Enhancing sustainability and resilience of agriculture, forestry and rural development through digital twins

Staying the course on the goals of the European Green Deal and related policy initiatives in a fast-changing context, the EU needs innovative and agile governance models and tools that enable sustainable prosperity and competitiveness. To this end, it is crucial to invest in R&I that delivers evidence-based knowledge and tools, which support decision-making processes and designing effective policy mixes that enable the twin green and digital transitions engaging society at large in a just manner ensuring that no one is left behind. R&I activities under this destination intend to assist policymakers (from the local to the global level) in dealing with complexity and to enable them to introduce science-based arguments for social debates, to compare options for action and to make evidence-based decisions. A higher degree of coordination and convergence across the scientific community and other networks channelling evidence-based knowledge for policymaking will be promoted. Some of the R&I activities will support the development of sustainable, circular and inclusive bioeconomy and its bio-based sectors in line with the bioeconomy strategy^[1] and the communication on biotechnology and biomanufacturing in the EU^[2] as well as the forthcoming new European biotech act^[3]. New knowledge and innovations will support the common agricultural policy (CAP) and related EU initiatives, focusing specifically on reinforcing farmers’ position in the value chains, as well as rewarding farmers that work with nature, preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems and helping to decarbonise the economy on the way to net-zero by 2050. R&I activities will also contribute to boosting the attractiveness of agriculture and the links between the farming community, in particular young farmers, and the society at large.

Data and intelligence provided by environmental observations are key for assessing the state of the planet, including its biodiversity and the pollution of its air, soils and waters, thus supporting the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030^[4], the Nature Restoration Law^[5], the EU zero pollution action plan^[6] and the announced European Ocean Pact. R&I and related coordinating activities under this destination will improve environmental observing systems and provide Earth Intelligence, i.e. targeted and actionable environmental knowledge and insights, that will support policymakers, society and economy in navigating the transformative changes required by the European Green Deal. Towards these ends, technological solutions and data governance models will be advanced in order to make environmental data more available, accessible, usable and inter-operable at European and global level. Some topics under this destination support the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which is an international partnership that aims at delivering Earth Intelligence to decision makers at all levels. It offers a unique forum for international cooperation and the opportunity to scale-up solutions developed in Europe and other regions of the globe, in particular under the European programme Copernicus, advancing the implementation of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the New Urban Agenda, as well as endeavours like the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN Early Warnings for All and the WMO Global Greenhouse Gas Watch initiatives.

EuroGEO is the regional initiative in GEO implementing a policy- and user-driven research and innovation agenda to maximise uptake and engagement of EO applications, building on Copernicus and other EU assets in Earth Observation, that are addressing the above-mentioned GEO priorities. EuroGEO will be enabled to provide Earth Intelligence to local administrations or businesses with targeted decision support to increase the resilience and environmental performance of their operations. R&I activities will help also to implement the EU Arctic policy, by improving and integrating polar observation systems in response to user requirements at local, regional and international levels.

There is a need to unlock the potential of applied digital and data technologies to support sectors covered by this Cluster in becoming more productive, competitive, sustainable, resilient, competitive, and inclusive in line with the evolving EU policy initiatives in the fields of cyber, data and digital technologies and services (e.g., European data strategy and future European data union strategy, Europe’s digital decade policy programme and the AI innovation package, including the announced apply AI strategy). This destination will contribute to the development and diffusion of innovative digital and data-based solutions to support economic sectors relevant for Cluster 6 and society at large to achieve the European Green Deal targets and objectives. The key focus in this destination will be on enhancing sustainable rural development through digital twins for rural communities, agriculture and forestry.

As stressed in the Political Guidelines for the next European Commission 2024−2029, Europe needs a radical step change in ambition and action for all skill levels and for all types of training and education for sustainable prosperity and competitiveness. The common agricultural policy (CAP) cross-cutting objective and the Pact for Skills highlight the important role that knowledge and skills play in enabling all actors relevant to this cluster to actively engage in the twin green and digital transitions. Effective Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS)^[7], defined as the combined organisation and knowledge flows between persons, organisations and institutions who use and produce knowledge for agriculture and interrelated fields, are key to facilitate the sharing and uptake of knowledge, skills and innovative solutions for a more competitive, sustainable and resilient economy. In synergy with the CAP, activities under this destination will strengthen AKIS at European and national level, by increasing the knowledge flows among the AKIS actors (in particular practitioners), building a community of competent and impartial advisors and preparing the farming community to the future of agriculture through improved education and training systems. Specific attention will be also given to boosting the co-creation and use of R&I results in practice via enhanced implementation of the multi-actor approach (MAA).

Proposals responding to the topics under this destination should set out credible pathways to developing innovative governance models and tools enabling sustainability and resilience, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:

• effective policy mixes and multi-level governance enable a just sustainable transition for all, engaging society at large and balancing economic, social and environmental goals, thanks to improved evidence-based knowledge, tools and science-policy interfaces;
• competitiveness, sustainability and resilience of the economy are increased by more accessible and interoperable environmental observations as well as data technologies;
• productivity is boosted and transformative changes required by the European Green Deal are facilitated, leaving no one behind, thanks to enhanced digitalisation and flows of existing and new knowledge, solutions and skills among actors and communities.

This destination will support R&I activities in complementarity with the European Partnership on Agriculture of Data and those that continue for the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership. To maximise the impacts of R&I, international cooperation and the integration of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines are encouraged.

To ensure coordination at European and global levels and effective dissemination of user-driven Earth intelligence solutions to inform decisions and accelerate action on global environmental challenges, support will be continued for the annual subscription of the GEO secretariat.

R&I activities supporting digital and data-based innovation under Cluster 6 will complement activities supported by Cluster 4 (Digital, Industry and Space) and the Digital Europe Programme, bringing benefits for citizens, businesses, researchers, the environment, society at large and policymakers. Synergies will be carefully considered in particular with Copernicus, the Common European Data Spaces and the Destination Earth programme.

The destination will ensure synergies with the CAP instruments aimed at strengthening AKIS in all Member States across the EU, thereby deliver on the cross-cutting objective to foster co-creation and sharing of knowledge and innovation. Strong interaction between and integration of AKIS actors is key to this end, hence the CSA type of activities will prevail. The interactive innovation model will be supported via a reinforced multi-actor approach mainstreamed across Cluster 6.

[1] Bioeconomy strategy - European Commission (europa.eu)

[2] 47554adc-dffc-411b-8cd6-b52417514cb3_en (europa.eu)

[3] https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/e6cd4328-673c-4e7a-8683-f63ffb2cf648_en?filename=Political%20Guidelines%202024-2029_EN.pdf

[4] Biodiversity strategy for 2030 - European Commission (europa.eu)

[5] Nature restoration law – Final text adopted by European Parliament and Council (consilium.europa.eu)

[6] Zero Pollution Action Plan - European Commission (europa.eu)

[7] AKIS fosters flows of knowledge and skills to support the actors in the sustainability transitions across the Cluster 6 destinations; they go beyond agriculture, farming and rural activities and cover environment, climate, biodiversity, landscape, bioeconomy, consumers and citizens, i.e., all food and bio-based systems including value chains up to the consumer.

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