GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Proposed activities should cover all of the following aspects:

• Strengthen existing ecosystems of innovation to broaden their scope and take on a “food systems approach” that delivers on the Food 2030 co-benefits (nutrition, public health, climate, circularity and communities) by: (a) deploying a quadruple helix model (that fully engages the four major actors in the innovation system: small and medium-sized enterprises and industrial clusters, universities/research centres, public authorities, and civil society organisations); and (b) delivering solutions that empower regional actors and their regional innovation ecosystems through an acceleration agenda.
• Devise an acceleration agenda connected with existing research and innovation agendas that align to target mutual objectives and cross regional collaborations, in particular by identifying and creating links to regions with priorities relevant for sustainable food systems identified in their local smart specialisation strategies, as well as relevant smart specialisation partnerships and platforms (such as the Thematic Smart Specialisation Platform on Agri-food).
• Provide technical assistance, encourage “mutual learning” and stimulate “new” ecosystems of innovation in parts of Europe that are less well integrated, for example with the objectives of the BIOEAST Food Systems Thematic Working Group (e.g., to catalyse future reflections and discussions at regional level regarding the need to work together to tackle food system transformations).
• Explore how the existing Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach can help regional actors to implement farm to fork relevant objectives, in particular for societally relevant market solutions that contribute to public health objectives and environmental businesses such that they contribute to the “EU Code of Conduct on Responsible Food Business and Marketing Practice”.
• Take a systemic view to help industries built up around the European food systems related businesses, to innovate and cooperate, thereby proposing solutions of regional relevance.
• Identify and facilitate synergies with other financing and capacity building instruments to enable progress along the whole innovation pipeline, including the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3), a new funding instrument under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).