Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Making Agricultural Trade Sustainable

Project description

A closer look at how agricultural trade can grow sustainably

Agricultural trade plays a big role in the sustainability of regional and global food systems. For many countries, trade in agricultural products is the top source of livelihoods and economic growth. The EU-funded MATS project will explore how to improve trade at private sector, national, EU, African and global levels. Specifically, it will carry out case studies on 15 countries to understand the conditions for sustainability as food is traded from surplus to deficit areas. The findings will shed light on the interactions between agricultural markets, trade, investments, policy, environmental sustainability and human well-being. With this information, the project will design a new benchmark in trade policy analysis.

Objective

MATS aims to identify key leverage points for changes in agricultural trade policy that foster the positive and reduce the negative impacts of trade on environmental sustainability and human well-being. Focus is on improving the design, governance and implementation of trade regimes and policies at private sector, national, EU, African and global levels.

The key operational features of MATS are:
a) a set of 15 in-depth country, regional and product case studies to provide a deeper understanding of the conditions for sustainable trade, an integrated multi-model simulation and assessment of linkages with agricultural market, trade and investment dynamics, and an analy-sis of institutional, regulatory and legal frameworks;
b) a multi-stakeholder backcasting approach that builds on recent research related to transformative change and social innovation, and that uses novel participatory methods and platforms to explore transition pathways towards sustainable trade;
c) a clustering with other trade-related research projects to benefit from synergies, and a major role for sector representatives, social movements and policymakers in framing analyses, co-assessing linkages, and deriving policy recommendations.

MATS has the ambition to set a new benchmark in trade policy analysis.

The main project outputs will be:
(1) New quantitative and qualitative insights on the interactions between agricultural markets, trade, investments, policy, environmental sustainability and human well-being.
(2) A set of Discussion Papers and Policy Briefs, incl. recommendations for enhancing the coherence of agricultural and trade policies with the SDGs.
(3) An enhanced civil societystakeholderpolicy dialogue that is supported by an evidence-based communication platform the Sustainable Trade Hub.
(4) A set of innovative research tools for the analysis of the interactions between agricultural trade, agricultural investments, policy, environmental sustainability and human well-being.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

RIA - Research and Innovation action

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-RUR-2018-2020

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 910 912,50
Address
FABIANINKATU 33
00014 HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Finland

See on map

Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 910 912,50

Participants (14)

My booklet 0 0