Deadline: 26-Oct-22
The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) is inviting applications through the Future Agri-Food Systems Challenge Programme to enable a transformation of agri-food systems that will secure sustainable, and healthy foods for all.
The purpose of the NNF Challenge Programme is to make substantial contribution to the development and strengthening of the Danish research environment, within research aimed to solve major challenges in global health, technology and sustainability. The Challenge Programme supports excellent researchers, that will establish and collaborate in a dynamic centre structure with a unifying vision and mission. The Programme provides long-term funding to enable scientific depth and focus and facilitate synergy between the research partners.
Research Theme
The programme is a strategic effort targeting specific challenges within annually selected research themes. For the 2023 application call, the Challenge Programme is seeking to support the following research theme:
- Future Agri-Food Systems
- The programme is aimed at fundamental and strategic research spanning primary production to consumption, as well as financial structures required for this transition.
- Supported research may include, but is not limited to:
- Development of circular food production systems with optimised resource use and biomass conversion efficiencies, e.g., linking biomanufacturing, economics, and landscape planning
- Development of production systems for healthy and safe food that employ sustainability traits in the field, e.g., linking nutrition, microbiology, genetics, and agronomy
- Design of new, resilient, and high-yielding cropping systems, e.g., linking functional ecology, agricultural systems, and robotics
- Development of financial structures that promote sustainable agriculture and food production, e.g., linking biodiversity, processing technologies, and economics
- Development of digital twins of agroecosystems, food industry 4.0, or other multi-scale systems analysis tools for sustainability, e.g., linking machine learning, field sensing, imaging techniques, and ecosystem productivity
- Eco-friendly blockchain-driven commodity trading for traceability of environmental indicators or food quality parameters, e.g., linking data science, trading, and remote sensing.
Funding Information
- A total of up to DKK 120 million is available for grants between DKK 30 million and DKK 60 million for projects lasting up to 6 years.
Eligibility
- The Challenge Programme supports excellent research leaders from 2-4 research groups (main applicant plus 1-3 co-applicants).
- The programme leader must be at least 75% affiliated with a Danish university, hospital or other non-profit research organization, that will be considered the host institution of the project.
- The research institutions of the co-applicants can be located in Denmark or abroad. The co-applicants should contribute significantly to the advancement of the project and should receive part of the funding.
- Industry collaboration is possible; however, funding cannot be awarded to industrial partner(s).
- The application and any additional uploads must be written in English.
For more information, visit https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/grants/challenge-programme-2023-future-agri-food-systems-2/