Horizon 2020, and its successor programme Horizon Europe, is the European Union’s main research and innovation platform. Horizon 2020 provided nearly 80 billion in funding over 7 years between 2014 and 2020 with Horizon Europe set to provide almost 100 billion between 2021 and 2027. The goal is to facilitate European collaboration, drive economic growth and create jobs by funding research and innovation to produce world leading science and ensure European competitiveness. The three pillars of the Horizon programmes are:
1) world class science to produce the technologies and jobs of the future and to attract and retain world leading research talent;
2) industrial leadership to provide strategic investments in key emerging technologies and to help create small and medium sized enterprises for growth and future jobs;
3) solving societal challenges such as climate change, energy use and transport through innovation using multi-disciplinary breakthroughs.
Horizon 2020 aims to produce a single set of rules for funding application and a single funding rate which would allow easier participation from anyone who wishes to apply. This bottom-up approach to science funding helps to provide funding to those with the ideas to drive innovation and helps let the European science community drive the avenues of research to where it is most needed.
This is of particular relevance for Rural Youth Europe members at the moment since we are taking part in our first ever Horizon 2020 project COCOREADO, ’COnnecting COnsumers and producers to REbalance farmers’ positions through AmbassaDOr training’.
Thi
s project has received funding from the European Union under grant agreement 101000573
COCOREADO is carried out by a consortium of 9 members from all across the EU and aims to rebalance the position of farmers in supply chains and procurement procedures to become a key player and price setter. The program will recognise good practices that can be translated to hands-on solutions with a focus on youth and sustainability.
A range of initiatives to address barriers for farmers and consumer needs will be selected.alongside initiatives on sustainable public procurement that focus on local and seasonal food. The best of these will be chosen to form the basis of a practical hands-on approach that provides real solutions to the position of the farmer in the supply chain, addressing consumer needs and focusing on youth.
The key way in which Rural Youth Europe is involved with the COCOREADO project is through the ambassador training program. We will help select a group of 40 ambassadors composed of primarily young people from across Europe who will co create the solutions and take ownership of the project to spread the practices and innovations. By putting out the call for ambassadors and selecting a group of young people with the drive to produce real change together we can ensure that the solutions selected by the project keep rural youth and young farmers at the heart of the decision-making process and that the solutions selected meet the needs of the future farmers of Europe. The ambassadors will help select the best practices and tailor them to the needs of their region. They will be supported throughout the lifetime of the project by meetings and trainings and helped to deliver the selected outcomes through their own networks and the networks of the project and its partners.
It is a great way for the Rural Youth to have their say on one of the most important issues of our time. A call will be launched for anyone wishing to be a youth ambassador in September
2021 however more information can be found on the project website linked below. This will be updated as the project advances.
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020//en/what-horizon-2020
This blog is part of the Together Thursdays project, co funded by the European Union.