Call for Applications: EIT Food Impact Funding Framework

EIT Food wants the co-investment to have a real impact. They’re looking for proposals from consortia based around lead organisations who can work effectively, move quickly, and are supported by high-quality research, communications and impact assessment expertise.

The funding is focussed on two separate areas – larger-scale collaborative programmes, and innovative single projects.

Purpose

• Funding for EIT Food Collaborative Missions Programmes
  • EIT Food already runs a significant portfolio of funding activity, regional community engagement and “Infrastructure Programmes”. These programmes help to focus effort and support positive impact in areas such as: knowledge exchange capability building; entrepreneur development; new business growth and investment; skills and education provision; public engagement; and innovation management.
  • Programmes should connect key companies, research organisations, social enterprises, regions and other stakeholders across relevant economic, industry and social value chains. Engaging beneficiaries or challenge owners with well-defined impact needs should be central to your Programme objectives.
  • You should also outline how you propose to work collaboratively with EIT Food. It could be through joint steering of the programme(s), making use of the existing capabilities and programming (such as public engagement or start-up support), building on the portfolio of previous innovation and education investments, or strengthening your programme by forming coalitions with the professional networks.
  • They are looking for programmes that:
    • demonstrate a systemic approach to meeting societal challenges within the food system by delivering one or more Mission Targets
    • are problem-led, with a clearly defined pathway to impact for those who benefit and those organisations working with them
    • build a portfolio of connected activities that enhance collaboration across relevant economic, industry and social value chains
    • are led by an organisation with a significant capability to scale and drive adoption of programme results
• Single Project Co-funding
  • This funding call is aimed at creating greater, combined impact from the portfolio of investments by targeting improvements in certain points of the food system. Your proposal should address one or more of the following challenges:
    • Regenerative Agriculture: Enabling farmers to lead the transition to Net Zero
      • De-risk transition to Regenerative Agriculture for farmers, incl. carbon farming and carbon pricing
      • Enable & incentivise reductions in Scope 3 emissions
      • Reduce food loss
    • Protein Diversification: Bringing protein diversification to the mainstream
      • Collaborative reformulation, involving primary producers, processors, retailers & “out of home” business.
      • Increased availability of affordable, nutritious, sustainable food products targeting NCD risks in key markets & demographics
    • Labelling, Packaging & Transparency: Empowering people in their food choices
      • Digitally enabled, communication of food product integrity & supply chain to consumers
      • Digital tools along value chains to reduce cost & complexity in producing standardised scorebased food labels

Funding Information

• Funding for EIT Food Collaborative Missions Programmes
  • For guidance purposes, they anticipate total programme external grant and contracting budgets will be likely to fall between €250,000- €750,000 per year in line with the ambition of this call to accelerate systems change and impact at scale.
  • Initially, these programmes can run for up to 24 months. This can be extended for a further 12 months at the sole discretion of EIT Food’s Executive Management Team, giving a maximum programme run time of 36 months. You may need to reapply to extend the run beyond 36 months.
• Single Project Co-funding
  • The starting funding amount allocated to this funding scheme is €30m. The purpose of this funding scheme is to support your investment in improving the food system. This single project funding opportunity does not work in the same way as a standard research grant.
  • They expect to fund commercial projects under this scheme which have total budgets between €50,000 and €1m over a period of 18 months.
  • For non-commercial projects they would normally expect to fund projects with total budgets of between €10,000 and €100,000 over a period of 18 months.

Eligible Countries

• Funding for this Request for Implementing Participants is available to all organisation from Member States of the European Union (EU) and from Horizon Europe Associate Countries.

Eligibility Criteria

• Funding for EIT Food Collaborative Missions Programmes
  • Each Lead organisation must:
    • For the lead organisation to be in receipt of EIT-sourced funding, that organisation:
      • must be a legally incorporated entity in one of the EU or Horizon Europe eligible country for a minimum of three years pre-application.
      • must have at least three years’ published accounts showing business Activity.
    • Other organisations directly in receipt of EIT-sourced funding from EIT Food:
      • must be a legally incorporated entity in one of the EU or Horizon Europe eligible country for a minimum of one year’s pre-application.
      • must have at least one year’s published accounts showing business Activity.
    • For collaborations where applicant(s) is not receiving EIT-sourced funding (e.g. established in a Non-Associated Country for Horizon Europe), the applicant(s) must have a formal incorporation or registration as a legal entity in their primary place of business.
  • The programme must ensure a pan-European dimension, delivering outcomes across multiple countries and demonstrating a KTI embedded by design.
    • Applying consortia therefore must involve at least two independent entities from two different eligible countries) committed to collaboration, representing at least two sides of the knowledge triangle, with at least one industry or social enterprise organisation.
  • Applications by consortium must demonstrate active roles for each organisation that are commensurate with the level of budget.
• Single Project Co-funding
  • Each participating organisation must:
    • Be a legally incorporated entity in one of the EU or Horizon Europe eligible countries for a minimum of three years.
    • Have at least three years’ published accounts showing business Activity.
  • To be eligible consortia must:
    • Have an EU dimension (pan-European character; involving at least two independent entities from two different eligible countries) committed to collaboration, representing at least two sides of the knowledge triangle, with at least one industry or social enterprise organisation.
    • Each organisation must be an active participant in the consortium, showing a role commensurate with the level of budget. They should be under separate legal control.
    • At least one of the parties should be nominated as a delivery.

For more information, visit EIT Food.