If food loss and waste (FLW) were a country, it would be the third leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. FLW also burdens waste management systems and exacerbates food insecurity, , contributing significantly to the three global crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. PRECIOUS, an transdisciplinary alliance of 20 entities from 11 EU countries, believes that reliable data on the environmental impacts of FLW is crucial for accelerating EU progress towards climate targets and reducing environmental impacts (including biodiversity) across the food supply chain. The project´s collective understanding is that the challenge goes beyond measuring the amount of food saved or CO2 emissions. When food is wasted, valuable and limited resources such as water, land use, and energy are lost, while 8.9% of the worldwide population is suffering from hunger accordingto FAO, therefore, depleting the planet's natural resources. It is critical to broaden our understanding of the issue to transform the food system and raise public awareness that motivate change. PRECIOUS aims to contribute to the transformation of food systems by addressing existing data gaps and developing a unified and openly accessible evaluation framework to quantify the economic, environmental, and social impacts of strategies to reduce FLW, taking into account potential rebound effects. The project will engage stakeholders from 2 Use Cases (Spain and Greece) and 3 Co-creation and Replication Nodes (Poland, Lithuania, Hungary) to address systemic causes across geographical boundaries. The project aims to induce a fundamental change in attitudes and behaviours towards food consumption and disposal through collaborative efforts and innovative methods, fostering a more just and sustainable EU food system.

The overall objective of the FOREST 4.0 project is to establish a Centre of Excellence (CoE) to transform the forest environment monitoring, data acquisition, and analysis, and capture value from the collected data by implementing innovations based on artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). The CoE will be founded by two Lithuanian partners (Vytautas Magnus University - VMU) and Kaunas University of Technology - KTU) teaming with a leading counterpart from Sweden (Linnaeus University - LNU) and three networking and business development partners (InteriorCluster from Sweden, ART21 UAB and AgriFood Lithuania Digital Innovation Hub from Lithuania). The CoE will be created as a new legal entity and will comprise leading researchers from different domains that will implement an ambitious long term research and innovation strategy. The CoE will also provide innovation services to businesses and host a startup incubator. The impact of the project will be a rise in research excellence and reputation in forestry management and AI/IoT technologies for Lithuania; the constitution of a critical mass of excellent international researchers in the targeted domains; the production of a growing amount of research (publications) and innovation (patents, new technologies, startups) outputs; and expanding international networks for the Lithuanian partners.

The aim of Robotics4EU is to ensure a more widespread adoption of (AI-based) robots in healthcare, inspection and maintenance of infrastructure, agri-food, and agile production. It will be reached through the implementation of the responsible robotics principles among the robotics community that results in societal acceptance of the robotics solutions in application areas. Robotics4EU will create and empower the EU-wide responsible robotics community representing robotics innovators from companies and academia in the fields of healthcare, inspection and maintenance of infrastructure, agri-food, and agile production as well as citizens/users and policy/decision makers by rising awareness about non-technological aspects of robotics (ethics, legal, socioeconomic, data, privacy, gender) by organising community building and co-creation events bringing together robotics community and citizens, advocating for the responsible robotics among all stakeholder groups, incl. policy makers, developing a responsible robotics maturity assessment model and bringing the project results to the standardization bodies. Robotics4EU will implement the following set of activities: 1) assessing the needs and developing a responsible robotics maturity assessment model that is a practical tool for the robotics developers and helps them to strategically plan and the uptake of the legal, societal and ethical aspects of robotics; 2) empowering the robotics community by organising capacity building events in healthcare, agri-food, agile production and infrastructure; 3) assessing robotics ideas and applications provided by the industry with end-users (via online consultation and co-creation workshops); 4) reaching out to the policy makers by compiling a responsible robotics advocacy report, organising a high-level policy debate and transferring the results to the standardization bodies.

Due to a lack of a holistic approach combining physical and digital assets for optimal field performance and minimum environmental impact, AI models, data and autonomous robotic systems in crop care tasks have not reached a mature technological level. The conventional spraying methods result in excessive pesticide and fertilizer use, posing severe environmental impact - being responsible for soil, water and air pollution, and harming non-target plants, insects, animals and humans. Smart Droplets’ main objective is to advance both hardware and software capabilities to deliver a holistic system capable of translating large amounts of data into meaningful information and impactful spraying commands on the field. To demonstrate substantial impact on the Green Deal, Smart Droplets will implement Autonomous retrofit tractors with Direct Injection System (DIS) for intelligent spraying - avoiding exposure of farmers to hazardous chemicals. Through the combination of high-level technologies (>TRL 7), Smart Droplets adopts a hybrid approach for spraying operations, combining Data/AI/Digital Farm Twin technologies designed to translate data into actionable information, and real-time data collected from Field demonstrators evaluating and demonstrating optimised technologies in the real environments. Smart Droplets will exploit synergies with relevant stakeholders, and intensify Community & Capacity building through dedicated training programs designed for non-expert users of AI, data and robotics systems. The Smart Droplets Consortium consists of all agricultural AI, data and robotics value chain actors, and is well balanced in terms of expertise, entity type, and geographical distribution necessary to meet its objectives. Smart Droplets will demonstrate how autonomous robotic platforms, innovative spraying, digital twin and AI models, can deliver environmental, economic, regulatory, business, scientific, and societal benefits, assisting in the achievement of Green Deal goals.

4Growth aims to contribute to the uptake of digital and data-driven solutions in agriculture and forestry by (i) documenting the current state-of-play and projecting the future evolution (forecasting and foresight) of the sector, (ii) making insights available to the wider community of decision makers and value chain actors – through the 4Growth Visualisation Platform, (iii) collecting a wide range of ground truth data and identifying key factors or constraints for uptake, and (iv) producing sets of key policy recommendations and best practices to encourage/facilitate further uptake. To successfully fulfill its ambition and carry out the proposed activities, 4Growth brings together a highly-motivated team of 13 partners from 9 EU Member States, with strong proposition and extensive involvement in digital agriculture and forestry activities.