EU Horizon 2020 funding won by Gloucestershire researchers
A research institute at the University of Gloucestershire has been successful in consortia bids for two EU Horizon 2020 research projects which will bring over 850,000 Euros to the University over the next five years.
A research institute at the University of Gloucestershire has been successful in consortia bids for two EU Horizon 2020 research projects which will bring over 850,000 Euros to the University over the next five years.
The Countryside and Community Research Institute, which specialises in rural research, is based at the University’s Oxstalls campus.
Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020). It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market. It also acknowledges that research is an investment in our future and puts it at the heart of the EU’s blueprint for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and jobs.
A large segment of the funding will be focused on some key areas of societal need or impact, such as health, climate change, the environment, energy, security.
Professor Janet Dwyer, Director of the CCRI, said,
“We are delighted at the success of our first two bids to Horizon 2020, the new EU programme which has research, innovation and practical action at its heart. We now intend to build on this success and be at the forefront of participation by submitting two further bids this summer.”
The first project is called PEGAGUS, an acronym for ‘Public Ecosystem Goods And Services from land management: Unlocking the Synergies’. EU’s agricultural and forestry land provides a wide range of public goods and ecosystem services on which society depends, yet land use decisions and society often under-value these. This project will investigate the provision of public goods and ecosystem services from agriculture and forestry, aiming to unlock the synergies between economic and environmental benefits for society. The CCRI is one of 14 collaborating partners, and the project is led by the IEEP – Institute for European Environmental Policy.
The second project is called SUFISA (Sustainable finance for sustainable agriculture and fisheries) which will focus upon understanding sustainability in food chains and will identify sustainable practices and policies in the agricultural, fish and food sectors that support the sustainability of primary producers. The CCRI is one of 13 collaborating partners, led by the Catholic University Leuven, Belgium.
Work on PEGASUS started in March, while that for SUFISA begins in May 2015.
