The EU requires rapid and effective actions based on innovative detection concepts targeting quarantine, priority and other serious pests. Fair, healthy and environment-friendly food systems are threatened by increasing pest invasions due to climate change and a growing demand for high quality, pest-free food. The goal of PurPest is to develop, validate and demonstrate an innovative sensor platform that can rapidly detect five different pests during import and in the field to stop their establishment and reduce pesticide inputs by at least 50%. The sensor concept is based on detection of pest-specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by host plants invaded by one or several pests. PurPest will determine the VOC signature of Phytophthora ramorum, the Fall armyworm, the Cotton bollworm, the Brown marmorated stinkbug and the Pinewood nematode under different abiotic stress conditions. The VOC database will be exploited to optimize existing and develop new sensor concepts to detect pest-specific VOCs, starting from proof of concept (TRL3) to demonstration in field trials (TRL6). Non-invasive, reliable and rapid pest sensing platforms will increase pest screening efficiency from currently 3% to 80% of plant imports. Preventing outbreaks of new pests and site-specific pesticide use by early detection are the cornerstones of sustainable and integrated pest management (IPM). PurPest will evaluate the socio-economic and ecological impact of 5 pests and how the new detection concept affects these impacts. Direct communication with stakeholders via the advisory board, workshops and webinars is part of PurPest’s multi-actor approach to affirm involvement of all interest groups along the value chain The PurPest project is a strong multidisciplinary consortium with expertise from 10 countries, 7 universities, 5 research institutes, 4 SMEs and 2 governmental agencies.

Agricultural policies like the EU CAP are widening the scope to contribute to the Paris climate agreement and the Sustainability Development Goals. From the Commission's legislative proposals (June 2018) it is expected that the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be redesigned in line with this. Consequences are among others a move of the CAP to farm specific measures and an improved link to environment, climate change and ecosystem services. It is proposed that Member States and regions develop their own CAP strategic plan with more attention to the regional implementation of the CAP. This wider scope and measures with a focus on individual farmers ask for a new generation of impact assessment tools. Current state-of-the-art agricultural models are not able to deliver individual farm and local effects as they are specified at higher levels of aggregation. Making use of improved possibilities opened up by progress in the ICT area, our project MIND STEP will improve exploitation of available agricultural and biophysical data and will include the individual decision making (IDM) unit in policy models. Based on a common data framework MIND STEP will develop IDM models, including agent-based models, focussing on different topics in an integrated manner in different regional case studies. The IDM models will be estimated and calibrated using agricultural statistics and big datasets, drawing on established econometric and evolving machine learning techniques and using both traditional models of optimising behaviour and theories from behavioural economics. MIND STEP will closely cooperate with a range of stakeholders to co-create and apply the MIND STEP model toolbox to selected regional, national and EU wide policy cases. MIND STEP cooperates with other consortia under the topic to share ideas and innovations. Finally, MIND STEP develops an Exploitation Strategy and Plan to guarantee the sustainability of the project results upon its completion.

The HIGHLANDS’ goal is to contribute to Inclusive Sustainable Development in Highlands (ISDH) through collective and impact-driven Research & Innovation (R&I), based on capacity building, sharing of local-global knowledge, experience, and tools. It will drive a co-innovation process through secondments and research and innovative sessions (R&IS) involving public/private and non-academic partners, to build a shared vision of ISDH, enhance the capacities of researchers, managers, users, policymakers, thus bridging the gap between research and development. Our activities will be organized in 5 integrated work packages (WP): Coordination & management (WP1); Methodology & capacity building for ISDH (WP2); Analysis, comparison and modelling of ISDH (WP3); Building a multi-actor ISDH Decision-Support Platform (DSP) (WP4); Communication, Dissemination & Exploitation of results (WP5). HIGHLANDS is supported by a network of 43 institutions including 31 partners from Europe (~35% non-academic), and skilled and motivated female and male researchers and local stakeholders. The work plan will run 8 successive R&IS (5 in Europe, 3 outside) to promote the exchange among participants as a foundation for innovation. Each R&IS will build upon collective learning principles and a holistic systemic approach, exposing participants to a wide range of world views that will encourage experimentation with practice. Each R&IS will focus on a particular aspect of sustainable highland development and will include collective learning, collaborative research, and capacity-building on data collection/analysis, modeling. To complement the R&IS, long-term secondments will be implemented for researchers and practitioners to deeply train and work together on specific issues identified by the consortium. Collected data on ISDHs will be stored in an online collaborative and interactive decision-support platform that will then be transferred to existing mountain networks.

The NORDBALT-ECOSAFE project involves eight partners in the Nordic-Baltic region and includes seven work packages and a cross-cutting issue on climate change. The project aims to develop new standards for setting safe ecological boundaries in water bodies and novel nutrient regulations using models, mitigation and policy tools and governance schemes. We will make an in-depth assessment of nutrient reference conditions and establish harmonised safe ecological boundaries for various biological indicators in water bodies, including climate change impacts. We will apply a state-of-the-art catchment model (SWAT+) to the project’s six river basins to demonstrate to stakeholders how to estimate nutrient concentrations, loads, sources and pathways, followed by a comparison of our findings with existing national models to assess model credibility. The water body status after adoption of the new ecological boundaries will be investigated using the SWAT+ output and an analysis of a large-scale river dataset on the entire Nordic-Baltic region. In NORDBALT-ECOSAFE we will produce guidance for the use of high frequency sensors in nutrient monitoring and their pros and cons compared to standard monitoring techniques. An analysis of trends in river stoichiometry (CNP) in the region will be made and the outcome compared with that of historical policies. We will develop novel indicators for balancing GHG emissions with nutrient loadings to water bodies and a framework for novel nature-based solutions (NBSs) and mitigation measures (MMs), including guidance for optimum efficiency for nutrient reduction and side effects. Finally, a River Basin Management Support System for implementing NBSs and MMs in river basins to meet nutrient reduction targets will be developed and demonstrated. Stakeholders and policy makers will be involved at all project stages.