC in the project will ensure access to and improve the tools, methods and databases supporting the design and evaluation of CAP strategic plans based on scientific evidence. In particular it will contribute to the adjustment, further development, and application of existing modelling tools used by the Commission for the foresight analysis of CAP strategic plans, their coherence with the CAP, other EU policies and commitments, and their impact at EU, national, regional and farm level.
Cross-cutting Priorities:Digital Agenda
Foresight
[1]specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound
Destination & Scope
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 impact
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.
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System
2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes
5. Evaluation and award:
- Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes
- Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual
- Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes
Specific conditions
7. Specific conditions: described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Documents
Call documents:
Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE CSA)
Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE CSA)
MGA
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 13. General Annexes
HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
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