GI SMART (Geographical Indications’ contribution to smart territorial development and sustainability. Insights for GIs producers, policy makers, consumers and local communities) is a four-year lump-sum project to undertake research and demonstration activities (innovative pilot action) and provide evidence-based recommendations to strengthen the contribution of the system of geographical indications (GIs) to sustainable development, in particular to achieve the objectives of the EU Farm to Fork strategy by fostering the implementation of sustainability strategies by producers and their recognition by consumers, as well as to propose a better design of GIs policy to foster their delivery of sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, as well as more sustainable food systems. Our 17 partners (15 beneficiaries and 2 Associated Partners) representing 10 countries bring together leading academic, NGOs and stakeholder organisations to provide a multi-actor approach to ensure the project objectives are delivered with maximum impact. This proposal relates to the topic “Investigating the contribution of geographical indications to sustainable development and optimizing support for newly establish schemes” (HORIZON-CL6-2023-COMMUNITIES-01-04). GI SMART aims to assess and strengthen the contribution of GIs to the EU “Farm to Fork” strategy for sustainable food systems in Europe by providing: i) better understanding of the contribution of GIs schemes to sustainable development (including the F2F strategy); ii) improving the perception of sustainability attributes of GIs schemes that are widely implemented by the producers and their perception by consumers, local communities and society at large, iii) better and smart policy design and implementation of GIs policy to foster their delivery of sustainable agriculture and fishery, healthy and sustainable diets and sustainable food systems.

Mountain covers 36% of Europe area and play an essential role in the provision of public and private goods. Despite their relevance in both ecological and socioeconomic terms, we lack updated and comparable knowledge of the impacts of climate change, demographic trends and socioeconomic drivers in these areas; as well as the necessary policy-mix to address them. Advanced knowledge on the vulnerability of land use and production systems and related value chains; and on the long-term trends and dynamics affecting European mountains is necessary to design the next generation of policies. MOVING objective is to build capacities and co-develop policy frameworks across Europe for the establishment of new or upgraded/upscaled value chains contributing to resilience and sustainability of mountain areas, valorising local assets and delivering private and public goods. MOVING includes: the screening of traditional and emerging value chains in all European mountain areas (including non-EU countries); in-deep assessment of Vulnerability and resilience of land use, production systems and value chains in 23 reference regions, accounting with the variability of the different mountains types; Participatory theory building to provide knowledge and assessment indicators; Participatory foresight exercises to inform about the future trends at regional and EU levels; Benchmarking analysis to identify enabling and blocking factors to value chains resilience. A policy roadmap will provide guidelines to support the design of public and private policy instruments that boost mountain areas resilience and provision of public and private goods. MOVING strongly relies on a Citizen-science-policy interface organised around a multi-actor approach: a Community of Practice formed by 23 multi-actor platforms and an EU platform; a Virtual Research Environment to foster online interactions among actors; and new visual tools to make the information accessible to different audiences.