ECO-READY Living labs are close partners to ECO-READY Observatory, they will be cocreators to bring together knowledge from the Social Sciences and Humanities domain to explore, and clarify the issue of how to better inform policy formulation and enhance public understanding on the nexus of food resilience, climate change and biodiversity.

The ECO-READY Open Call will provide a significant opportunity to engage agri-food stakeholders interested in taking action to combat food insecurity and climate change in Europe. Through this network of Living Labs, ECO-READY will:

• Provide short- and long-term local case studies for resilience building strategies across a broad geographical distribution;
• Connect different types of LLs (geographical, climatic, thematic) to share knowledge and tackle interdisciplinary problems related to food security and resilience;
• Form a lasting partnership between the network of Living Labs for data exchange.

What the Living Labs will do:

• 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 policy recommendations.

The sub-projects performed by the selected Living Labs will last for 24 months and will be divided into 3 phases:

• Design- Deliver an activity plan (May 2024- October 2024)
• Development- Implement the activities/Demonstrate the results and outcomes (November 2024- September 2025)
• Impact- Finalise activities and draft a sustainability plan (October 2025-April 2026)

Targeted applicants:

Partners in the LLs should be specialised in one or more of the following sectors:

• food security;
• biodiversity;
• climate change.

The LLs should be composed of 2-5 partners (at least 1 scientific /technical/ commercial and at least 1 community of users). Examples of technical/ scientific / commercial partners: Universities, research centers, technology developers (private and public), food production companies etc. Examples of communities of users: farmers’ cooperatives, consumers associations, civil society organizations etc.

Key numbers of the Open Call

Total Open Call budget: 4 million

Budget per project: up to 400,000 euro

More info here

Project Factsheet