The ECO-READY Open Call was successfully closed on September 30th 2023!
The Open Call, which was launched on May 31st, 2023, provides a significant opportunity for agri-food stakeholders interested in taking action to combat food insecurity and climate change in Europe.
The Open Call aims at the creation of consortia of partners (Living Labs) specialized in one or more of the food security, biodiversity and climate change sectors within the following 4 bio-climatic regions:
- Mediterranean and Southwestern Europe
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Northwestern Europe
- Scandinavian and Baltic Sea Region
The selected Living Labs under the Open Call, will cooperate with the ECO-READY project undertaking the following tasks:
- Investigate product types (food products & crops) and create model-based scenarios;
- Test the scenarios relevant to climate-related challenges, such as: exposure to climate shocks, management of water and land resources, etc.;
- Contribute to the development of contingency plans for selected food products for ensuring food supply & security;
- Provide input to data-driven policy recommendations;
- Co-design/ deploy awareness-raising plans;
- Facilitate data collection and exchange with the Observatory (ECO-READY digital platform).
Under the Open Call, the ECO-READY project plans to finance at least 10 Living Labs projects consisting of 3-5 partners (per consortium). The total sum for the Open Call is 4,000,000.00 €, and each Living Lab may receive financial assistance of up to 400,000.00 €.
The response to the ECO-READY Open Call was remarkable, with 38 unique applications from 16 different countries all across the 4 bio-climatic regions targeted by the project.
In total 139 partners participated in the consortia that have applied for the OC. The specialization of the applied LLs ranged among the sectors of food security, biodiversity, and climate change (sectors predefined by the OC), with the majority of them focused on food security.
The expertise of the partners in the applied LLs was mainly technical and scientific with a great number of them acting as communities of users.
The applied LLs identified certain product types among the predefined categories given by the OC, for all bio-climatic regions (horizontally) and the ones of regional importance.
The total requested budget reached the amount of 14,862,837.25 euro with the higher amount to be requested by the applied LLs in the Mediterranean and Southwestern Europe region (region with the higher number of proposals submitted).
We would like to express our gratitude to all the candidates for the submission of their applications.
The selection process is ongoing, and we look forward to informing the successful candidates in January 2024.