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Research: CEMA participates to the Horizon 2020 Infoday 2018 on Societal Challenge 2

03-07-2018

CEMA participated to the Horizon 2020 Infoday, organised by the European Commission

 On 25th June 2018, CEMA’s Research Officers participated to the Information day organized in Brussels by the European Commission (DG AGRI, DG RTD and REA) on Horizon 2020 (H2020) Societal Challenge 2 (SC2) "Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy".

infoday

During the event, representatives of the European Commission (EC) provided info on upcoming 2019 calls in SC2 alongside practical information and sharing experiences on successful applications. They specifically pointed out the importance of the multi-actor approach and coordination between projects as special requirements of the ongoing and future calls. A more strategic and more focused approach would also be needed for the future SC2 calls, which means less topics, but more projects funded per identified topic. Looking at the SC2 2019 work programme at a glance, 29 topics (about 470 million euros) are covered, 12 topics out of 29 are contributing to Focus areas on Circular economy, Low carbon and climate resilience and Digitisation, and at least 17 topics request the multi-actor approach.

The event was also an occasion to present the scheme for the proposed new funding programme (FP), Horizon Europe (2021-2027). As stressed by all the panellists, synergies between the new FP (science) and the Common agricultural policy (CAP – practice) will be paramount, while the EIP-AGRI will continue to provide the link and pool funding sources from Horizon Europe and CAP rural development, to foster competitive and sustainable farming and forestry.

The second part of the event was divided in three parallel sessions covering: Sustainable food security, Blue Growth and Rural renaissance. The panellists briefly presented selected topics in each of the sections providing information on the topic background, timeline and tips for making the proposal successful.

Some of the topics covered could be of high interest for CEMA and its members, as they cover top priorities matters, such as digitisation, circular economy and organic fertilizers (including fertilizers from animal manure), mechanization in Africa and, of course, Thematic Networks. The list below highlights the most interesting calls presented:

  • Climate-smart and resilient farming LC-SFS-19-2018-2019
  • Sustainable Intensification in Africa SFS-35-2019-2020
  • High-quality organic fertilisers from biogas digestate CE-SFS-39-2019
  • Closing nutrient cycles – Topic B “Bio-based fertilisers from animal manure” RUR-08-2019
  • Thematic networks compiling knowledge ready for practice RUR-15-2019
  • Fuelling the potential of advisors for innovation RUR-16-2019
  • Reinforcing The European Agricultural Knowledge Database RUR-17-2018 (not published yet)
  • Moreover, two calls opened in 2018 are expected to be represented in 2019 since no one of the project proposals submitted was accepted for funding. This is the case of “Digital solutions and e-tools to modernise the CAP – RUR-14-2018” and “Building modern rural policies on long-term visions and societal engagement. Scope A - Rural society-science-policy hub – RUR-01-2018”. Both calls will be reopened in the next months.

All the conference presentations are available at the following webpage.