Europe faces huge and urgent challenges of increasing crop productivity whilst reducing use of synthetic fertilisers and nutrient losses. This proposal is to establish a self-sustaining, multi-actor, Thematic Network called “NUTRI-CHECK NET” that builds farm-level adoption of best field-specific nutrient management practices across Europe. In nine countries farmers’ Crop Nutrition Clubs (CNC) will identify and share the nature of their uncertainties about crop nutrition, their challenges and barriers to change. Decision-systems and nutrition tools (including commercial products, services, and recent research outputs) will be assembled by national experts from across Europe, including leading farmers, into a common online NUTRI-CHECK NET platform. CNCs will then evaluate effectiveness of new protocols and tools selected from the a toolbox to meet their main challenges. Thence they will co-create and adopt farm- and field-specific ‘measure-to-manage’ approaches that address their crop nutrition challenge(s). Evaluations of protocols and tools by farmers and experts will address their ease of use, trustworthiness, costs, and benefits. Initial and final evaluations will be shared across the Network to define ‘best practices’, which will be demonstrated and disseminated widely, including through liaison with other relevant Thematic Networks and EIP-AGRI. The toolbox and best practices will be held accessible and improvable in perpetua on EU FarmBook. Widespread adoption of ‘measure-to-manage’ or ‘check-to-change’ approaches to crop nutrition will enhance nutrient recycling and crop productivity, whilst reducing synthetic fertiliser use and nutrient losses across Europe.

CHAMELEON's vision is to introduce, develop, test and evaluate an integrated network of collaborating agents, equipped with advanced sensing and cognitive capabilities that can support multiple - missions at tactical level. While UVs are highly specialized systems manufactured by different providers, they all implement the CHAMELEON specifications, enabling all common features necessary to take part in the surveillance tasks foreseen by the use cases. As such, CHAMELEON aspires to exploit already well-established technologies and tools that have reach adequate maturity, towards offering a complex interoperable and reconfigurable system capable of supporting a wide set of heterogeneous missions in diverse environmental conditions. CHAMELEON innovation lies on a novel reconfigurable drone, the CHAMELEON drone, able to modify its configuration and sizing upon demand, which can be deployed in homogenous or heterogeneous groups to support complex scenarios, as well as a set of existing heterogeneous, modular, interoperable, networked UVs systems. CHAMELEON Drones will be able to adapt its operation from a number of available services or application through CHAMELEON App-store. CHAMELEON will organize two open calls to attract and select the best SMEs from across the continent. SMEs will be funded to generate AI supported products, processes, and business models with strong market potential across the proposed clusters. Besides a total financial support of ~€600.000, CHAMELEON will provide technical and business mentorship to the selected SMEs. Open Calls will also lead towards the industrial applicability of the proposed tools and services without EC funding: it is envisioned that an estimated of 10 applications will be submitted through CHAMELEON and will be enriched with AI components. The CHAMELEON solution will be demonstrated and validated under relevant operating conditions in 3 pilot sites in 3 European countries.

XTRACT seeks to introduce the novel concept of the Zero Emission Mine of the Future, introducing innovative technologies for sustainable and decarbonised extraction. The XTRACT technological pathways to a lower mining emission future are addressing well-identified emission intensive points of the current mining value chain. XTRACT will add a highly innovative new alternative to the toolbox of how stockpiles and tailings are assessed, relieving the pressure on resources and contributing to the realization of EU Climate Neutrality Goals, with a significant benefit of emission reduction. XTRACT will scale remote sensing systems and analytical resources to allow the systematic and remote monitoring of “hard-to-access” mining sites and waste deposits. XTRACT targets the reduction of ore losses and mining waste, through a novel system for the control of the ore loss and dilution, reducing overall mine emissions and economic loss. The trend towards declining orebody grades and continued development of the pursuit of existing operation to exploit lower grade deposits is likely to continue, in the absence of high-grade project discovery. XTRACT will develop and validate innovative microinvasive technologies and solutions to extract high-tech elements from minerals and wastes, specifically tailored to remote, “hard-to-reach” locations and small quantities, where extraction is unprofitable. The in-situ bioleaching process and membrane treatment will be applied and optimized with the aim to achieve enhanced microbial activity, catalyst production, and therefore, maximum metal recovery from the source. XTRACT will introduce low-TRL green technologies of phytoextraction and phytoremediation, particularly appropriate for mining waste piles and abandoned sites, that represent a solution for mine waste remediation but also for the extraction and recovery of various precious metals. XTRACT will be validated in 5 case studies in Germany, Sweden, Portugal and Greece.

Behavioural and cognitive biases reduce the ability of decision makers to adopt the best solutions among the alternatives available. Borrowed from pre-existing knowledge in psychology on priming, “nudges” are defined as gentle interventions in a decision maker’s choice architecture (default choice, information, presentation, framing etc.), which enhance the likelihood of optimal choices. ForestAgriGreenNudges will first review initiatives and projects which explicitly or implicitly use Green Nudges to promote the use of sustainable practices in farming and forestry. It will then assess each type of nudge according to two types of criteria: 1) Criteria associated with efficacy in promoting the use of the desired practices over a sufficiently long period and 2) Criteria dictated by ethics and good practice principles (transparency, nudgee awareness, participation/self-regulation, actor-specificity, etc.) that guarantee the quality of the implementation process. Nudges will then be tested in the field and assessed on a grid, reflecting the desiderata of efficacy and implementation quality. The set of successful nudges will be enriched by innovative nudges based on information regarding attitudes and strategies of actors along the entire value chain. The resulting set of nudges together with their corresponding implementation guidelines, and the business models and market conditions which favor their application in agroforestry will be collected on an online tool (iNUDGE Academy) whose target audience will include policy makers, wholesalers, retailers, farmers and foresters. The tool will associate each nudge with implementation rules, possible domains of application and possible risks in terms of efficacy/good practice tradeoffs. Diffusion of the results among farming and forestry experts, policy makers, and actors along the value chain will maximise the impact of the project, enhancing the adoption of sustainable practices in the farm and in the forest.

Non-food Crops (NFC) are used to produce a wide range of bio-products and bioenergy. In spite of considerable investment in R&D and the increasing need of bio-based industries for feedstock, NFCs are not widespread in EU agriculture, mainly due to challenges in supply chains and gaps in policy framework and investment incentives. PANACEA aims to set up a thematic network to foster the effective exchange between research, industry and the farming community so that direct applicable solutions are widely disseminated and grassroots-level needs and innovative ideas thoroughly captured in order to design the penetration path of NFC into European agriculture. To achieve this goal, an inventory of long-term scientific results on the NFC sustainable production will be created building on the profound experience of the consortium, and the NFC close to implementation will be identified (WP1). Combining the farmers’ and bio-based industries’ needs and interests (WP2) with the NFC ready-to-practice potential the role of NFC in the rural renaissance will be analysed. A strong and interactive multi-actor forum will be established with actors from science, industry and agricultural practice to facilitate capturing and spreading of innovative ideas (WP3). Practice-oriented knowledge on specific value chains easily accessible and available in the long term will be assured through training courses and relevant educational material (WP4). Knowledge sharing on technical, economic and environmental aspects of NFC, extensive communication and networking, matching between the supply and demand sides will be facilitated by the PANACEA Platform (WP5). The project findings will be disseminated at large following an extended exploitation and dissemination plan that will be active during the project and beyond and ensure the sustainability of the ‘Thematic Network on Non-food Crops’ through its link with EU wide initiatives, the EIP-AGRI and its Operational Groups (WP6).