The current European plant-protein landscape is flawed. Heightened societal awareness of the environmental impact of consuming animal-based protein is driving the public’s awareness of alternative, sustainable sources of dietary protein. Yet, production systems are focussed heavily on the production of feedstock for direct transfer into animal sectors in an attempt to counter the EU’s over-dependency on imported feed. In essence, there is an absence of premium supply chains - farmers miss out on added-value opportunities that exist within the crops they already grow across Europe. There is a need to increase resilience in farming systems to mitigate against increasingly volatile climate patterns and to support farming systems to meet Farm-to-Fork strategic objectives. Built on the principles of co-creation, innovation and demonstration, VALPRO Path will design, validate and deliver sustainable and competitive plant protein crop systems and value chains. Focussed on underpinning economic value for all actors in the supply chain, it will exploit beyond state-of-the-art innovations, demonstrating and evaluating potential across 5 multi-stakeholder ‘living lab’ innovation production systems (IPSs). With strong industry involvement, the project will deliver a stronger ecosystem for plant protein production, supported with robust evidence of the social, economic, environmental, climate and health benefits. VALPRO Path will deliver new, sustainable business models, showing how focussed research can come into practice. Sustainable diversification of rotations with grain legumes will support the transition to more environmentally sustainable farming. European agriculture is at a juncture in regards to the sustainable provision of dietary protein. It can embrace opportunities presented through existing innovations that are integrated into real-life scenarios to support stakeholders realise the new market opportunities that exist for indigenous, fully traceable plant protein.

The aim of ECEMF is to provide the knowledge to inform the development of future energy and climate policies at national and European levels. In support of this aim, ECEMF proposes a range of activities to achieve five objectives and meet the four challenges set out in the call text. ECEMF’s programme of events and novel IT-based communications channel will enable researchers to identify and co-develop the most pressing policy-relevant research questions with a range of stakeholders to meet ambitious European energy and climate policy goals, in particular the European Green Deal and the transformation to a climate neutral society. Answers will be provided by the first inclusive and open full-scale model comparison exercise on achieving climate neutrality in Europe, including from the outset over 20 models and 15 top research groups, to produce a coherent and relevant evidence-base for energy and climate policy impact assessment. ECEMF’s evidence-base will support the development of policy-relevant insights which will be communicated to and discussed with the key decision makers via a range of novel methods, including interactive embeddable visualisation blocks, policy briefs, workshops and high-profile events. This loop of knowledge co-production stands on two pillars. First, ECEMF will advance the state-of-the-art of energy and climate modelling by enabling sharing of: input data using open standards, methods for model comparison building on the vast experience of the consortium, scientific software tools such as the IIASA scenario explorer and hands-on training for researchers. Second, ECEMF will be established as a long-term, open and welcoming European focal-point for researchers and policy makers with unparalleled international connections to the EMF, JMIP, IAMC and IPCC. Through extensive links to ongoing H2020 projects, research and policy communities & networks ECEMF will reduce fragmentation of the European energy and climate research landscape.

The overarching objective of Farmer’s Pride is to establish a network of stakeholders and conservation sites that effectively coordinates conservation actions to safeguard the wealth of Europe’s in situ plant genetic resources (PGR) and integrates the user community to maximize their sustainable use. Specifically, to address the challenge and scope of the SFS-04-2017 work programme, Farmer’s Pride will: a) build relationships between existing diverse PGR stakeholder networks, and where necessary create new partnerships to establish a unified network of stakeholders involved in PGR conservation and sustainable use; b) enhance existing knowledge of European landrace and crop wild relative genetic diversity and showcase how it can be effectively secured and managed; c) use social science and economic tools to establish the value of in situ PGR populations and individual traits, as well as a cost effective means of conserving them; d) use predictive characterization methods to identify valuable traits in in situ PGR populations, targeting those most vital for satisfying future agricultural and market needs; e) establish a mechanism to facilitate the flow of plant genetic material from in situ populations to the user community, both directly and via ex situ collections; f) develop and establish a durable governance and resourcing structure for the European network of in situ PGR conservation sites and stakeholders; g) promote public awareness of the value of PGR for agriculture and consumers; and h) design and implement a network of European sites and stakeholders that conserves the breadth of PGR diversity found in situ. Through these activities, Farmer’s Pride will result in significant strengthening of European capacities for the conservation, management and sustainable use of in situ PGR as a foundation for increased competitiveness in the farming and breeding sectors, and ultimately for long-term food and nutritional security in Europe.

Agrobiodiversity is a vital subset of biodiversity and is the result of the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and management systems used by culturally diverse people. It is a crucial prerequisite for ecologically and economically sustainable agricultural systems and is an important tool for ecological intensification. The aim of CROPDIVA is to reinforce agrobiodiversity on different levels and along distinct geographic and socio-economic areas. The activities of CROPDIVA are clustered around five connected research work packages and three pillars, each with a set of specific objectives: i) promotion of six key underutilised arable crops: oats, hull-less barley, triticale, buckwheat, faba bean and lupin; ii) creation of value chains for selected underutilised crops ; and iii) study of the socio-economic impact of project results. The concept of CROPDIVA is an innovative challenge driven approach based on the promotion of underutilised crops in sustainable cropping systems and new regional value chains. Project activities will focus on the following major challenges: improved resilience of cropping systems, alignment of the economic and social needs of farmers with ecological goals as well as marketing of new food/non-food products meeting consumer demands. The results gathered in CROPDIVA will not be descriptive, but will be used for innovative solutions along the entire food and non-food chain to enable biodiversity management on all levels, including diversifying the use of genetic resources, crop production systems, new food/non-food products, market opportunities while satisfying producers and investigated consumer requirements.