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SUSFOOD2 Transnational co-funded Call for research proposals
Deadline: Mar 13, 2017  
CALL EXPIRED

 Fisheries and Food
 Agrifood
 Food Safety
 Rural Development
 Eco-Innovation
 Sustainable Development
 Innovation & Research
 Consumer Protection

1. BACKGROUND OF THE CO-FUNDED CALL 1.1 The ERA-NET Cofund SUSFOOD2

The ERA-NET Cofund SUSFOOD2 - “SUStainable FOOD production and consumption” - started in January 2017 and is the continuation of the FP7 ERA-NET SUSFOOD (2011 - 2014).

The ERA-NET Cofund instrument under Horizon 2020 is designed to support public-public partnerships between Member States (and associated countries) for the implementation and coordination of networking activities in different fields of research, including the realisation of at least one joint transnational call for research and innovation projects which benefits from a budget contribution by the European Commission. This additional co-funding of the EU aims at contributing to an ampler selection of projects irrespective of the financial contribution of individual countries by filling in financial short comings.

SUSFOOD2 consists of a network of 26 partners from 15 countries (plus 2 associated partners from Belgium and New Zealand).

1.2 The objectives of the SUSFOOD2 network

The strategic goal of SUSFOOD2 complements the EU bioeconomy and food policies1, and aims to reinforce cooperation in research, development and innovation between EU members and associated States in order to maximize the contribution of research to the development of more sustainable food systems from production to consumption.

Global demand for food is expected to rise by at least 60% by 20502. At the same time the food supply chain is under pressure due to limited resources, water scarcity, soil degradation, biodiversity loss and the impacts of climate change. More than one third of the food produced in the world today is lost or wasted3. Our food system has experienced huge transformation during the last century with changes in dietary preferences impacting on consumer health and food availability (e.g. increasing non-communicable diseases and obesity).

To meet these challenges we need to strengthen a sustainable4 food system providing opportunities for all stakeholders to develop a secure, resilient and competitive sector.

The scope of SUSFOOD covers the entire food supply chain with the main focus on food chain sustainability beyond the farm5 gate. The farm level will be considered if it has direct impact on the sustainability of the other steps in the food chain. More information can be found at http://susfood-era.net.

SUSFOOD2 promotes a cross-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approach from biology to food engineering and social sciences. It addresses the following socio-economic and environmental goals:

  • To develop sustainable food systems from production to consumption, to increase food production sustainably while reducing waste in food supply chain and limiting environmental impacts;

  • To improve the quality of life by improving food quality in a sustainable way and to ensure the resilience of the food supply chain;

  • To encourage sustainable consumer behaviours and food choices;

  • To improve competitiveness and economic growth in the European food industry with

    special attention to SMEs.

    SUSFOOD2 starts its 5 year cooperation with the launch of a joint transnational call for Research / Research and Innovation collaborative proposals in the field of sustainable food production and consumption with an indicative budget of 14 M EURO including a co-funding by the EU of approximately 4 M EURO.

    2. PARTICIPATION TO THE CALL AND FUNDING MODALITIES

    The following partner countries will provide funds to the call: Belgium (Flanders), Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Turkey, and UK.

    Project consortia will be able to submit “Research” or “Research and Innovation” proposals:

    1.“Research”
    Project consortia are expected to be formed only by research organizations 2.“Research and Innovation”
    Project consortia are expected to be formed by research organizations and industry (enterprises)

    The funding for transnational projects will be mainly based on a virtual common pot instrument. This means that applicants of projects that have been selected for funding will receive the grant directly from their national funding institution according to their terms and conditions.

    Applicants are therefore strongly advised to consider the National Regulations published in Annex 3 of this document.

    Applicants who cannot receive funding, e.g. from countries which are not funding partners in SUSFOOD2 or from countries which do not provide funding for a specific thematic area of the Call or where the funding parties support only certain types of organizations (industry or academia etc.), are welcome to participate in the Call. However, their costs need to be covered from their own resources or by other sources. They are not taken into account in the minimum

 

requirement of eligible partners and countries in the SUSFOOD2 eligibility criteria and cannot apply as coordinators of the research proposal consortium.

3. CALL TOPICS

Research/Research and Innovation project consortia must apply to one of the four topics, which will be funded according to the budget table 1:

Topic 1: Innovation in food processing technologies and products

Topic 2: Providing added value, increased resource efficiency and reduction of waste in sustainable food systems

Topic 3: Understanding consumer behavior and food choices

Topic 4: Harmonisation of the methods and metrics for integrated assessment of sustainability of food products and food patterns

For a detailed description of the topics see the call text in Annex 2.

Please note that CORE Organic Cofund has launched a call in December 2016. SUSFOOD2 and CORE Organic Cofund will collaborate closely during the selection process to avoid overlap and double funding. For further questions, please contact the respective call offices.

 

 

4. TIMELINE

The call involves a 2-stage procedure with submission and selection of pre-proposals and, subsequently, invitation of shortlisted consortia to submit full proposals. The respective time schedule and activities required are listed in the table below. 

 

 

Open Call for pre-proposals

09/01/2017

 

Webinar* addressed to interested applicants

16/02/2017 (tbc on website)

 

Closing date for pre-proposals

13/03/2017 – 3 p.m. CET

 

Evaluation (peer review)/Selection

16/06/2017

 

Invitation for submission of full proposals

26/06/2017

 

Closing date for full proposals

08/09/2017 – 3 p.m. CEST

 

Evaluation (peer review)/Selection

Mid December 2017

 

Negotiation and start of the projects

January – May 2018

 

5. CALL OFFICE

The Call Office will provide administrative and technical support to applicants regarding the call, call documents and procedures. It is the primary point of contact between the research project consortium and the SUSFOOD2 funding parties for all general matters in relation to the call.

Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH (Juelich), Germany: Nikola Schulz

Phone: +49 2461 61 96787 e-mail: n.schulz@fz-juelich.de

Veronika Jablonowski

Phone: +49 2461 61 5083
e-mail: v.jablonowski@fz-juelich.de

The National Contact Points, listed in Annex 1, are supporting the Call Office and should be contacted for all matters regarding national regulations and funding. It is strongly recommended to get in touch with your National Contact Point in order to limit procedural errors.

 

 

6. APPLICATION - GENERAL ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

The application has to meet and consider the following general eligibility criteria:

6.1

The transnational consortium must consist of at least three independent eligible legal entities from at least three SUSFOOD2 partner countries listed in Annex 3;
The application must be written in English;
Projects should have a maximum duration of 36 months;

The requested total budget cannot exceed 1.5 M € per proposal (requested funding); Total eligible budget of a partner cannot exceed 70 % of the total eligible project budget in order to achieve balanced partnerships and ensure that responsibility and risks are shared;

Registration to the Meta Knowledge Base (MKB) is compulsory (see next chapter 6.1). SUSFOOD Meta Knowledge Base

The Meta Knowledge Base (http://susfood-db-era.net/drupal/content/meta-knowledge-base), realized during the previous SUSFOOD initiative, is an online freely accessible database listing national funding bodies, research organisations and research projects about sustainable food production and consumption. As mapping of the European research landscape (and connections with associated countries) is one of the aims of SUSFOOD, registration to this database is a prerequisite to this call (if you are a new user please register at http://susfood- db-era.net/drupal/user/register). During the call procedure, you will be asked whether all project partners are registered. To enhance the visibility of your institution/ your expertise, it is also strongly recommended to post your finished and running research projects within the scope of SUSFOOD2 in this database via a small abstract and some well-defined keywords. The output of this database might be used to map the research projects in Europe and Associated Countries in order to see the evolution in the current European research in the field of sustainable food production and consumption compared to the survey made in 2012. This database can also help you finding consortium partners.

For more information or assistance: Katrien.Broekaert@ilvo.vlaanderen.be

7. SUBMISSION OF PRE-PROPOSALS
Pre-proposals must be submitted by 13 March 2017, 15.00 CET.

The application procedure will be carried out online using the SUSFOOD2 call management tool https://www.submission-susfood-era.net, templates and online forms.

No other methods or means of submissions will be accepted. It will be possible to update and resubmit the pre-proposal as many times as required up to the submission deadline, but not after the deadline has expired.

 

 

Applicants should note that the online system may experience high traffic volumes in the last hours before the submission deadline and it is therefore highly recommended to submit the final version of the pre-proposal well in advance of the deadline to avoid any last minute technical problems. Requests for extensions to the deadline due to last minute technical problems will not be considered.

Please follow the instructions on the website to submit the pre-proposal.

The application should be submitted by the project coordinator on behalf of the project consortium (see below).

7.1 The project coordinator

Each project consortium needs to appoint a project coordinator, who, in any commissioned project, has the following role and responsibilities:

  • Be the primary point of contact between the SUSFOOD2 consortium and the researchers on behalf of the project consortium from the submission of the pre- proposal until the publication of the final report;

  • Submit the application on behalf of the project consortium;

  • Compile and submit reports and other deliverables to the SUSFOOD2 network on

    behalf of the project consortium;

  • Secure that all project milestones and deliverables are met and take action according

    to the project management plan if one or more partners fail to deliver;

  • Inform the SUSFOOD2 consortium about any event that might affect the

    implementation of the project;

  • Is fully responsible for the overall project coordination and will ensure that all work is carried to a high standard;

  • Is responsible for sharing all information with project consortium partners.

Consortia have to be aware that failure of one partner within the consortium to meet the national/regional eligibility criteria will result in the rejection of the entire proposal. It is therefore strongly recommended that the project coordinator verifies that the project partners contact their National Contact Points in order to check their eligibility.

The project coordinator will NOT be responsible for the financial management of SUSFOOD2 project funding, which will be handled directly between the national research institutions / industries and their national funding agencies in each participating country.

 

( TRUNCATED --- please visit the public link for full proposal text)

 



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