The vision of FutureFoodS is to collectively achieve environmentally-friendly, socially secure, fair and economically viable healthy and safe Food Systems (FS) for Europe. FutureFoodS gather 87 partners from 22 EU Member States, 6 Associated Countries and 1 third country. FutureFoodS includes public and private actors, policy makers, foundations, locally, sub-nationally, nationally, EU-widely. All these FutureFoodS partners are fully aligned on the vision for the Partnership and the methodology for its implementation in line with SDG17 and EU Green Deal components. This vision has been broken down into general (GO), specific (SO) and operational (OO) objectives applying across the 4 R&I areas and 4 transversal activities identified by the FutureFoods consortium in its stable draft Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) which constitutes the strategic backbone of the project. The four GO cover: GO1 - Functioning of FS; GO2 - System approaches; GO3 - Inclusive government; GO4 - Co-creation cases. These GO have then been translated into SO prioritised in line with the timescale and resources of the Partnership: SO1 - Change the way we eat; SO2- Change the way we process and supply food, SO3 - Change the way we connect with FSs and SO4 - Change the way we govern FS. In addition, 6 interconnected OO have been set: OO1- Pooling R&I resources and programming; OO2 - Operational FS Observatory; OO3 - Active FS knowledge Hub of FS Labs; OO4 - Functioning knowledge sharing and scaling mechanisms; OO5- Revisiting the SRIA; OO6 - Promoting, supporting, widening & gathering FS various communities. The objectives implemented in the 8 WPs of FutureFoodS will exert impact directly or indirectly in most of the destinations of Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6 2023-2024 work programme and particularly for the topic destination ‘Fair, healthy and environment-friendly FS from primary production to consumption’ echoing to the main EU and World FS policies & strategies.

Rare diseases (RD) are diseases that affect not more than 5 per 10 000 persons (according to the EU definition). 7000 distinct rare diseases exist, affecting between 6% and 8% of the population (about 30 million EU citizens). The lack of specific health policies for rare diseases and the scarcity of the expertise, translate into delayed diagnosis, few medicinal products and difficult access to care. That is why rare diseases are a prime example of a research area that strongly profits from coordination on a European scale. At present only few European countries fund research on rare diseases through specific dedicated programmes. Therefore, the funding of transnational collaborative research is the most effective joint activity to enhance the cooperation between scientists working on rare diseases in Europe and beyond. The E-Rare consortium was built to link responsible funding bodies that combine the scarce resources and fund rare disease research via Joint Transnational Calls (JTCs). The current E-Rare-3 project proposal will extend and strengthen the transnational cooperation by building on the experience and results of the previous E-Rare-1&2 programmes. The consortium comprises 26 institutions from 17 European, Associated and non-European countries. Its international dimension will be directly translated into close collaboration with IRDiRC and other relevant European and international initiatives. IRDiRC guidelines and policies will be implemented in the four JTCs and representatives of the IRDiRC Scientific Committees will be invited to join the Advisory Board of E-Rare-3. Members of the EUCERD group will be involved in identifying rare disease research needs. Patients’ organizations from Europe (represented by EURORDIS) and beyond will be invited as a key partner towards collaborative efforts for research promotion and funding. The collaboration with European Research Infrastructures will be consolidated to enhance efficient and participative research.

The biodiversity-climate change interaction is strong, bi-directional, and often positive (actions in favour of one are also beneficial to the other). While the main drivers of biodiversity loss are habitat degradation, the syndrome of factors directly & indirectly associated with climate change is the dominant threat to biodiversity. It is therefore imperative to understand with sufficient detail and confidence the interactions between biodiversity & climate change so they can be incorporated into decision-support models & tools. By networking 36 funding agencies from 25 countries from Europe & other continents, BiodivClim aims to promote coordinated international research on biodiversity & climate change in all environments, incl. agricultural areas. It will strengthen research & research programmes coordination with the ultimate aim to provide policy makers & other stakeholders with adequate knowledge, tools & practical solutions to improve the conservation & sustainable use of biodiversity & ecosystems under a changing climate. The BiodivClim objectives are to: -Coordinate the research agendas of major European & international research funders to agree on shared research priorities related to biodiversity & climate change -Reinforce collaboration with other relevant initiatives in the field to increase synergies & avoid fragmentation -Design & implement a joint co-funded call for research proposals and a knowledge hub in this field -Promote research collaboration across national borders & disciplines in order to build capacity, exchange best practices & have a lasting effect on the international research community & landscape -Support dialogue & collaboration between academia & stakeholders, and stakeholder engagement in research projects in order to increase the impact of research on policy & practice -Ease rapid & efficient uptake of funded research results by the IPBES & IPCC for their future assessments, & by other relevant initiatives -Reinforce data open access