Broaden EIP Operational Group outcomes across borders by means of thematic networks, compiling and sharing knowledge ready for practice
HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-CL6-2022-GOVERNANCE-01-13
- 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
- Digital AgendaAgriculture, Rural Development, Fisheriesoperational groupAKISEIPMAA
Description
In support of the Green Deal, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and farm to fork objectives and targets, the successful proposal will focus on knowledge sharing in a language that is easy to understand and is targeted to farmers and foresters. Primary producers have a particular need for impartial and tailored knowledge on the management choices related to the needs, challenges or opportunities they experience. This speeds up innovation and the uptake of results, and is key to improve sustainability. It adds value to the knowledge and cost-effectiveness of innovative practices and techniques in and across primary production sectors, food systems, bioeconomy and biodiversity. This will lead to more informed and engaged stakeholders and users of project results including primary producers and consumers thanks to effective platforms such as Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS).
Despite the continued funding of scientific projects, innovative ideas and methods from practice are not captured and spread, and often research findings are not integrated into agricultural and forestry practice. The proposals, acting at EU level to remedy this, are essential because national and sectoral agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKISs) are insufficiently connected and organised to fully meet the challenge of intensifying thematic cooperation between researchers, advisors and farmers/foresters. This exchange of knowledge will foster economically viable and sustainable agriculture and forestry and build trust between the main AKIS actors. It will scale up local solutions up to the EU level and may even influence policy design wherever useful.
Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
- The cross-cutting objective of modernising the sector by fostering and sharing of knowledge, innovation and digitalisation in agriculture and rural areas, and encouraging their uptake[1], as well as contributing to the European Green deal and farm to fork objectives. Examples are climate issues, pesticide use, water use and pollution, short supply chains linking to the consumer, farm viability, animal welfare, generational renewal, etc.
- The collection and distribution of easily accessible practice-oriented knowledge on the thematic area chosen, in particular the existing best practices and research findings that are ready to be put into practice, but not sufficiently known or used by practitioners.
- Conserve practical knowledge for the long term - beyond the project period – in particular by using the main trusted dissemination channels which farmers/foresters consult most often, delivering as much audio-visual material and as many “practice abstracts” in the European innovation partnership "Agricultural productivity and sustainability" (EIP-AGRI) common format as possible, including also education and training materials;
- Increase the flow of practical information between farmers/foresters in the EU in a geographically balanced way, creating spill-overs and taking account of the differences between territories. In order to better reach and capture knowledge from the targeted farmers/foresters, the networks may organise 'cross-fertilisation' through sub-networks covering, for example, a region, a language or a production system;
- Achieve greater user acceptance of collected solutions and a more intensive dissemination of existing knowledge, by connecting actors, policies, projects and instruments to speed up innovation and promote the faster and wider co-creation and transposition of innovative solutions into practice.
Proposals should address the following activities:
- Build on the experience and outcomes of at least 5 EIP-AGRI Operational Groups of at least 3 Member States and choose a common theme related to the themes of the 5 Operational Group projects. Projects should tackle the most urgent needs of farmers and foresters. Collect, summarise, share and translate the existing knowledge from science and practice, resulting from the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups and beyond, in an easy-to-understand language for practitioners.
- Compile a comprehensive description of the state of current farming practices on the chosen theme to explain the added value of the proposal and the relevance of the theme. Proposals must focus on the cost/benefit aspects of the practices collected and summarised, and clarify how the project avoids duplication with ongoing or completed projects and networks.
- Deliver an extensive range of useful, applicable and appealing end-user material for farmers and foresters. This info should be easy to access and understand, and feed into the existing dissemination channels most consulted by farmers and foresters in the countries.
- All materials should also be provided to the EIP-AGRI in the common 'practice abstract' format, as well as to national/regional/local AKIS channels and to the EU wide interactive knowledge reservoir (HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-24) in the requested formats;
- Besides giving the details on the EIP-AGRI Operational Groups which are strongly recommended to involve[2], wherever possible and relevant to the chosen theme, provide also details on how further synergies will be built with future EIP-AGRI Operational Groups and interactive innovation groups operating in the context of the EIP-AGRI.
- Proposals must implement the 'multi-actor approach', with a consortium based on a balanced mix of actors with complementary knowledge clearly activating farmers/foresters, farmers' groups and advisors and run for minimum 3 years.
Digital Agenda
[1]Art 5 CAP post 2020 proposal
[2]According to the requirements of the multi-actor approach
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 following additional eligibility criteria apply:
The proposals must use the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in the introduction to this work programme part.
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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