Call: Building a future science and education system fit to deliver to practice

• Health, demographic change and wellbeing;
• Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the Bioeconomy;
• Secure, clean and efficient energy;
• Smart, green and integrated transport;
• Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials;
• Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies;
• Secure societies - protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.

This Programme aims to promote the transition towards an optimal and renewable use of biological resources and towards sustainable primary production and processing systems. These systems will need to produce more food, fibre and other bio-based products with minimised inputs, environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions, and with enhanced ecosystem services, zero waste and adequate societal value.

Transition towards more sustainable agriculture, forestry, food and bio-based value chains, equipped to face the challenges ahead, requires a renewal and strengthening of the technical and soft skills of all concerned.  While basic research remains necessary, a crucial challenge is also to remove bottlenecks to the delivery of practice-oriented research to end-users. Some front-runners are engaging in new ways of rating such research activities that deserve to be assessed, applied to agriculture and may be upscaled to a wider range of research providers and funding bodies.

Proposals will involve the production of a challenge- and foresight-based inventory of skills that will be needed in agriculture, forestry and related value chains, covering primary producers, advisors, industry, businesses and scientists. Proposals will review how current science, education and training systems in a wide and varied range of EU Member States (and possibly third countries) cater for these needs, seeking to draft roadmaps for the improvement of curricula, learning methods and long-term interaction between education, science and economic players. Particular attention should be paid to soft (e.g. entrepreneurial, intermediation and communication) skills in particular for farmers, advisors and researchers, and technical skills related to new practices or processes and sustainability requirements in scientific fields of importance for the future. Proposals should analyse how education and training systems could improve, in particular by attracting more farmers and other players to engage in sufficient education and lifelong learning. The effectiveness of existing EU policy instruments on education and training in this area should also be assessed and improvements proposed.

Furthermore, proposals should develop an operational system for encouraging and measuring performance and reviewing outputs of interactive innovation and practice-oriented research, with a view to improving their effective delivery and the uptake of best practices from the field. 

Proposals should build on the analysis to make further policy recommendations on how to develop education, training and science in the future. 

At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to 7 million € allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude the submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts. 

Funding rate: 100%