Agroecology European Partnership Call 2025

FCT is a member of the co-funded European Partnership Agroecology, which represents a large-scale European research and innovation (R&I) effort in supporting the agriculture sector in its main objectives and challenges, according to the agroecology approach, by implementing more resilient, productive and prosperous agricultural systems that are sensitive to place, climate, environment, ecosystems, biodiversity and people – goals to be achieved by 2050.

Agroecology's second joint transnational call for proposals aims to fund R&I projects that focus on evaluating the performance of agroecology in its various dimensions, compare agroecological performance with conventional practices and provide information for specific contexts and agroclimatic conditions.

TOPICS

The general theme of JTC 2025 is Integrating environmental, economic and social perspectives in assessing the performance of agroecology.  Proposals to be submitted under this call must address at least one of the following themes:

1. Determine and assess benefits/impacts and trade-offs of agroecology, and identify best    practices
2. Transforming value chains and new business models to facilitate a transition to agroecology

The following are individual or co-promotion beneficiaries:

a) Non-entrepreneurial entities of the R&I system, namely:

    i. Higher education institutions, their institutes and R&D units;

    ii. State, Associated or International Laboratories based in Portugal;

   iii. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (TIC);

   iv. Other non-profit public and private institutions developing or participating in scientific research activities.

b) Companies of any nature and in any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of the Regulation of projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation, available in the 'Call Documents' area).

The Agroecology 2025 call consists of a pre-proposal submission phase (1st phase) and a full proposal phase (2nd phase). Only pre-proposals submitted by transnational consortia in the 1st phase will be invited to submit full proposals in the 2nd phase.

Each Proposing Institution (PI) that is part of a transnational consortium can only apply for funding from the participating funding agencies (PFA) of its country or region. See national annexes (under Call documents), for information on the eligibility rules of each PFA and on the transnational eligibility rules. For a proposal to be eligible, it must comply with the national and transnational eligibility rules.

To submit their application, each Portuguese PI wishing to apply for funding from FCT should:

1. Consult the Call Documents area.
2. Consult FCT eligibility rules (see Call Text)
3. Submit, through the coordinator of the transnational consortium, the proposal form on the application submission platform (see Important links) until 13:00 GMT in mainland Portugal on 17/02/2025.
4. Send to FCT, within 10 working days after the deadline for submitting the application, a Statement of Commitment (SoC) completed and signed by the Researcher in Charge (RC) identified by the PI and by a qualified representative of the PI. The SoC should be sent to the emails indicated in Contacts. 

Please note:

• Failure to send the SoC to FCT on the date referred to in paragraph 4, or the unjustified delivery after that deadline, or the delivery of an incomplete SoC, without one of the two parts – Researcher in Charge and PI  – that make it up or without the signatures of the Portuguese RC and/or a qualified representative of the Portuguese PI, will result in the application being declared ineligible.
• If two or more Portuguese PI from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from FCT, each must send a completed and signed SoC to FCT.
• One SoC must be sent to FCT for each application submitted by the same RC and PI.
• Portuguese partners of transnational consortia that do not apply for funding from FCT do not need to submit the Statement of Commitment to FCT.
• The PI stamp or white seal is only required on manually signed SoC.

The information on this page is only a summary of the information of the call, does not exempt the candidates from carefully reading all the call documents available on this page and on the call website (see ’Important links’) and refers only to FCT's participation in this call, unless expressly indicated.

The eligibility check of proposals is carried out at both stages of the call (pre-proposal submission stage and full proposal submission stage):

• National/Regional Funding Agencies check national eligibility of pre-proposals and full proposals, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements in the applicable national/regional regulations and other applicable documents (see FCT Regulation, Normas de execução financeira and national annexes in the Call Documents area).
• Transnational eligibility check of applications will be performed by the Call Secretariat, according to the transnational eligibility criteria presented in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

Note: For an application to be declared eligible it must fulfil both the national and transnational criteria.

Evaluation

The call includes two evaluation phases:

• Pre-proposal evaluation stage
• Full proposal evaluation stage

Proposals will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria described in the "Call Text" in the Call Documents area.

The participating national/regional funding agencies will decide, according to the stage the call is at, which 1) pre-proposals to invite to submit a full proposal and which 2) proposals to recommend for funding.

• FCT financial commitment for the call: 500 000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination: 250 000,00 €
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation: 150 000,00€

Please mind:

• Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, Regulation of projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation and Normas de execução financeira, both available in the Call Documents area, and the applicable national and European legislation).
• If more than one Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium applies for funding from FCT, the combined budget requested from FCT by the Portuguese applicants may not exceed the maximum funding limit for a consortium with Portuguese coordination (250 000,00 €) or with Portuguese participation (150 000,00 €). The Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium will have to share the funding that will be granted by FCT.
• The dedication (FTE) in transnational projects is not considered for the 100% (FTE) dedication to national projects.
• Under the terms of number 2 of Article 7 of the Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, payments made directly or indirectly to companies through the Proposing Institution cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the company’s participation.

• Call website
• Matchmaking Platform
• Application Submission Platform
• Agroecology European Partnership website
• Agroecology page on FCT website

Marta Norton

Marta.norton@fct.pt

Tel: (+351) 213 911 565

Pedro Miguel Ferreira

Pedromiguel.ferreira @fct.pt

Tel: (+351) 213 924 445