Objective
Feeding a growing population under increasing climate disruption demands a shift toward sustainable, stress-resilient cropping systems that minimize fertilizer and pesticide inputs while restoring soil health and improving crop nutrition. Bioinoculants - microbes that enhance plant growth, nutrient uptake and stress resilience - show great promise, yet their field effectiveness remains inconsistent. Current bioinoculant development depends on empirical evaluation, constrained by our limited understanding of the ecological and molecular rules governing plant microbiome assembly and function.
By uniting crop science, microbial ecology, data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI), NOAH will establish the first AI foundation model for crop microbiomes: ARCA (AI-guided Root microbiome engineering for ClimAte-resilient and nutritious crops). Building on the deterministic principles of microbiome assembly, NOAH’s ARCA integrates microbial functional traits, host genotype, and environmental metadata to model and design microbiome configurations that optimize crop performance. ARCA will be trained on over 300,000 curated public microbiome datasets, enhanced by large language model-driven metadata extraction, and tailored using high-resolution data from five major crops: wheat, tomato, faba bean, oilseed rape, and apple across diverse soils and stress conditions. Iterative design–build–test–learn (DBTL) cycles under controlled and field conditions ensure a progressive refinement of model accuracy and generalization.
NOAH will deliver a predictive and generative AI biotechnology capable of identifying beneficial microbial consortia and revealing missing functional components in suboptimal microbiomes. This breakthrough approach will transform microbiome engineering from empirical discovery into rational, model-driven design, accelerating the effective deployment of bioinoculants that enhance crop climate resilience and nutritional quality in a sustainable manner.
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: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture grains and oilseeds cereals
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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.
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.
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.
HORIZON-EIC - HORIZON EIC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01
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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.
3584 CS Utrecht
Netherlands
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.