ERA-Net Cofund on Food Systems and Climate
Achieving food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture is a complex global challenge that crosses many sectors, disciplines and policy areas. Adaptation to climate change will require systemic change and transformation of the global food systems with a more holistic and integrated approach.
FOSC is the ERA-Net on Food Systems and Climate. FOSC is built upon and supported by the experience from the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security & Climate Change (FACCE-JPI) and the ERA-Net Cofund LEAP-Agri. The FOSC consortium consists of 28 partners from Europe, Africa and Latin America. FOSC pulls together resources for a joint research programme and is supported by the European Commission through an ERA-Net Cofund grant. FOSC has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 862555. The program started on 1 October 2019 and will run until 30 September 2024.
FOSC ambition
The ambition of FOSC is to implement a range of joint activities to contribute to strong and effective trans-national research and innovation between Europe, Africa, and Latin America. FOSC aims as well to contribute to the coordination and synergism between national and international research programmes that are relevant to food security under climate change.
The challenge of achieving food and nutrition security within the context of sustainable food systems calls for increased investment and collaboration. FOSC aspires to increase investments in R&D&I through a coordinated regional mechanism aimed at reducing fragmentation.
Activities of FOSC
FOSC initiates and organises additional activities to foster collaborations and enhance impact of research on food systems and climate in Europe and beyond:
- the preparation and implementation of a joint call for proposals (FOSC call 2019) resulting in 17 funded projects;
- the deployment of innovative instruments for alignment and collaboration in R&D&I;
- a second call or alternative research funding activity for multi-actor research projects (joint call of FOSC and SUSFOOD2 2021), resulting in 5 funded projects;
- capacity strengthening (workshops, training);
- stakeholder engagement;
- support to policy making;
- developing a Knowledge Platform; and
- communication and dissemination of results emerging from activities.
Expected Impacts from FOSC
FOSC aims for strong impact by financing research and by organizing complimentary activities that enhance the research outcomes and create synergy:
- effective trans-national, research and innovation on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture under climate change;
- effective networking, better coordination and synergy between national, international and EU research programmes relevant to foods systems under climate change;
- new insights on the reduction of the environmental footprint of the sector, and more specifically on the reduction of both inputs and waste;
- carbon neutral agriculture and food chain will be supported and innovative solutions will be disseminated to the different end-users of the different continents;
- enhanced understanding and awareness about the effects of climate change on global food value chains, and the consequences on social and economic components of society; and
- development of innovative solutions to cope with the multiple risks and challenges to the food systems posed by global environmental changes.
The main expected impact of the Food systems projects is to clarify patterns regarding the economical and societal impacts of climate change at regional and at global levels. Risk assessment and risk management approaches for the extreme events will be analysed. Mitigation and adaptation solutions fostering resilience of food systems will be proposed to protect human health through the provision of enough safe foods, while preserving environment and climate. The project results will contribute to quantify and reduce risks for the local authorities. The existing challenges will be tackled in a transdisciplinary way by implementing the United Nations SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) objectives, in line with the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) from FACCE-JPI.
FOSC is built upon and supported by the experience from FACCE-JPI and LEAP-Agri
The Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI) stimulates collaboration between 24 EU Member States, associated countries and New Zealand, and provides coherence in research programming for addressing the interconnected challenges of sustainable agriculture, food security and impacts of climate change.
LEAP-Agri is a joint Europe Africa Research and Innovation (R&I) initiative related to Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA). 30 partners, including 24 Ministries and Funding Agencies (Group of Funders) from 18 European and African countries decide to join their forces and funding to build an ERA-Net Cofund project with a financial support of the European Commission.
