Co-Change strengthens transformative capacity and leadership for RRI through an innovative systemic approach, centred on the concept of change labs, building on years of solid experience. The project activates change coalitions around each lab, paying particular attention to interactions and dependencies of actors in each R&I ecosystem, since research performing (RPOs) and research funding (RFOs) organisations co-evolve in and with the R&I ecosystems they are embedded in. This embeddedness forms the social and institutional context, which either supports or slows down changes in the system. By implementing change labs in their ecosystems, we generate transformative capacity for institutional change in terms of practices, procedures, rules and norms at the individual, organisational and system levels. Co-Change supports the implementation of institutional changes of R&I actors within and beyond the key areas of RRI. Our consortium members of RPOs and RFOs across Europe act as change agents. We set out to establish change labs as instruments for promoting and sustaining institutional change within our own organisations and reach out to actors in our innovation ecosystems. As well as co-creating RRI practices in our own organisations, we also do so in organisations that have signalled their interest. Since these include partners from research performing, financing and governance institutions, we can build change coalitions at national and EU scale. The outcomes of all change labs will be analysed to produce a toolbox and field book for RRI related institutional changes which will be broadly disseminated by committed multipliers. To widen our impact, we publish a call for innovative RRI practices, inviting more European organizations to Co-Change activities. Our project also features a sounding board with experienced RRI project coordinators, helping communicate with other projects in the field, and an advisory board with quadruple helix partners for further reach.

ClimaPannonia is the coordinated effort of key stakeholders of the Pannonian Biogeographical Area (PBS) towards strengthening the resilience of the agricultural sector and the region’s community against climate change disastrous effects. This will be achieved by enabling the widest possible uptake of tested and validated climate neutral solutions for four agriculture subsectors: (i) water-food nexus, (ii) agroforestry, (iii) organic crop production, (iv) cattle production. ClimaPannonia aims to support PBA agriculture sector in drastically improving its climate resilience. By implementing innovative systemic solutions and fostering collaboration among the six countries within the PBA – Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Czechia, and Slovakia – ClimaPannonia will pave the way for a more sustainable and resilient agriculture. By harnessing the knowledge and expertise of leading experts in PBA and leverage the knowledge of partners from countries such as Germany, Italy, and France, ClimaPannonia seeks to ensure that the solutions implemented are innovative not only at PBA level, but also at European scale.

Widening countries lag behind the European average in Research & Innovation investment and scientific excellence; the domain of Digital Agriculture (DA) is one prominent example. Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) of Widening countries, like Greece and Serbia, can play a central role in addressing this issue, but need support for achieving excellence in research and education in the DA domain. HEIs in Belgium have gained significant experience by establishing an ecosystem that fosters close collaboration among HEIs, competence centers, Digital Innovation Hubs, and industry, leveraging advanced digital technologies for the benefit of citizens, business, and scientific advancement. In this light, TALLHEDA will build a new long-term Alliance for DA between agricultural HEIs from Widening countries with leading non-widening agricultural universities, and local and international stakeholders. TALLHEDA Alliance will contribute to raising the critical mass of highly skilled scientists and to establishing liaisons with surrounding ecosystems, in order to foster the Quadruple Helix of innovation in Widening countries. The path to excellence will be paved with a portfolio of multi-actor, inter-sector and international complementary actions to support students, early-stage and experienced researchers, and academic staff of the Widening HEIs. This will be achieved through collaboration, complementary top-level expertise of all partners, access to cutting-edge infrastructure, staff mobility, and joint educational and research activities. The partners have an established scientific reputation in DA and are committed to making TALLHEDA a success. In the long term, Widening HEIs will be one step closer to reforming their institutions in terms of content and quality of educational courses, pedagogical and management practices, and research and innovation capacity, raising the critical mass of highly skilled scientists needed for digital transition in agriculture across Europe.

MyToolBox mobilises a multi-actor partnership (academia, farmers, technology SMEs, food industry and policy stakeholders) to develop novel interventions aimed at achieving a 20-90% reduction in crop losses due to fungal and mycotoxin contamination. MyToolBox will not only pursue a field-to-fork approach but will also consider safe use options of contaminated batches, such as the efficient production of biofuels. A major component of MyToolBox, which also distinguishes this proposal from previous efforts in the area mycotoxin reduction, is to provide the recommended measures to the end users along the food and feed chain in a web-based Toolbox. Cutting edge research will result in new interventions, which will be integrated together with existing measures in the Toolbox that will guide the end user as to the most effective measure(s) to be taken to reduce crop losses. We will focus on small grain cereals, maize, peanuts and dried figs, applicable to agricultural conditions in EU and China. Crop losses using existing practices will be compared with crop losses after novel pre-harvest interventions including investigation of genetic resistance to fungal infection, cultural control, the use of novel biopesticides (organic-farming compliant), competitive biocontrol treatment and development of forecasting models to predict mycotoxin contamination. Research into post-harvest measures including real-time monitoring during storage, innovative sorting of crops using vision-technology and novel milling technology will enable cereals with higher mycotoxin levels to be processed without breaching regulatory limits in finished products. Research into the effects of baking on mycotoxin levels will provide better understanding of process factors used in mycotoxin risk assessment. Involvement of leading institutions from China are aimed at establishing a sustainable cooperation in mycotoxin research between the EU and China.

The overall objective of the Infravec2 project is to integrate key specialized research facilities necessary for European excellence in insect vector biology, to open the infrastructure for European access, and to develop new vector control measures targeting the greatest threats to human health and animal industries. Infravec2 is an Advanced Community, following a four-year Starting Community lifecycle (FP7 Infravec1). Lack of access to key infrastructures limits European vector research and impedes development of vector control measures. Insect vectors transmit parasitic diseases such as malaria and leishmaniasis, and viral infections such as chikungunya, dengue, Zika, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever. Vector-borne diseases, which have historically been a problem of tropical countries, now represent a threat for temperate regions of the world including much of Europe. The 24 consortium partners, including 4 commercial companies, hold the major European biosecure insectaries for experimental infection and containment of insect vectors under Containment Level 2 and 3 (CL2/CL3) conditions, other key insect vector facilities, and include front-line field sites in Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas. Infravec2 will implement comparable standards across the secure insectary facilities as a world first, improving exploitation of European vector infrastructures for research and public health, and will develop other innovative methodologies and technologies. Networking activities will assure that the project achieves full impact, producing a step change in European vector biology research and the product pipeline, and consolidating European global leadership in insect vectors. The goal of the Infravec2 project is to build a durable European infrastructure to control insect vector-borne disease, including with power to predict and prevent the inevitable next epidemic outbreak in advance.