Europe will face increasing pressure on agricultural systems due to increasing global food demands, competing claims on land resources and decreasing possibilities to displace production outside Europe. Moreover, increasing societal demands for a wide range of ecosystem services and biodiversity protection call for transitions towards intensive agricultural systems that have minimal detrimental environmental effects. As a response to these major societal challenges, sustainable intensification (SI) is gaining attention. SI cannot be implemented through a generic, single development pathway for all agricultural systems. Alternative trajectories and actions to achieve SI depend on the local and contextual agronomic, environmental and socio-economic conditions. The project VITAL explores transition processes of European agricultural systems towards sustainably intensified production. VITAL identifies how differences in agricultural systems, their spatial frameworks and the role of actors, lead to, or inhibit, alternate transition processes of SI. The feasibility of different SI pathways is upscaled across Europe, hence moving beyond the level of individual farms and regions. Suitable spatial configurations of SI across land use systems are identified, accounting for the landscape and regional context. VITAL aims to: • Identify key conditions of agricultural land systems that allow systems to shift toward sustainable intensification states; and triggers and transition pathways towards such states. • Develop and operationalize sustainability indicators that reflect a land system’s position in a space of production intensity, ecological resilience and socio-economic viability, which together determine a region’s adaptive capacity towards sustainable intensification. • Draw upon real-world, operational exemplars, to understand how conditions, triggers and pathways interact, and how they link to value chains and valorisation. • Embed regional developments in sustainable intensification trajectories in larger contexts (national, EU and global) to understand the potential of up- and out-scaling of regional best-practice examples. By working with stakeholders at farm, regional and European level VITAL will deliver 1) an analytical framework that allows determining feasible future states of sustainable intensification; 2) assessment tools and indicators to evaluate alternative SI trajectories; 3) an assessment of the suitability of SI trajectories across different European land use systems and locations; 4) novel land system architectures based on SI; and 5) insights in the role of social networks of transition in adopting SI.

The objective of ATTRACTISS is to improve & embed competencies, approaches, instruments & governance models for Member States (MS) AKIS and specifically for Innovation Support Services (ISS) as a crucial AKIS actor, to enable them accelerating individual grassroots innovative ideas to come to fruition & to generate solutions for the transition process to more sustainable agriculture & forestry. ATTRACTISS has the goals to (1) empower ISS & all AKIS actors, through capacity building & provision of effective methods & supportive tools, to discover innovative ideas & enable uptake in a co-creative way thereby fostering AKIS ecosystem building to support the transition to sustainable and circular agriculture & forestry systems (2) support Managing Authorities (MA) in all EU MS to organise & monitor efficient support for ISS; & (3) provide support for new actors in AKIS processes to better facilitate co-creation approaches involving farming, practitioners & research centres. ATTRACTISS achieves these goals by (1) setting up an EU wide network for ISSs that allows to connect, develop common understanding, vision & capacities about their roles & functions within the AKIS. This ultimately leads to the development of an ecosystem in favor of Multi-Actor Approaches (MAA) & innovative projects; (2) building upon and giving continuity to other previous initiatives to focus on ISSs & broaden the networks; (3) systematizing the current databases & tools for ISSs to provide a unique virtual location for tools & guidelines to support best practice; (4) providing a step change in the provision of support & training for key actors in MAA & ISS across MS which builds knowledge, understanding & confidence in the practical delivery & benefits of these approaches; & (5) enabling institutional dialogue among ISSs & MAs based on enhanced understanding of the potential to organize ISS in a way that will lead to targeted CAP interventions for the integration of ISS within the AKIS.

P2GreeN will foster a paradigm shift, from a linearly organised resource and nutrient system within the agri-food supply chain, towards a circular material flow system between urban and rural areas thereby restoring the coupling of the water-agri-food system using a holistic symbiotic resource management approach following the 3R principle “Reduce, Reuse, Recover”. P2GreeN will therefore develop new circular governance solutions for the transition from fork to farm to halt and eliminate N & P pollution by connecting blue urban with green rural infrastructure, focussing on circular nutrient flows of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). This will be done trough implementation and demonstration of innovative N & P recovery solutions for the utilisation of human sanitary waste from urban settlements and its conversion into safe bio-based fertilisers for agricultural production in three pilot regions (P2GreeN pilot regions) on a north-south trajectory from the Baltic Sea region via the metropolitan area of Hamburg-Hannover to the region of Axarquia in Southern Spain. This approach will be extended to follower region in Italy, France, Greece and Hungary. P2GreeN will close nutrient cycles of N & P to foster the transition towards a circular and clean economy (green transition) as well as supporting sustainable food systems from farm to fork offering viable alternatives to reduce the current usage of mineral fertilisers with innovative Green bio-based fertilisers and thus minimise the pressure on the natural resources, specifically water and soil. P2GreeN will further enable policy makers to replicate P2GreeN’s sustainable regional circular economy models in all regional settings across Europe. To facilitate systemic change, co-creation strategies including the participation of all relevant stakeholders as well as harmonised governance frameworks that foster innovations will be key to P2GreeN.

The FoodSHIFT2030 project takes departure in the EU Food 2030 Research and Innovation Policy Framework, the EU’s commitment under the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to launch an ambitious citizen-driven transition of the European food system towards a low carbon circular future, including a shift to less meat and more plant based diets. By utilizing and supporting the transformative power of citizens already engaged in developing sustainable innovative food system solutions in European city-regions FoodSHIFT2030 will deliver an increase in food sector jobs and SMEs, an increase in citizen empowerment and urban-rural cohesion, and a lasting positive impact on food system sustainability that will continue beyond the project lifetime. A fast citizen-driven food system transition will be achieved by creating a framework and efficient mechanisms for maturing, combining, upscaling and multiplying existing food system innovations through the operationalization of nine citizen-driven FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs and twenty seven FoodSHIFT Enabler Labs established in existing and emerging city-region food system hubs distributed across Europe. The benefits of existing and accelerated food system innovations will be benchmarked against state-of-the-art food system innovations by assessing their effects on a set of FoodSHIFT Indicators. Strategies and advisory plans for citizen-driven food system governance will be co-created in the FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs to support food system transition and foster market uptake of new food system innovations in the participating city-regions. A further transition of the food system beyond the FoodSHIFT2030 project will be obtained by creating a snowball effect starting with targeted knowledge transfer via a number of city and region networks working on facilitating the food system transition and continuing the establishment of FoodSHIFT Enabler Labs in other European and global city-regions.