European Gathering 2021 - Horizon Funding

Filipa presented two consortia applying for EU Horizon funding that we might want to be involved with. Here’s a summary of the discussion.

These types of consortia will mostly require communication and dissemination tasks from OFN Europe
2 consortia have an upcoming deadline of 15th Feb 2022
No need for OFN Europe to be a separate legal entity for these applications.

Circular and bioeconomy, repurposing food waste, techniques and technologies

  • OFN Europe to be the leader of a work package focused on evaluating the social and economic impacts
  • 8 million euro
    • Either OFN Europe would choose to be represented by one instance, which would receive the primary funding, and the other instances would be tertiary partners – would allow for the inclusion of non-formalized instances
    • Or all OFN Europe instances are full partners, all come to the meetings, while one instance would be the work package leader
  • Important to Filipa that whatever decision we make we make it together. Ireland might not be the best as it hasn’t a track

Agroecological practices in delta regions in Europe, case studies. End goal to develop a multifunctional tool.

  • OFN Europe’s role could be more or less proactive in this project
  • Currently focused on natural sciences but the project can be adapted to incorporate OFN’s expertise. How to get funding within this project so it can support things that we are already doing.
  • Would need to be clear what our tasks are so we can draw up a realistic budget

Task today is to create a working group to manage decisions around such projects:

Could the OFN Europe entity be the official coordinator of such projects?

  • Filipa points out that successful applications for EU Horizon projects require that the organization has a relevant track record and skills. So we would need to first build the capacity within OFN Europe. Better to start out as a partner in other coordinators’ projects.
  • Rachel points out that in the European funding she won, she included members of e.g. OFN Australia on the application because they had the most relevant skills. We can feel empowered to craft the application to the project, OFN is big and contains a wide variety of profiles, so we can be all sorts of things.
  • Would be good to connect with social science research departments to carry this work.
  • Gaelle points out that we could draw on our network of organizations, e.g. Urgenci, who already do work like this.

Julian highlights that there is another European project – EIP-Agri – that looks interesting
Filipa suggests if it’s interesting Julian can go ahead and apply, just apply as OFN Europe rather than simply as OFN Germany
Nick highlights that people should feel empowered to use the name of OFN Europe and OFN Global. Everyone can operate on behalf of these communities. There’s no one to give permission for the use of these entities. Just share the information with the rest of us.

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