Info_PILLAR 2 - HORIZON EUROPE

Pillar 2: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness

The Global Challenges and European Industrial Competiveness pillar supports research relating to societal challenges and reinforces technological and industrial capacities through 6 CLUSTERS.

It sets EU-missions with ambitious goals tackling some of our biggest problems. More information on Missions is available here.

It also includes activities pursued by the Joint Research Centre which supports EU and national policymakers with independent scientific evidence and technical support.

Social sciences and humanities are fully integrated across all clusters, including specific and dedicated activities.

Pillar II covers activities from a broad range of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs),
including lower TRLs.

Pillar II holds the lion’s share of the HE programme funding.
 
Pillar II supports research projects carried out by international and inter-disciplinary consortia. The projects address specific pre-defined topics proposed by the EC which fall into six different clusters, each of them focused on specific global societal and industrial challenges. More information on the specific content of each cluster is available by clicking the links below:

  1. Health
  2. Culture Creativity and Inclusive Society
  3. Civil Security for Society
  4. Digital Industry & Space
  5. Climate, Energy & Mobility
  6. Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment

Horizon Europe: Pillar 2 projects

FEASTS - Fostering European cellular Agriculture for Sustainable Transition Solutions

Specific programme: HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-13 - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
UPV/EHU Partner Status: Beneficiary
UPV/EHU PI: Leire Escajedo

Project start: 01/12/2023
Project end: 30/11/2026

Brief description: The current food system is insufficient and unsustainable, generating 17% of the total GHG emissions for animal farming while only supplying 18% of the global calories and 37% of the global proteins. The cultured meat (CM) and cultured seafood (CSF) industry is emerging to meet the growing demand of protein with promises of lower environmental footprint. However, the current knowledge on the impact of this sector is limited, based on developments that have not happened yet and lacking important considerations such as its social impact or its adaptability to current and future demand. Current race-to-market pressures, fueled by recent market approvals overseas, highlight the need to define a roadmap that can develop the sector in an ethical, sustainable and cost-competitive way. This is a unique opportunity for an effective reorganisation of the food system to establish resilient value chains in the EU. Gathering a large set of independent food system actors, FEASTS will provide an unprecedented, unbiased and robust knowledge base for the assessment of the sustainability aspects of the CM/CSF sector by actively promoting multistakeholder engagement and co-creation activities grounded on transparent dialogue and open science practices. It will explore different production methods, product types, supply and value chains as well as business models to provide balanced solutions that are not only sustainable by design and cost-efficient, but also ethically responsible, safe and nutritious, fair and inclusive. FEASTS, designed as a think-tank, adopts a Food Systems Thinking approach and a multidimensional impact assessment including not only LCA, TEA and SLCA of CM/CSF products and their comparison to conventional counterparts but also systems dynamic modelling and integrated scenario analysis that will provide a decision support tool for informed policy- and decision-making in the EU.

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Contact information:

International R&D Office UPV/EHU
Email: proyectoseuropeos@ehu.es