Collective projects

The links between the richness of the natural environment and farming practices are complex. Many valuable habitats in Europe are maintained by extensive farming and forestry, but inappropriate agricultural practices and land uses have also had an adverse impact on natural resources, such as soil, water and air pollution, fragmentation of habitats and loss of native biodiversity in farmland landscapes, as well as on climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Increasingly, consumers are paying attention to healthier food diets, "healthy" food attributes (such as "freshness", "naturalness" and "nutritional value") and overall sustainability of production and processing methods. To meet these demands food production and processing need to further evolve in terms of better preservation of the raw material and natural food properties while ensuring healthy, tasty and sustainable food.

Bioeconomy is a major opportunity for regional and local communities. Despite broad political agreement, the potential of many European regions to develop a thriving circular bio-based economy using their own resources remains largely untapped.

The outputs of beekeeping can be private goods (e.g. honey production), public goods and services (e.g. pollination of wild flowers) or in-between (e.g. non-contracted pollination of crops). Many initiatives aim to expand knowledge on honeybee colonies and their environment. However, the lack of a holistic approach makes it difficult to use this knowledge to best effect. Key factors for healthy and sustainable European beekeeping are determined by what happens in or around hives but also by wider socioeconomic and ecological conditions.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 80% of premature heart disease cases, strokes, type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancers could be avoided if the major risk factors for non-communicable diseases, such as unhealthy diets, were eliminated.

The EU food system is an important part of the economy and society in Europe. Given the current context of societal, environmental and economic changes, there is need for constant improvement in terms of productivity, quality, safety, market orientation, adaptability, and international competitiveness. Knowledge of the potential of microbial systems, or microbiomes, throughout the food chains, is a promising means to this end.

In the search for new biological resources, a large unexploited biomass has been identified in the mesopelagic zone (water column between 200 and 1000 m). This largely unknown zone includes micro-organisms, copepods, krill and plankton feeding fish that are lower in the food chain, as well as squids and other higher trophic level fish. This zone is known to play a significant role in the global carbon cycle, where the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide would be ~50% higher without its activities.

Research plays a significant role in helping the agriculture, fisheries, aquaculture and food sectors to cope with the various challenges these sectors face among which ensuring sustainable use of natural resources, and mitigating and adapting to climate change. Yet little information exists on the levels of investments in public and private research and innovation at European and other levels of governance.

Most of the biowaste produced in cities (such as garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises), as well as sewage sludge from urban wastewater treatment plants are processed into compost and biogas used for energy recovery or even landfilled without fully exploiting in a smart and innovative cascading fashion its potential as feedstock for valuable and precious compounds. New and emerging processing technologies can enable the recycling and valorisation of urban biowaste into higher-value biobased products (e.g.

The northern seas of Europe - the Baltic Sea and the North Sea - are at the forefront of the global surge to enhance and realise marine and maritime potential. This enormous economy is directly and critically dependent on the quality and extent of the ecosystem services provided by the two regional seas and their coasts.