Empowering local urban food systems entrepreneurship and innovation
Forthcoming
Status as published by the data source.
Expected Outcome:
Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
• accelerated growth and success of innovation-led local urban food start-ups, through strengthened business development services, access to capital and investment, and boosted innovation capacities;
• empowered urban food entrepreneurs through inclusive, multi-actor governance models that foster mentoring, collaboration, and co-creation among local actors;
• established and interconnected European-wide competitive urban food systems innovation ecosystems, scaled and deployed widely, that increase the resilience, inclusiveness, and well-being of urban communities through socially innovative and climate smart approaches. Scope:
The successful proposals should drive transformative and inclusive innovation in local urban food systems, boosting decentralised competitiveness and creating positive social and environmental spillovers that enhance well-being of urban communities. It will contribute to the European Green Deal priorities and the EU’s climate ambition for 2030 and 2050, while aligning with the priorities of the Food 2030 R&I initiative: nutrition for sustainable healthy diets, circularity and resource efficiency, innovation and empowering communities. It will also support the Clean Industrial Deal, the Competitiveness Compass, in particular, the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy, and contribute to the EU Food System Monitoring Dashboard.
Proposals should:
• develop and pilot decentralised local capacities and ecosystems, such as food innovation incubators, accelerators and hubs, which support high-impact and sustainable urban food solutions. These should provide targeted support and access to capital and investment, while connecting fragmented ecosystems across Member States and Associated Countries;
• integrate tailored mentorship programs to stimulate entrepreneurship and start-ups in urban food systems and facilitate participatory co-creation of place-based collaborative sustainable and climate smart business models, utilising the networks and solutions developed through the local capacities;
• leverage these pilot implementations to accelerate urban food system transformation and scalability, ensuring market uptake, scaling and replication across diverse EU contexts, while measuring the impact on all dimensions of sustainability by relevant indicators;
• connect with already established R&I initiatives, such as partnerships, missions, platforms, and other relevant projects to derive economically viable, and sustainable, business models from these initiatives, accelerating the uptake of research outcomes. This topic should involve the effective contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines.
Proposals should integrate the gender dimension where applicable. Consideration of other social categories besides gender (disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnic and/or cultural origin, sexual orientation, etc.), and their intersections, should be also ensured.
Proposals must implement the multi-actor approach, involving local and regional authorities, urban planners, SMEs and start-ups, food entrepreneurs, research and innovation actors, educational institutions, civil society organisations, and citizens, to co-create inclusive, sustainable, and scalable urban food system innovations.
null
Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6-8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. Activities may start at any TRL.
- Status
- Forthcoming
- Deadline
- (time not stated)
- Opens
- Published
- Total budget
- €12,000,000
- Grant range
- €6,000,000 – €6,000,000
- Country
- European Union (EU-wide)
- Programme
- Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
- Official page
- Open at the source portal
Other calls under Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
- PV based electrification of the economy: Designing & optimising PV systems supporting industrial electrification and promoting participation in electricity markets (EUPI-PV Partnership)
- Advanced TSO control rooms to enhance grid observability, stability and resilience
- Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADSM) for more efficient and flexible distribution grids
- Community of practice - Data-Driven Decision-Making in Energy
- Industrial processes and equipment for innovative, reliable and scalable tandem technologies (EUPI-PV Partnership)
- Integrated Approaches for Retrofitting Infrastructures with Innovative Energy Storage Technologies
- Demonstration of hydropower technologies for efficient and forward-looking refurbishment of existing hydropower plants
- Delivery of industrial CCUS clusters – Societal Readiness pilot
All calls under this programme
Similar opportunities
- Towards commercialization of food systems microbiome solutions
- Regional ecosystems of innovation to foster food system transformation
- Citizens’ science as an opportunity to foster the transition to sustainable food systems
- Unlock the potential of the New European Bauhaus in urban food system transformation
- New healthy and sustainable food products and processes
- Climate change and food safety: effects of climate change on food safety across food systems
Where this came from
- Source document
- https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/data/topicDetails/horizon-cl6-2027-02-communities-02.json
- Document fingerprint
1b368cc9b554bc14(SHA-256, first 16 hex characters)- Retrieved
- First recorded here
What has changed
- url first recorded as https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl6-2027-02-communities-02 on
- currency first recorded as EUR on
- amount_max first recorded as 6000000.00 on
- amount_min first recorded as 6000000.00 on
- budget_total first recorded as 12000000.00 on
- deadline first recorded as 2027-09-23 on
- opens_on first recorded as 2027-04-20 on
- published_on first recorded as 2025-12-12 on
- status_basis first recorded as source_status on
- status first recorded as forthcoming on
- title first recorded as Empowering local urban food systems entrepreneurship and innovation on
Data source
© European Union, 2026. Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU — CC BY 4.0.
Retrieved from the source on .
The source last updated this document on Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:38:42 GMT.
Personal data of natural persons has been dissociated by quiescence.eu.
This service is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by the data publishers.