Additional activities of the European partnership on sustainable food systems for people, planet and climate

The grant opportunity HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-15 under the Horizon Europe Programme focuses on supporting sustainable food systems through collaborative research and innovation. The key aspects of the grant are as follows:

Eligible applicants include consortia formed by research organizations, universities, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), large enterprises, and other stakeholders in sustainable food systems. The call requires the original coordinator of the consortium from the HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9 project to submit the proposal but encourages the addition of new partners, especially from Member States and Associated countries that are not already part of the consortium.

The funding type is non-repayable, classified as a grant under the HORIZON-AG mechanism. The call operates as a co-fund action (HORIZON-COFUND), with EU contributions covering 30% of eligible costs. The total budget allocated for this call includes €50 million for 2025, €45 million for 2026, and €35 million for 2027, with an approximate expectation of one grant being awarded.

Geographic eligibility spans EU Member States and associated countries while potentially including non-EU/non-associated countries with specific funding provisions. The target sectors include agriculture, food production, climate, environment, and research and innovation related to sustainable food systems, aligning with the European Green Deal.

The project stage encompasses continuation and expansion of the existing partnership, focusing on implementing a strategic research and innovation agenda for the next seven to ten years. The indicative funding amount for each project is likely between €1 million and €5 million.

Applications will follow a single-stage submission process, open from May 6, 2025, until the deadline of September 16, 2025. Success rates for competitive Horizon Europe calls range from 10% to 39%, and co-funding is required, meaning beneficiaries must secure additional funds to cover 70% of eligible costs.

In summary, the purpose of this call is to sustain and enhance a collaborative effort towards transforming European food systems, promote systemic innovations, and engage diverse stakeholders to achieve resilient and sustainable outcomes. It represents a strategic continuation of previous funding efforts aimed at addressing the challenges in food systems across Europe.

The opportunity is a call for proposals under the Horizon Europe Programme, specifically targeting Cluster 6, Call 02, and is structured as a single-stage process. The call, identified as HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-15, aims to provide additional support to the European Partnership on sustainable food systems for people, planet, and climate. The action type is a HORIZON Programme Cofund Action (HORIZON-COFUND) with a HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG] model grant agreement.

The call opened for submission on May 6, 2025, and has a deadline of September 16, 2025, at 17:00:00 Brussels time.

The expected outcome is to contribute to the outcomes specified in topic HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9, continuing the activities and agreed outcomes of the European partnership on sustainable food systems for people, planet, and climate.

The scope of the call is to continue support for the European Partnership identified in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024, implemented under topic HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9. It focuses on funding additional activities, potentially involving new partners, in line with Article 24(2) of the Horizon Europe Regulation.

The original consortium that applied under HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9 is considered uniquely positioned to submit a proposal, given their existing expertise and ongoing grant agreement preparations. The application should focus on the partnership’s co-created strategic research and innovation agenda for the next seven to ten years, including inspiration for research projects and horizontal activities. It should also address new and upcoming priorities.

The partnership is expected to include additional partners, particularly from Member States and Associated countries not yet in the existing consortium. It should organize joint calls annually and collaborate with relevant partnerships within Horizon Europe Cluster 6 and beyond, describing specific activities to strengthen synergies with other related Missions and Partnerships.

The evaluation of proposals will consider the existing context, the scope of the initial evaluation, and related obligations in the grant agreement. A separate document should present additional activities and partners and how they would be integrated into the grant agreement.

General conditions include:

1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limits and layout are described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes and Part B of the Application Form.

2. Eligible Countries: As described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes, with specific provisions for non-EU/non-Associated Countries as detailed in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

3. Other Eligible Conditions: The proposal must be submitted by the coordinator of the consortium under HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9, with the possibility of including additional partners, as described in Annex B.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: As described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes. The evaluation committee will include representatives of EU institutions. Successful proposals will proceed to grant agreement amendment preparations.

5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.

5c. Evaluation and award: The indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement is described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: This action will amend the grant agreement concluded under HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9. The funding rate is 30% of eligible costs. Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP) in the form of grants, up to a maximum of EUR 10 000 000 per third party for the duration of Horizon Europe. The starting date for grants may be the submission date, with justification required.

Specific conditions are described in the specific topic of the Work Programme and Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.

Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA) include:

Application form templates available in the Submission System (Standard application form HE COFUND TOP-UP).
Evaluation form templates (Standard evaluation form HE COFUND).
Guidance from the HE Programme Guide and HE MGA.
Call-specific instructions and information on financial support to third parties (HE).
Annual Work Programme (HE COFUND).

Additional documents include:

HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 9. Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 14. General Annexes
HE Programme Guide
HE Framework Programme 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions
Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

The budget overview lists several topics under Cluster 6, including Climate and Farm to Fork, with their respective budgets for 2025, stages, opening and deadline dates, contributions, and indicative number of grants.

The opportunity is essentially a top-up funding mechanism for an existing European partnership focused on sustainable food systems. It's designed to provide additional resources and potentially expand the partnership to include more participants, particularly from underrepresented Member States and Associated Countries. The funding aims to support the partnership's strategic research and innovation agenda, facilitate joint calls for research projects, and foster collaboration with other relevant initiatives within Horizon Europe. The application process is streamlined, given that it's an amendment to an existing grant agreement, but it still requires a thorough justification of additional activities and partner integration. The coordinator of the original FARM2FORK consortium is the only eligible applicant, ensuring continuity and leveraging existing expertise.

Eligible Applicant Types: The eligible applicant type is primarily a consortium. Specifically, the coordinator of the consortium already funded under HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9 must submit the proposal. However, the partnership should seek to include additional partners, particularly from Member States and Associated countries not yet in the original consortium. This suggests that the eligible applicant types are consortia including research organizations, universities, SMEs, large enterprises, and other relevant stakeholders involved in sustainable food systems.

Funding Type: The funding type is primarily a grant, specifically a co-fund action under the Horizon Europe Programme. This is indicated by the "HORIZON-COFUND HORIZON Programme Cofund Actions" designation. The action is intended to be implemented in the form of an amendment of the grant agreement concluded pursuant to topic HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9. Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP) in the form of grants.

Consortium Requirement: A consortium is required, but with a specific condition. The proposal must be submitted by the coordinator of the existing consortium funded under HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9. While the existing consortium coordinator must submit the proposal, the partnership should seek to include additional partners, in particular from Member States and Associated countries not yet in the consortium.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility): The primary geographic eligibility focuses on Member States and Associated countries. The partnership should seek to include additional partners, in particular from Member States and Associated countries not yet in the consortium funded under HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects.

Target Sector: The target sector is sustainable food systems. The call specifically aims to support the European Partnership on sustainable food systems for people, planet, and climate, aligning with the Farm to Fork strategy. This encompasses agriculture, food production, climate, environment, and related research and innovation activities.

Mentioned Countries: The opportunity explicitly mentions Member States and Associated countries. It also refers to non-EU/non-Associated Countries that may have specific provisions for funding participants in Horizon Europe projects. Therefore, the countries are EU Member States, Horizon Europe Associated Countries, and potentially other non-EU/non-associated countries with specific funding arrangements.

Project Stage: The project stage is continuation and expansion of an existing partnership. The call aims to fund additional activities and potentially include additional partners to an existing project already under grant agreement preparations. The focus is on implementing the partnership’s co-created strategic research and innovation agenda for seven to ten years.

Funding Amount: The funding amounts vary depending on the specific action type (RIA, IA, CSA, COFUND). For the HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-15 topic, which is a HORIZON-COFUND action, the budget is 50,000,000 EUR in 2025, 45,000,000 EUR in 2026 and 35,000,000 EUR in 2027. The indicative number of grants is 1, with contributions around 130,000,000 EUR. Other FARM2FORK and CLIMATE calls have different budgets, generally ranging from 2,000,000 EUR to 40,000,000 EUR, with indicative grant numbers from 1 to 3.

Application Type: The application type is an open call, with a single-stage submission process. The call is open for submission as of 06 May 2025, with a deadline of 16 September 2025.

Nature of Support: The beneficiaries will receive money in the form of a grant. The funding rate is 30% of the eligible costs. Beneficiaries may also provide financial support to third parties (FSTP) in the form of grants, with a maximum amount of EUR 10,000,000 for the whole duration of Horizon Europe to an individual third party.

Application Stages: The application process is a single-stage process.

Success Rates: The success rates are not explicitly mentioned, but the indicative number of grants for each topic provides some insight. For example, the HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-15 call indicates approximately 1 grant will be awarded.

Co-funding Requirement: Co-funding is required, as indicated by the "HORIZON-COFUND" designation. The funding rate is 30% of the eligible costs, implying that the remaining 70% must be covered by the beneficiaries or other sources.

This opportunity is a call for proposals under the Horizon Europe Programme, specifically targeting the Cluster 6 area, which focuses on food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture, and environment. The call, HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-15, aims to provide continued support to the European Partnership on sustainable food systems for people, planet, and climate. This is the second and final installment of funding for this partnership. The funding is intended to support additional activities and potentially include new partners within the existing framework of the HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9 project. The call is structured as a co-fund action, meaning that the EU provides a grant covering a portion of the project costs (30% in this case), and the beneficiaries must secure the remaining funding from other sources. The call is open to a consortium, but the proposal must be submitted by the coordinator of the consortium already funded under the HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9 project. The partnership is encouraged to expand by including additional partners from EU Member States and Associated countries. The scope of the call focuses on implementing the partnership’s strategic research and innovation agenda for the next seven to ten years, with an emphasis on joint calls, collaboration with other partnerships, and synergies with related missions. The indicative budget for the HORIZON-CL6-2025-02-FARM2FORK-15 call is substantial, with 50,000,000 EUR allocated for 2025, 45,000,000 EUR for 2026 and 35,000,000 EUR for 2027, and an expected 1 grant to be awarded. The call also allows for financial support to third parties (FSTP) in the form of grants, with a maximum of EUR 10,000,000 per third party for the duration of the project. The application process is a single-stage submission, with the deadline for submissions on 16 September 2025. The call is relevant for entities involved in research, innovation, and implementation of sustainable food systems, particularly those already participating in the HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-9 project and those seeking to join such initiatives.