General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System

2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes

A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes

The following additional eligibility criteria apply: the proposals must apply the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in the introduction to this work programme part.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes

5. Evaluation and award:

• Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes

• Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual

• Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes

Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025). [[This decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf]].

Specific conditions

7. Specific conditions: described in the specific topic of the Work Programme

Documents

Call documents:

Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System

Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)

Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations

Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA)

MGA

Lump Sum MGA v1.0

Call-specific instructions

Detailed budget table (HE LS)

Guidance: "Lump sum funding: what do I need to know?"

Additional documents:

HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 1. General Introduction

HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 9. Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 13. General Annexes

HE Programme Guide

HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695

HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764

EU Financial Regulation

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

The successful proposal will be in line with the European Green Deal priorities and the farm to fork strategy for a fair healthy and environmentally friendly food system, as well as with the EU's climate ambition for 2030 and 2050. It will support R&I to foster advances in research related to integrated approaches along the food system for detecting, assessing, and mitigating food safety risks influenced by climate change. This is along with contributing to the transformation of food systems to deliver co-benefits for climate (mitigation and adaptation), biodiversity, environmental sustainability and circularity, dietary shift, sustainable healthy nutrition and safe food, food poverty reduction and empowerment of communities, and thriving businesses.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Improved understanding of the medium to longer-term climate change impacts in relation to food safety, and the effect these could have on food systems actors from farm to fork;
• Identification, development and widespread dissemination of mitigation and adaptation measures to reduce/prevent climate change-related food safety risks (individual and cumulative risks). Contribution to the farm to fork strategy objectives, in particular the contingency plan for ensuring food supply and food security and deliver co-benefits on each of the Food 2030 priorities as well as contributing to policy and food safety risk assessment needs and priorities, in particular regulatory control and enforcement aspects.

Proposals should contribute to all of the following aspects:

• Proposals must implement the 'multi-actor approach' and ensure adequate involvement of academia, research-technology organizations, food businesses and other relevant actors of the value chain.
• Anticipate, including through modelling, how climate change may affect food safety in Europe and in particular by increasing the potential for the emergence/re-emergence of new hazards and the changes in exposures and risks;
• Propose methods to monitor the impact of climate change on food safety across food systems and their main critical areas. Explore how climate change could impact risk assessment methods and understand how risk assessment methodologies may need to evolve to meet new climate changed related challenges;
• Analyse the effect of climate change (extreme temperatures, etc.) and its impact with respect to: existing food safety hazards throughout the entire food supply chain (from farm to fork), and risk factors including the appearance of (re)emerging hazards.
• European regions should participate as "demonstrators" areas facilitating research and innovation under different climate conditions;
• Proposals should include a dedicated task, appropriate resources and a plan on how they will collaborate with other projects funded under this topic or other topics such as the HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-11 and HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01-16 and ensure synergies with relevant activities carried out under other initiatives such as the One Health European joint programme and the LIFE programme ("Strategic Integrated Projects") due to their regional and climate approach.
• Proposals should also foresee the involvement of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as part of the future action once the project starts.

In addition proposals are encouraged to:

• Increase the use of big data and/or artificial intelligence to elucidate the complex interactions between climate change and food safety. Proposals are expected to develop models to understand these interactions experimented and analysed for their replication potential. Proposals might build on existing and new knowledge, data, and models exploiting the full potential of big data and/or artificial intelligence;
• Explore, map and propose funding synergies strategies among European, national and regional programmes and instruments under this scope in a long-term vision;
• Connect research and innovation activities in this topic with start-ups ecosystems.