Agroecology

The co-funded European Agroecology Partnership, European Partnership on Accelerating Farming Systems Transition: Agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures, represents a large-scale European research and innovation effort to support the agricultural sector in its main objectives and challenges, following an agroecology approach. This partnership will be 50% co-financed by the European Commission and will run for seven years. Agroecology involves 70 partners (funding agencies and research institutions) from 26 countries, who propose to contribute approximately 60 million euros. The total estimated budget will be around 120 million euros.

Objectives of Agroecology

The Agroecology partnership aims to support the agricultural sector that is committed to the goals and challenges of climate change, the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, food and environmental security and sovereignty, while ensuring a profitable and attractive activity for farmers, in line with the rationale and ambition defined by theEuropean Green Deal and other associated strategic initiatives.

The partnership will structure and support a network of living labs and research infrastructures that accelerate the transition to sustainable, climate-friendly and ecosystem-friendly agricultural practices. To this end, it will 1) enable a better understanding of agroecological processes from farm to landscape, 2) provide place-based innovation in co-creative environments and 3) improve the flow and uptake of knowledge and innovation in agroecology.

In addition to FCT, INIAV - Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária, I.P., also participates in this partnership as a Research Performance Organization, with contributions in kind.

The Agroecology partnership plans to launch seven joint transnational Calls between 2024 and 2030.