Agrobiodiversity is a vital subset of biodiversity and is the result of the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and management systems used by culturally diverse people. It is a crucial prerequisite for ecologically and economically sustainable agricultural systems and is an important tool for ecological intensification. The aim of CROPDIVA is to reinforce agrobiodiversity on different levels and along distinct geographic and socio-economic areas. The activities of CROPDIVA are clustered around five connected research work packages and three pillars, each with a set of specific objectives: i) promotion of six key underutilised arable crops: oats, hull-less barley, triticale, buckwheat, faba bean and lupin; ii) creation of value chains for selected underutilised crops ; and iii) study of the socio-economic impact of project results. The concept of CROPDIVA is an innovative challenge driven approach based on the promotion of underutilised crops in sustainable cropping systems and new regional value chains. Project activities will focus on the following major challenges: improved resilience of cropping systems, alignment of the economic and social needs of farmers with ecological goals as well as marketing of new food/non-food products meeting consumer demands. The results gathered in CROPDIVA will not be descriptive, but will be used for innovative solutions along the entire food and non-food chain to enable biodiversity management on all levels, including diversifying the use of genetic resources, crop production systems, new food/non-food products, market opportunities while satisfying producers and investigated consumer requirements.

EFUA’s objectives are to unlock Urban Agriculture’s potential by achieving better knowledge, better deployment, and better policies in this field. By setting up an UA Forum it aims to develop a new level of stakeholder engagement to better inform decision making and turn Urban Agriculture into a European, regional and local policy domain. EFUA will contribute to the work programme by defining next practices and stakeholder based R&I programmes for Urban Agriculture and also by investigating its role as an innovator in the agricultural and food sector and the urban bioeconomy. UA is a thriving subject, globally, but has not made its way into European policies due to barriers resulting from gaps in both knowledge and advocacy. EFUA will overcome these barriers by establishing the UA Forum, thereby allowing a new level of stakeholder engagement, co-building of knowledge, better deployment and specifically targeted policies. The UA Forum is set up following a quad helix approach and as durable format to ensure ongoing networking in Urban Agriculture and to give European policies a partner to better support UA in the long term. EFUA’s workflow is organized in three loops culminating in 3 public conferences and the co-design of a UA vision. EFUA’s work is facilitated by the UA platform offering various tools for engaging stakeholders and co-building of knowledge together with the UA Forum, but also for communication and dissemination. Special networking methods are used to access cutting edge knowledge from R&I projects to define next practice of Urban Agriculture. Benefits of Urban Agriculture and recommendations for action are targeted to European policy makers thereby supporting various agendas and programs. Impact is increased by target audience oriented communication, making use of excellent dissemination channels. Impact is sustained by perpetuating the UA Forum’s work.

BovINE will tackle urgent sustainability challenges faced by beef producers by bringing together beef farmers, farming organisations, advisors, researchers and all relevant actors across 10 member states to close the divide between research and innovation in Europe. There are 255,000 farms in the EU bovine meat sector, yet no network focused solely on their needs has been established to date. Coordinated by Teagasc (IE), BovINE is built around the multi-actor approach to implement more intense cooperation between researchers, advisors, farmers and relevant actors to facilitate greater exchange and acceptance of co-created solutions. BovINE draws on the EU, national and regional connections of the 18 consortium members to appropriate networks, on the four related key themes of socio-economic resilience, animal health and welfare, production efficiency & quality and environmental sustainability. Using the multi-actor approach BovINE will (i) capture and share innovative ideas and methods from practice across Europe and (ii) identify and conserve research findings that have not yet been widely adopted, enhancing their potential for integration into practice by assessing feasibility at demonstration farms. BovINE’s strategic and targeted dissemination and communication actions are designed to raise awareness of the project’s innovation potential, and deliver engagement with farmers, their intermediaries and knowledge providers. Through driving effective cooperation between beef producers and researchers, and utilising trusted gatekeepers, BovINE will form a transnational ecosystem to stimulate knowledge exchange at international level to boost the economic viability and sustainability of the European beef-producing sector.

Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology has proved to be pivotal for elucidating the complexity and the role of the microbiome associated with plant and animals. The role of the “virome” as a sub-component of the microbiome is beginning to be unveiled because of new ways to analyse the data and in recognition of its importance in shaping biological systems. The aim of VIROPLANT is to apply NGS technology and empirical biological experiments to develop new environmentally friendly virus-based control strategies to manage bacterial, fungal and insect vector-transmitted diseases (phytoplasmas and viruses) as well as insect pests. So far, plant protection through viruses has relied on limited successful model systems, such as baculoviruses for lepidopterans, and one mycovirus for the control of chestnut blight; moreover, viruses infecting bacteria (phages) are also state of the art tools with potential to cope with antibiotic resistant bacterial strains in human and veterinary medicine. VIROPLANT will create a database of new viruses (and virus derived biotechnological products) to increase the arsenal for the control of plant diseases caused by the most important biotic stresses. Different NGS and bioinformatics approaches will be applied to explore the virome diversity, including latent infections that can be potentially exploited for new biocontrol strategies. Protocols of risk assessment will be implemented for virome-based model control strategies. VIROPLANT will address the social and gender-specific perception of the use of virome-based techniques as alternatives to traditional pesticides. A business plan for representative categories of virome-based control strategies will be included. Small and medium enterprises and stakeholders will be involved in bringing the most promising products to the market. The consortium will cover experts in insect virome, phage therapy and mycoviruses from different agro-ecological systems throughout Europe.