LANDMARK is a pan-European multi-actor consortium of leading academic and applied research institutes, chambers of agriculture and policy makers that will develop a coherent framework for soil management aimed at sustainable food production across Europe. The LANDMARK proposal builds on the concept that soils are a finite resource that provides a range of ecosystem services known as “soil functions”. Functions relating to agriculture include: primary productivity, water regulation & purification, carbon-sequestration & regulation, habitat for biodiversity and nutrient provision & cycling. Trade-offs between these functions may occur: for example, management aimed at maximising primary production may inadvertently affect the ‘water purification’ or ‘habitat’ functions. This has led to conflicting management recommendations and policy initiatives. There is now an urgent need to develop a coherent scientific and practical framework for the sustainable management of soils. LANDMARK will uniquely respond to the breadth of this challenge by delivering (through multi-actor development): 1. LOCAL SCALE: A toolkit for farmers with cost-effective, practical measures for sustainable (and context specific) soil management. 2. REGIONAL SCALE - A blueprint for a soil monitoring scheme, using harmonised indicators: this will facilitate the assessment of soil functions for different soil types and land-uses for all major EU climatic zones. 3. EU SCALE – An assessment of EU policy instruments for incentivising sustainable land management. There have been many individual research initiatives that either address the management & assessment of individual soil functions, or address multiple soil functions, but only at local scales. LANDMARK will build on these existing R&D initiatives: the consortium partners bring together a wide range of significant national and EU datasets, with the ambition of developing an interdisciplinary scientific framework for sustainable soil management.

Food safety violations at the consumer stage are common and nearly 40% of food-borne outbreaks are occurring in the domestic setting. The overall goal of SafeConsumE is to provide effective, science-based and sustainable strategies for food authorities, market actors and the research community to help consumers mitigate risk, thus reducing the health burden from food-borne illness in Europe. SafeconsumE will suggest, develop and evaluate: 1) Tools, technologies and products (e.g. sensors, apps, hygiene concepts, kitchen utensils) that stimulate safe practices; 2) Communication strategies that effectively stimulate adoption and market uptake of safer practices and tools/technologies; 3) Education programs increasing skills and knowledge aiding teenagers to handle food safely; 4) Dynamic, sustainable and inclusive policy models that stimulates and support national and EU level initiatives. To achieve high implementation and innovation power, scientists will work together with consumers, authorities and different market actors under a new trans-disciplinary and multi-actor approach based on Theories of Practices combined with Design-driven innovation. Covering the five most important hazards causing food borne disease, consumer behavior across Europe will be described using a risk-based methodology and utilizing the strengths of high-throughput surveys together with in-depth qualitative methodology. New strategies will be developed taking into account their impact on risk reduction, documented consumer barriers for change and sustainability. SafeConsumE will support transformation towards a more healthy population and cost-efficacy by reduced foodborne illness, and a more sustainable community by less food-waste and environmentally friendly solutions.

Aquaculture is one of five sectors in the EU's Blue Growth Strategy, aimed at harnessing untapped potential for food production and jobs whilst focusing on environmental sustainability. TAPAS addresses this challenge by supporting member states to establish a coherent and efficient regulatory framework aimed at sustainable growth. TAPAS will use a requirements analysis to evaluate existing regulatory and licensing frameworks across the EU, taking account of the range of production environments and specificities and emerging approaches such as offshore technologies, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, and integration with other sectors. We will propose new, flexible approaches to open methods of coordination, working to unified, common standards. TAPAS will also evaluate existing tools for economic assessment of aquaculture sustainability affecting sectoral growth. TAPAS will critically evaluate the capabilities and verification level of existing ecosystem planning tools and will develop new approaches for evaluation of carrying capacities, environmental impact and future risk. TAPAS will improve existing and develop new models for far- and near-field environmental assessment providing better monitoring, observation, forecasting and early warning technologies. The innovative methodologies and components emerging from TAPAS will be integrated in an Aquaculture Sustainability Toolbox complemented by a decision support system to support the development and implementation of coastal and marine spatial planning enabling less costly, more transparent and more efficient licensing. TAPAS partners will collaborate with key industry regulators and certifiers through case studies to ensure the acceptability and utility of project approach and outcomes. Training, dissemination and outreach activities will specifically target improvement of the image of European aquaculture and uptake of outputs by regulators, while promoting an integrated sustainable strategy for development.

PROIntensAfrica intends to develop a proposal for a long term research and innovation partnership between Europe and Africa, focusing on the improvement of the food and nutrition security and the livelihoods of African farmers by exploring and exploiting the diversity of pathways to sustainable intensification of African agro-food systems. The exploration will include environmental, economic and social externalities along the whole value chains. PROIntensAfrica has the ambition to formulate a research and innovation agenda, identifying the domains in need for further research to realize the potential of African food systems. In addition, PROIntensAfrica will suggest governance mechanisms that are effective in supporting the partnership. Key is the perception that pooling resources is the best way to align existing and initiate new research. This perception follows the policy of the EC, where instruments of joint programming like ERA-NET, JPI and article 185 aim to accomplish synergy and increase the effectiveness of resources. Pooling resources goes beyond the scientific domain and reaches into the policy domain. Consequently, besides being rooted in sound and challenging research, a partnership proposal needs to meet national and international policies to fly. Therefore PROIntensAfrica pay specific attention to engage with the policy domain, as exemplified by the intended creation of a policy support group. The rationale of the project is that a variety of pathways leads to sustainable intensification of African food systems. Different pathways are advocated in literature. High-input farming systems, for example, contrast with organic farming systems, each with their own supporters and criticasters. It is the conviction of the PROIntensAfrica consortium that moving beyond that debate will open exciting new pathways, and that combining elements of different systems will yield innovative systems that are optimally adapted to specific contexts.

The European Consortium for Communicating Stem Cell Research (EuroStemCell) unites 33 partner institutions, that collectively represent >400 stem cell research groupings across Europe. Our common goal is to provide trusted high quality information on stem cells accessible to citizens and stakeholders across Europe, through support and further development of the multi-lingual European Stem Cell Information Portal www.eurostemcell.org. To achieve our aims, EuroStemCell will adopt the highly structured system for coordinated information management established by the FP7 Coordination and Support Action (CSA) also called EuroStemCell. From this, we will implement an ambitious programme of online and direct stakeholder engagement with stem cell research and regenerative medicine, aimed at European citizens at all educational levels. This will include provision of resources tailored specifically for decision-making on stem cell-related questions and an extensive programme of dissemination and capacity building in science communications and public engagement. The proposed work centres on an information hub team, which will link to all project partners and to stakeholders in the stem cell and regenerative medicine arenas and wider society, working with these groupings to implement the project. All outputs will be delivered in 6 European languages, to ensure broad accessibility, and will be rigorously evaluated against measurable objectives throughout the project duration. The proposed consortium comprises leading stem cell labs across Europe, including new member states, together with experts in ethical and societal concerns and evaluating clinical outcomes. It thus provides unparalleled European expertise across the fields of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine and is uniquely placed to maintain and further develop www.eurostemcell.org as a world-leading stem cell information resource, thus meeting the challenge outlined in Topic HOA-6-2014.