💰 Funding Details

Enhancing Plant Protein Production – Funding Snapshot

Call Summary

- Call Identifier: HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-04

- Type of Action: HORIZON-RIA (Lump-Sum)

- Total EU Budget Envelope (indicative): €50 million

- Opening Date: 06 May 2025

- Deadline: 16 September 2025 – 17:00 (Brussels)

Strategic Purpose

The action finances cutting-edge research & innovation that will increase EU autonomy in plant proteins for animal feed, align with the CAP, the Green Deal, the Climate Law and the new Deforestation-Free Products Regulation. Projects should

- expand sustainable cultivation, processing and uptake of protein crops (grain & fodder legumes, mixed crops) across diverse EU pedo-climatic zones;

- strengthen the resilience of agri-food systems against climate, market and geopolitical shocks;

- generate biodiversity-friendly, climate-smart management practices;

- build farmer and advisor capacity via multi-actor co-creation and tailored knowledge transfer;

- deliver a strategic R&I roadmap for a competitive EU protein value chain.

Eligible Activities (non-exhaustive)

- On-farm trials of nitrogen-fixing legume varieties adapted to local conditions.

- Demonstrations of mixed-cropping & circular feed processing technologies.

- Socio-economic, environmental & animal-nutrition impact assessments using LCA & iMAP scenarios.

- Development of region-specific decision-support tools and training curricula.

- Cross-project clustering with the Partnership on Agroecology & related Horizon topics.

Funding Modality

The grant is financed as a lump-sum: the consortium proposes a detailed cost breakdown during submission; if the work is completed according to agreed milestones, 100 % of the lump-sum is paid, drastically lowering financial reporting burden.

Who Should Apply?

Multi-actor consortia including:

- farmers & their organisations, feed manufacturers, plant breeders, biotech/processing SMEs, advisory & extension bodies, researchers (SSH included), policy makers, NGOs, digital platform owners, JRC (optional) and international partners from your country if added value is demonstrated.

Expected TRL Range

Predominantly TRL 3-6, with clear pathways toward demonstration & deployment.

📊 Evaluation Criteria

How Evaluators Will Score You

1. Excellence (Score 0-5, Threshold 4)

- Clarity & pertinence of objectives: explicit link to each expected outcome.

- Soundness of methodology: robust experimental design, multi-actor co-creation, SSH integration, gender dimension.

- Novelty: beyond incremental agronomy; e.g. biorefinery for legume by-products.

2. Impact (Score 0-5, Threshold 4)

- Credibility of pathways: quantified KPIs, policy uptake mechanisms, replication potential in your country.

- Suitability of measures to maximise impact: strong exploitation, dissemination & communication (EDC) plan; commitment letters from feed companies.

- Contribution to EU strategic autonomy & Green Deal: explicit import-substitution scenarios, alignment with deforestation-free goals.

3. Quality & Efficiency of Implementation (Score 0-5, Threshold 3)

- Coherence and effectiveness of work plan: clear milestones tied to lump-sum tranches.

- Consortium quality & resources: complementary expertise, balanced gender & geography, inclusion of SMEs.

- Risk management & governance: credible contingency, decision-making transparency.

Additional Eligibility Checkpoints

- Multi-actor approach demonstrably applied.

- Page limit (45 pages Part-B) respected.

- All mandatory ethics & security self-assessments completed.

📝 Application Strategy

Winning Application Blueprint

1. Build a Mission-Ready Consortium

1. Map gaps along the protein crop value chain (breeding → processing → feed formulation) and recruit partners that fill each gap.

2. Assign farmer organisations as co-leaders of WP1 (needs analysis & on-farm demo) to satisfy the multi-actor approach.

3. Reserve one partner slot for JRC or comparable modelling expertise to leverage iMAP and showcase policy relevance.

2. Craft a High-Impact Work Plan

| WP | Core Objective | Key Outputs |

|----|----------------|-------------|

|WP1|System mapping & stakeholder co-creation|Living-lab network, gap analysis, roadmap draft|

|WP2|Agroecological trials & mixed-crop optimisation|Dataset on yield, GHG, biodiversity; best-practice catalogue|

|WP3|Processing & feed innovation|Pilot‐scale fractionation, novel protein concentrates, safety dossier|

|WP4|Impact & trade-off assessment|LCA, farm-level economics, social acceptance metrics|

|WP5|Capacity building & exploitation|Regional training kits, e-learning, policy white paper|

|WP6|Coordination & synergy|Cross-project clustering, lump-sum monitoring|

3. Integration of Cross-Cutting Priorities

- SSH & Gender: include behavioural scientists to analyse adoption barriers; design gender-sensitive training.

- Data Management: FAIR-compliant repository; link results to the AGRIS and EIP-AGRI databases.

- Open Science: publish pre-prints, share protocols on Zenodo, involve citizen-science where relevant.

4. Budgeting for Lump-Sum Success

- Cluster tasks into clear, verifiable work packages with milestone costs (e.g. “All 10 demo sites fully established = €2 m”).

- Add a 10 % contingency inside your internal distribution to absorb price fluctuations without requesting amendments.

5. Excellence Narrative Tips

- Present state-of-the-art figures (e.g. “protein crops currently 3 % of EU arable land”) and explicitly link how each objective removes a quantified barrier.

- Reference and build upon Horizon 2020 projects like LEGVALUE, PROTEIN2FOOD, TRUE.

6. Impact Section Must-Haves

- KPIs: ha of additional protein crops, % soya import substitution, tCO₂-eq avoided, farmer income change.

- Policy Links: CAP eco-schemes, Green Deal Biodiversity Strategy, Deforestation-Free Regulation.

- Exploitation Plan: IP route for new varieties; open-source decision tools; policy briefs for your country ministries.

7. Implementation Section Essentials

- Gantt chart aligning critical path with lump-sum payments.

- Detailed risk table (e.g. drought, market volatility) with mitigation (e.g. drought-resilient genotypes, forward contracts).

- Governance: steering committee with 50 % practitioner representation.

💡 Success Factors

Farmer-Centric Living Labs

Embed on-farm experiments where **producers test varieties, rotations and feed rations**, ensuring rapid validation and adoption.

Biodiversity-Friendly Crop Portfolios

Include **pollinator-supportive flowering legumes** and monitor ecosystem services, aligning with CAP eco-schemes.

Circular Bio-Processing Innovation

Develop **low-energy fractionation** that turns legume side-streams into feed additives, boosting resource efficiency and SME competitiveness.

Quantified Import-Reduction Scenarios

Use iMAP or equivalent to model **% drop in soya imports** under different adoption rates, producing policy-relevant evidence.

Tailored Capacity-Building Packages

Deliver **region-specific decision tools, videos and field days** translated for stakeholders in your country, driving behavioural change.

Robust IP & Exploitation Pathways

Early freedom-to-operate checks, joint exploitation agreements and clear open-source vs. proprietary routes raise evaluator confidence.

❌ Common Mistakes to Avoid

Ignoring the Lump-Sum Verification Logic

Many applicants copy standard cost tables. Evaluators need **clear, verifiable deliverables** that can trigger lump-sum payments; vague milestones lead to rejection.

Tokenistic Multi-Actor Participation

Listing farmer organisations without budget or decision power fails the multi-actor test. Farmers must **lead tasks**, host demos and co-author deliverables.

Overlooking Existing Knowledge Assets

Proposals that **duplicate outcomes of LEGVALUE or TRUE** without explaining added value are downgraded for lack of originality.

Weak Environmental Trade-Off Analysis

Presenting benefits of legumes without **quantified LCA or biodiversity metrics** undermines impact credibility.

Single-Country Focus

Projects limited to one climatic zone fail to address EU-wide scalability; evaluators expect **diverse demo sites across your country clusters**.

Neglecting Synergy Obligations

Not allocating resources to cooperate with sister topics (e.g. FARM2FORK-06) breaches the Work Programme and signals poor coordination.

Enhancing plant protein production to bolster the resilience of agricultural systems and EU self-sufficiency in plant protein used as feed

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