Transcontinental research for sustainable food systems in a changing climate

FOSC is the ERA‐NET Cofund on Food Systems and Climate

One of the most complex global societal challenges is to achieve food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture under a changing climate. In order to support research that will contribute to meeting this challenge, the European Research Area Network Cofund (ERA‐NET Cofund) Food Systems and Climate (FOSC) has been formed. FOSC started on 1 October 2019 for a duration of five years. The network received an extension of one extra year in 2023 and will run until September 2025. The FOSC Consortium consists of 28 international partners from Europe, Africa, and Latin America and has a funding budget of approximately 16 million euros (including European Commission co‐fund contribution).

FOSC has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 862555.

How to feed 10 billion people by 2050?

Ensuring food and nutrition security in the long-term while containing global warming within 1.5 or 2°C, will require major changes on a societal-level and a systemic transformation of our food systems. Important aspects to acknowledge in this are:

current patterns of food consumption and production increase pressure on already scarce natural resources;
climate change undermines food systems and reduces food security;
environmental degradation puts additional pressure on food production;
consumer behaviour patterns favour the predominantly short term vision of food systems; and
availability of food is highly unequally distributed around the globe.

FOSC aims to initiate and push ahead transnational collaboration on the societal and systemic transition to sustainable and climate‐resilient food systems. FOSC launched a co-funded call for proposals on food systems and climate in December 2019. Seventeen projects have been selected for funding. A second call was launched in May 2021 in collaboration with the ERA-Net SUSFOOD2. Five projects have been selected for funding. Additionally, FOSC initiates and organises activities in the frame of the co-funded call to foster collaborations and enhance impact of research on food systems and climate in Europe and beyond.