Increased demands for food, renewable energy and raw materials from biomass are among the “Great Challenges” for the 21st century. Based on the vision of a European bio economy, 21 countries are now calling for research that can provide a sustainable intensification of agricultural production.
To address this challenge, 21 countries have formed a partnership and a new initiative in the frame of the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI).
In collaboration with the European Commission the partner countries announce today a call for joint European research projects with an indicative budget of 15 M€.
The new initiative is entitled FACCE SURPLUS (Sustainable and Resilient agriculture for food and non-food systems) and is committed to improve collaboration across the European Research Area in the range of diverse, but integrated, food and non-food biomass production and transformation systems, including biorefining.
The call for proposals aims as well at supporting innovation and value creation from biomass and biorefineries in synergy with the environmentally sustainable intensification of agricultural and other biomass production systems, taking into account the required economic, environmental and social conditions and resilience to climate change.
The scientific scope of the call for proposals addresses collaborative projects in three research areas, which are incorporated into the following three subthemes of this call, namely:
- Spatial targeting of land use to increase biomass production and transformation, stimulating the growth of systems for the efficient utilisation of green (plant) biomass cascading through novel transformation.
- Developing markets for a wide range of products and services generated through integrated food and non-food systems.
- Sustainable intensification of integrated food and non-food systems of agriculture, by developing integrated, systems-based approaches to land management.
About the call
FACCE SURPLUS is an ERA-NET under the Cofund scheme of Horizon 2020 of the European Union. The indicative total available budget amounts to 15M €. The call opens on 7 January and the closing date for pre-proposals is 4 March 2015.
The call invites proposals for collaborative research and development of transnational consortia of research organisations and companies from at least 3 countries participating in the call. The duration of proposed projects may be up to 3 years. National eligibility rules, including the potential eligibility of the private sector, e.g. SMEs, must be followed and will be published together with the call text on www.faccejpi.com
The submission of the proposal occurs online at www.submission-faccejpi.com
For more information on application procedures and evaluation criteria, please visit www.faccejpi.com and see the Call Announcement published here.
The funding allocated by The French National Research Agency (ANR) to this call is set at a maximum of 1 M€. The participation of the French scientific community is strongly expected and encouraged.
