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

Støtter

Programme Horizon Europe (HORIZON) Call Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal (HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01) Type of action HORIZON-RIA HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions Type of MGA HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG] Deadline model single-stage Opening date 22 June 2021 Deadline date 06 October 2021 17:00:00 Brussels time 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[1], Contract2.0[2] and EFFECT[3]) and RUR-04-2018-2019 (Mind Step[4], BESTMAP[5] and AGRICORE[6]); 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. Budget per topic with separate ‘call-budget-split’: Topic code Topic short name Type of action Budget (EUR million) HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-12 EU agriculture within a safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries RIA 10,00 Topic destination Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal 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[1] 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 Eu