Problems related to biodiversity loss are seriously affecting the olive sector, one of the most important cultivars from the cultural and economic point of view. Emerging diseases and climate change effects daily threaten this sector. The last dry seasons have caused the decrease of olive oil production up to 57%. The genetic erosion risk is present: there are more than 1,200 olive varieties worldwide, but just a 5% represent the total harvested area. Olive GenRes could be the key to solve these problems, but they remain largely unexplored. Big handicaps still hinder their exploitation, such as poor characterisation of olive varieties, scarce development of pre-breeding activities, and lack of collaboration between the Germplasm Banks (GBs) and breeders/farmers. GEN4OLIVE encompasses a wide, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary consortium, which aims to leverage olive GenRes by bringing them to a higher level closer to breeders and markets. The overall goal of GEN4OLIVE is to accelerate the mobilization of olive GenRes and to foster pre-breeding activities by (1) developing a smart and user-friendly interface that will implement Artificial Intelligence utilities to leverage the olive GenRes resources; and (2) enhancing breeders and growers’ participation through the implementation of two open calls for supporting pre-breeding activities and breeding plans. GEN4OLIVE will develop collective pre-breeding activities aiming to in-depth characterize more than 500 worldwide varieties and 1000 wild and ancient genotypes around 5 topics: climate change, pests and diseases, production and quality, and modern planting systems. After integrating all results in the GEN4OLIVE interface, breeders and other end-users will have an effective tool for speeding up all kind of breeding programs. The combination of pre-breeding results with modern ICTs will enable the access of end-users to this valuable information.

This proposal seeks funding under the Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2014-2015 to establish an ERA-NET for joint European research coordination on Sustainable Animal Production (SusAn). The scope for this ERA-NET has been developed under the SCAR Collaborative Working Group on Sustainable Animal Production (CWG-SAP). Funding organisations from 22 European countries initially seek to support one co-funded call followed by other joint activities including the development of a Common Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda on Sustainable Animal Production. The animal production sector forms an important part of Europe’s (agricultural) economy and plays an essential role in the provision of Europe`s citizens with high quality animal products. Like other agriculture sectors, animal production faces many challenges from projected increases in global demand for food, climate change, competition for natural resources and economic volatility. The European animal production landscape is very complex, consisting of different species farmed within a wide range of different extensive, semi-intensive and intensive production systems using multiple resources to produce a diverse range of animal products and other services. Partners in this ERA-NET believe, however, that these challenges and complexities can be effectively addressed through joint European research within a framework which supports the three pillars of sustainability - economy, environment and society - and targets opportunities for innovative research spanning all areas of animal production such as health and welfare, feeding and nutrition, reproduction, breeding and genetics, housing, nutrient management and economics. Partners in ERA-NET SusAn endorse scientific excellence and recommend an integrated, interdisciplinary, cross-cutting and multi-actor approach to research and knowledge exchange which reflects the complexity of the research requirements for sustainable European animal production.

The vision of FutureFoodS is to collectively achieve environmentally-friendly, socially secure, fair and economically viable healthy and safe Food Systems (FS) for Europe. FutureFoodS gather 87 partners from 22 EU Member States, 6 Associated Countries and 1 third country. FutureFoodS includes public and private actors, policy makers, foundations, locally, sub-nationally, nationally, EU-widely. All these FutureFoodS partners are fully aligned on the vision for the Partnership and the methodology for its implementation in line with SDG17 and EU Green Deal components. This vision has been broken down into general (GO), specific (SO) and operational (OO) objectives applying across the 4 R&I areas and 4 transversal activities identified by the FutureFoods consortium in its stable draft Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) which constitutes the strategic backbone of the project. The four GO cover: GO1 - Functioning of FS; GO2 - System approaches; GO3 - Inclusive government; GO4 - Co-creation cases. These GO have then been translated into SO prioritised in line with the timescale and resources of the Partnership: SO1 - Change the way we eat; SO2- Change the way we process and supply food, SO3 - Change the way we connect with FSs and SO4 - Change the way we govern FS. In addition, 6 interconnected OO have been set: OO1- Pooling R&I resources and programming; OO2 - Operational FS Observatory; OO3 - Active FS knowledge Hub of FS Labs; OO4 - Functioning knowledge sharing and scaling mechanisms; OO5- Revisiting the SRIA; OO6 - Promoting, supporting, widening & gathering FS various communities. The objectives implemented in the 8 WPs of FutureFoodS will exert impact directly or indirectly in most of the destinations of Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6 2023-2024 work programme and particularly for the topic destination ‘Fair, healthy and environment-friendly FS from primary production to consumption’ echoing to the main EU and World FS policies & strategies.

It is not possible to avoid all the challenges to plant health posed by global trade, increasing travel activities and climate change. However, it is possible to optimise strategies to address these challenges with effective cooperation and coordination. The success of the Euphresco self-sustained network as a platform for the coordination of European phytosanitary research has set the ground for discussions on the development of initiative(s) to address the needs of other regions of the world and on global phytosanitary research coordination. The aim of the project is to enhance national and regional phytosanitary research coordination beyond what the Euphresco self-sustained network has achieved and to set the foundations for global phytosanitary research coordination. This will be achieved by building on the foundations developed by the Euphresco self-sustained network and explore fit-for-purpose activities. The objectives of the project are: -To develop a strategic research agenda. The document will guide phytosanitary research programming activities of EU countries and support them to address regional and global challenges through synergies with other regions/continents of the world. -To organize joint calls on common research priorities to support and enhance international collaboration through the commissioning and implementation of research projects. Monitoring of the research projects will ensure that they remain relevant to the needs of the research funders and policy makers and impactful. -To develop and test models for the governance, the structure and the operation of a global network for phytosanitary research coordination. A business plan will be established to guide the development of a global network for phytosanitary research coordination. -To engage with relevant plant health research stakeholders and foster knowledge exchange, engagement in the project activities, co-development, dissemination and adoption of outputs.