FOSC planned to undertake joint calls for proposals for collaborative R&D&I between partners from different regions of Europe and Africa, and to undertake complementary activities such as the identification and test of innovative instruments for alignment and collaboration in R&D&I, capacity strengthening, infrastructure development and dissemination of the results. These tasks were organized in seven Work Packages (WP). WP1 serves the overall project’s coordination and management, WP2 to WP5 and WP7 are directly linked to the implementation, evaluation and valuation of the R&I co-funded projects while WP6 focuses on developing “additional activities”.
The 1st call of FOSC was co-funded by EC and was launched on 20th of December 2019. 71 pre-proposals were submitted, 43 were invited for the 2nd step, 36 remained eligible after the general and national eligibility assessments of the full proposals. All eligible proposals were evaluated by the International Evaluation Panel (IEP) of FOSC the 9th February 2021. The IEP established a ranking list, recommending 28 projects for funding. Based on this list, the 24th of February 2021, the Call Steering Committee (CSC) selected 17 proposals, for a total of 14.032 M€. These proposals aim at studying and proposing solutions for food, crop and farming systems submitted to climate change and its consequences. The topics include adaptation and improvement of agricultural practices, studies on adapted crops and varieties, solutions for mitigate foot print of farming in terms of practices, recycling wastes and bioeconomy. For food systems special attention is put on circularity, local markets but also trades at different levels.
From 16th of March 2021 when applicants were notified of the selection results, national negotiations between projects' partners and funders started.
The process allowed the projects to start from January to June 2021. In relation to those projects, a mapping of the global and European policy, research landscape and stakeholder relevant to food systems was carried out to explore possible collaboration and prepare the set-up of a Knowledge Platform for further efficient valorization. Twelve organisations with overlapping interests in R&D&I were contacted. Eight are now sharing information with the FOSC consortium to explore new collaborations ideas. Thanks to these mapping and networking activities, a joint call on Innovative solutions for resilient climate-smart and sustainable food systems, with the ERA-Net co-fund SUSFOOD2 was launched the 17th of May and is open until the 16th of August 2021. The collaboration with LEAP4FNSSA is another outcome of the networking activities. FOSC organized a workshop during the FNSSA Stakeholder Engagement Week on “The landscape of knowledge platforms on agri-food systems and climate change” the 1st of June 2021.
