Overview and call

ECO-READY Living labs are close partners to ECO-READY Observatory, they will be cocreators to bring together knowledge from the Social Sciences and
Humanities domain to explore, and clarify the issue of how to better inform policy formulation and enhance public understanding
on the nexus of food resilience, climate change and biodiversity.

The ECO-READY Open Call will provide a significant opportunity to engage agri-food stakeholders interested in taking action to combat food insecurity and climate change in Europe. Through this network of Living Labs, ECO-READY will:

  • Provide short- and long-term local case studies for resilience building strategies across a broad geographical distribution;
  • Connect different types of LLs (geographical, climatic, thematic) to share knowledge and tackle interdisciplinary problems related to food security and resilience;
  • Form a lasting partnership between the network of Living Labs for data exchange.

The ECO-READY open call

What the Living Labs will do:

  • Investigate product types (food products & crops) and create model-based scenarios.
  • Test the scenarios relevant to climate-related challenges, such as: exposure to climate shocks, management of water and land resources etc.
  • Contribute to the development of contingency plans for selected food products for ensuring food supply & security.
  • Provide input to policy recommendations.

The sub-projects performed by the selected Living Labs will last for 24 months and will be divided into 3 phases:

  • Design- Deliver an activity plan (May 2024- October 2024)
  • Development- Implement the activities/Demonstrate the results and outcomes (November 2024- September 2025)
  • Impact- Finalise activities and draft a sustainability plan (October 2025-April 2026)

Targeted applicants:

Partners in the LLs should be specialised in one or more of the following sectors:

  • food security;
  • biodiversity;
  • climate change.

The LLs should be composed of 2-5 partners (at least 1 scientific /technical/ commercial and at least 1 community of users).

Examples of technical/ scientific / commercial partners: Universities, research centers, technology developers (private and public), food production companies etc.

Examples of communities of users: farmers’ cooperatives, consumers associations, civil society organizations etc.


Key numbers of the Open Call

Total Open Call budget: 4 million

Budget per project: up to 400,000 euro


For application use the  Open Call Hub.

The submission of applications for the Open Call is being extended until September 30th, 2023 (17:00 CET).

ECO-READY is looking for evaluators!

Evaluators profile

We are looking for independent evaluators, who will be able to assess the quality of applications received within the ECO-READY Open Call, shortly after its closure.

Evaluators must be:

  • European -EU nationals Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions, as well as Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to an EU Member as well as nationals of Horizon Europe associated countries.
  • Experienced in the agrifood sector with academic, technical and/or industry knowledge surrounding agriculture, climate change, biodiversity and sustainability.
  • Experienced in evaluating EC proposals or similar experience.

An evaluator should not work for an organisation that aims to apply for the ECO-READY Open Call, nor in an organisation participating in the ECO-READY consortium.

All evaluators must declare beforehand any known conflicts of interest and must immediately inform the ECO-READY Consortium staff if they detect a conflict of interest during the evaluation. The evaluator’s contract also requires evaluators to maintain strict confidentiality with respect to the whole evaluation process. They must follow any instruction given by the ECO-READY Consortium to ensure this. Under no circumstance may an evaluator attempt to contact an applicant on his/her own account, during the evaluation process. Confidentiality rules must be adhered to at all times before, during and after the evaluation. All external evaluators will sign a confidentiality declaration.

All evaluators must adhere to the guiding principles for independent experts set out by the EC including independence, impartiality, objectivity, accuracy and consistency.

The evaluators will be in charge of providing a neutral yet technical/scientific review of the received applications on the following aspects:

  • Excellence of the application in relation to the objectives set out.
  • Impact of the proposed deliverables on the ECO-READY ecosystem.
  • Value created from the implementation of the proposed project and definition of the requested budget.
  • Implementation in relation to the organizational capacity and allocation of resources of the applicants.

The full evaluation criteria of the open call will be specified in the respective open call kit documents. In addition, the kit will be part of the evaluators’ manual.

You can check the full specifications in the “Call for evaluators” document!

Expression of interest

If you are interested in being an evaluator, create an evaluator profile on the Open Call Hub, fill in all necessary fields and upload your CV (as .pdf) – the application shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes!

Deadline extension

ECO-READY announces that the deadline for the submission of applications for the Open Call is being extended until September 30th, 2023 (17:00 CET).
For any questions concerning the Open Call, do not hesitate to contact us by sending your email at eco-ready@opencallhub.eu.