Third call for proposals of the European partnership FutureFoodS

Details presented in this document may be subject to change before the opening of the call. Further information can be found on: www.futurefoodspartnership.eu

FutureFoodS is a cofunded Horizon Europe partnership bringing together 86 partners from 29 different countries to drive green and digital transitions with a focus on food post-harvest. It is thereby contributing to the European Green Deal and its Farm to Fork Strategy, the UN´s SDGs, the FOOD2030 agenda and the latest Food 2040 Strategic Approach, as well as to the European Commission´s Vision for Agriculture and Food, the Strategy for European Life Sciences and the EU Bioeconomy Strategy.

The European Commission (EC) has identified an urgent need to make our food systems future-proof. This is due to various impacts that our food systems are facing, such as those linked to climate change, land degradation, biodiversity loss, hunger, malnutrition, diet-related diseases, food and packaging waste, safety, scarcity of fresh water and (renewable) resources, social and economic inequalities, political tensions, and the need to safeguard our food cultural heritage.

The vision of the FutureFoodS partnership is to collectively achieve environmentally friendly, socially secure and fair, economically viable, healthy and safe food systems in Europe by 2050.

Central to the FutureFoodS Partnership is the ambition that tackling the complex challenges making current European food systems unsustainable requires mobilizing knowledge, actors and resources through a food systems approach. An approach of this kind is important as it propounds a holistic view when addressing complex problems, acknowledging enduring dependencies between food system actors, as well as identifying drivers and leverage points within systems.

The European food system R&I-community has an important role to play in promoting the design and realisation of a food systems approach involving relevant food system actors. The proposals submitted to this call should clearly delineate and characterise the particular food system under inquiry. What are its key actors? What are the main dependencies within the system? What levers may induce enhanced sustainability of the system? How does the chosen one connect to other food systems?

Guiding elements for FutureFoodS projects include:

• Transformative perspective
• Inter- and transdisciplinarity
• Multi-stakeholder engagement
• Sustainability

Proposals are required to provide an Impact Plan towards food systems transformation. More info and guidance will be given in the Call Announcement.

In its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), FutureFoodS has identified four R&I fields for which better knowledge, more advanced know-how and more scalable, innovative solutions can be determinant to fulfilling food system transformations:

• (1)    ‘Change the way we eat’, 
• (2)    ‘Change the way we process and supply food’, 
• (3)    ‘Change the way we connect with food systems’ and 
• (4)    ‘Change the way we govern food systems.

The objective of this call is to fund transnational research and/or innovation projects addressing one of the call topics described below. Each call topic brings together several of the high priority issues identified by the partnership and presented above.

• Topic 1: Trusted and transparent sustainable food value chains
• Topic 2: Consumer agency and enabling food environments for healthy, safe and sustainable food practices 
• Topic 3: Innovative processing for sustainable, safe and nutritious food products

Please note that primary production activities such as the growing of food crops (including seafood), other elements of agricultural production and various specific aspects related to it, as well as nutrition- and lifestyle-related diseases are not in focus in this partnership. The focus of FutureFoods is on issues post-harvest. 

The list of participating countries is preliminary and may be updated before the official launch of the call: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and Türkiye.