PRUDENT aspires to change the way agriculture and forestry systems currently operate and to accelerate the transition to sustainable agriculture and forestry practices and smart farming technologies. The project will identify and evaluate the most effective green nudges, in the context of appropriate behavioural and experimental settings, that can enable farmer/forester behavioural change to more sustainable agriculture and forestry. Nudges will be also tested in natural contexts to evaluate the interactive effect of nudges with actual policy changes in the transition to sustainability. Innovative nudging tools, in the form of web/mobile apps, will be employed to boost farmer/forester self-regulatory capacity and enhance the durability of nudging effects. Four different systems, representing major farming and forestry systems in Europe (arable crops [wheat], perennial crops [grapevines, apples, olives], livestock [bovines] and forests [boreal forests]) in various EU regions (Northern, Southern, and Central Europe) will be studied to account for the heterogeneity of farming/forestry systems and contexts in the EU. The behavioural insights are used to develop transformative pathways, via social innovations, business models and policy recommendations, to encourage transition to fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly agriculture and forestry systems. PRUDENT will provide a set of social innovations and business models establishing roadmaps for a shift towards sustainable agriculture and forestry and will develop a series of policy recommendations and tools to foster behaviourally informed policy design and implementation. Throughout the project's lifespan, multiple value chain actors, at various levels of society, will actively participate in co-creation activities to establish a mutual understanding of the benefits and bottlenecks of the value chain, as well as effective transformation pathways to change.

Agrobiodiversity is a vital subset of biodiversity and is the result of the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and management systems used by culturally diverse people. It is a crucial prerequisite for ecologically and economically sustainable agricultural systems and is an important tool for ecological intensification. The aim of CROPDIVA is to reinforce agrobiodiversity on different levels and along distinct geographic and socio-economic areas. The activities of CROPDIVA are clustered around five connected research work packages and three pillars, each with a set of specific objectives: i) promotion of six key underutilised arable crops: oats, hull-less barley, triticale, buckwheat, faba bean and lupin; ii) creation of value chains for selected underutilised crops ; and iii) study of the socio-economic impact of project results. The concept of CROPDIVA is an innovative challenge driven approach based on the promotion of underutilised crops in sustainable cropping systems and new regional value chains. Project activities will focus on the following major challenges: improved resilience of cropping systems, alignment of the economic and social needs of farmers with ecological goals as well as marketing of new food/non-food products meeting consumer demands. The results gathered in CROPDIVA will not be descriptive, but will be used for innovative solutions along the entire food and non-food chain to enable biodiversity management on all levels, including diversifying the use of genetic resources, crop production systems, new food/non-food products, market opportunities while satisfying producers and investigated consumer requirements.

The overall objective of Contracts2.0 is to develop novel contract-based approaches to incentivise farmers for the increased provision of environmental public goods along with private goods using result-based, collective, land tenure and value chain approaches. Newly developed contract-based approaches are environmentally more effective, economically viable for farmers and support the longevity of contractual arrangements. Moreover, they enlarge farmers’ entrepreneurial freedom and responsibility, and are better adapted to the relevant temporal and spatial scales of specific environmental goods. Contracts2.0 improves existing and designs new contracts in rural areas to realise synergies on the ground: Therefore, Contracts2.0 adapts a Design Thinking process using a six-step iterative process of analytical and creative steps to design and test novel contracts. Further, Contracts2.0 describes novel contract design principles as well as policy guidelines to provide facilitating policy framework. Contracts2.0 activates the experience of 11 existing innovation initiatives and 13 action partners around Europe as a basis for the novel contracts. The initiatices are involved in all steps of the project and i) are pivotal in our analysis of existing initiatives in our 'innovation labs', ii) support experimental testing of novel contract features, and iii) test novel models on the ground. Contracts2.0 provides: An inventory and SWOT analysis of existing result-based, collective, land tenure and value chain approaches; a catalogue of factors facilitating and hindering existing approaches; a set of novel contract design principles; a guideline for policy framework fostering contract-based approaches and the development of appropriate agri-environmental-climate policies; a set of tailor made communication and dissemination materials for target audiences, and new cooperation and innovation networks for ongoing improvement of rural development policies and instruments.

EuroDairy will foster development and dissemination of practice-based innovations in dairy farming on key sustainability issues for the post-quota era. Work Package 1 (Project co-ordination) oversees formation of the Thematic Network, ensures interconnectivity in generation, capture and demonstration of innovation and best practice, and reports project outputs including recommendations for further innovation-driven research. WP 2 (Network of innovating pilot farmers and Knowledge Transfer Centres) establishes a community of innovating dairy farmers which through experience and practice on their own farms, bring good ideas and implementable solutions to EuroDairy. The farms participate in regional multi-actor operational groups, and connect as a network to share knowledge across borders. WPs 3-6 focus on four key topics - Resource efficiency, Biodiversity, Animal care, and Socio-economic resilience. These WPs provide leadership, direction and technical expertise for the exchange of innovative thinking, tools, technologies and best practice across the thematic network (pilot farmers, Knowledge Transfer Centres, and regional operational groups). WP 7 (Synergies in scientific and practice-based knowledge) draws from WPs 3-6 to capture new insights from combining science with practice-based knowledge, including benefits and trade-offs in solutions identified. WP 8 (Production and communication of end-user materials) implements a mix of novel and tried-and-tested approaches to internal and external communications. A diverse range of end-user outputs will be produced, made widely accessible to farmers. EuroDairy supports H2020 objectives to increase productivity, improve competitiveness and impact less on the environment. Involvement of dairy levy bodies, farmers’ organisations and cooperatives in an interactive, bottom-up approach will ensure practical relevance, and multiply benefits across Europe. Direct links to Hennovation and AgriSPIN, will add value to the project.

modernAKIS aims to improve AKIS actors’ capacities to leverage individual, organizational and systemic resources needed for the transformation towards more coherent, effective and efficient AKIS systems and the transition to a more sustainable management and use of natural resources in farming and forestry. To this end it will build and foster a European network of at least 1.000 key AKIS actors, including AKIS coordination bodies, from all EU MS, who will act as linchpins in the transformation of the AKIS systems towards a more effective governance and the modernization of the European agri-food sector. The project will also build the capacities of these key AKIS actors towards systems understanding and engagement, enabling them to enact long-term system changes that will improve the AKIS. In addition, it will set up at least 1 Community of Practice in each Member State, enabling thus participants to act as vectors of change in their communities. In addition, modernAKIS will provide a comprehensive digital catalogue with new know-how, and at least 80 tools and methods supporting key AKIS actors to improve the knowledge flows and develop a well-functioning AKIS in line with relevant policy objectives, e.g the Green Deal, Farm2Fork, SDGs.