Breeding for resilience: enhancing multi-stress tolerance in crops
HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-BIODIV-02-two-stage
Funding Amount
Amount not specified
Deadline
04/09/2025
Eligible Organization Types
Non-profit, Private Business, Research Institution, Public Institution
Trusted by
What is the Breeding for resilience: enhancing multi-stress tolerance in crops Call?
Grant Description
This research and innovation action supports the development of crop varieties and agroecological practices that enhance multi-stress tolerance under climate change while promoting biodiversity and low-input systems. It addresses the impacts of combined abiotic and biotic stresses on food security, aiming to deliver new knowledge on stress tolerance traits, local variety characterisation, advanced evaluation tools, benchmarking methodologies and recommendations for farmers and advisors.
Required Results for Successful Funding
Expected Outcomes
Projects are expected to contribute to all the following:
1. Deeper knowledge and characterisation of relevant traits for tolerance and resistance to multiple simultaneous or sequential stresses, made accessible to researchers and breeders.
2. Enhanced identification of local varieties with high plasticity and development of agro-ecological practices that improve stress tolerance while supporting biodiversity-friendly cropping systems.
3. Strengthened capacity of researchers and breeders to evaluate effects of multiple stresses in crops.
4. Availability of information and actionable recommendations on variety performance and multi-stress management practices for advisors and farmers.
1. Deeper knowledge and characterisation of relevant traits for tolerance and resistance to multiple simultaneous or sequential stresses, made accessible to researchers and breeders.
2. Enhanced identification of local varieties with high plasticity and development of agro-ecological practices that improve stress tolerance while supporting biodiversity-friendly cropping systems.
3. Strengthened capacity of researchers and breeders to evaluate effects of multiple stresses in crops.
4. Availability of information and actionable recommendations on variety performance and multi-stress management practices for advisors and farmers.
Funded areas
Scope Requirements
Proposals must:
• Address tolerance to combinations of multiple abiotic (salinity, drought, waterlogging, high temperature) and biotic (pests, diseases) stresses, reflecting real-life agricultural conditions.
• Focus on local varieties with high plasticity and systematically integrate broad-spectrum strategies for multi-stress tolerance into smart, future-proof breeding programmes.
• Evaluate G×E×M interactions using multi-omics datasets, high-throughput phenotyping platforms, computational modelling and AI at greenhouse, experimental and production field levels.
• Develop location-specific breeding strategies and agroecological practices that promote agrobiodiversity, soil health and ecosystem services, under multiple stress and climate change scenarios.
• Provide clear justification for the choice of crop(s) and ensure activities span a range of agronomically relevant pedo-climatic conditions.
• Include all farming systems; if organic farming is addressed, focus on organic varieties and heterogeneous materials.
• Allocate no more than 20% of EU funding to financial support for third parties, defining transparent selection criteria.
• Demonstrate coherence with existing Horizon Europe outcomes and collaborate with European research infrastructures.
• Address tolerance to combinations of multiple abiotic (salinity, drought, waterlogging, high temperature) and biotic (pests, diseases) stresses, reflecting real-life agricultural conditions.
• Focus on local varieties with high plasticity and systematically integrate broad-spectrum strategies for multi-stress tolerance into smart, future-proof breeding programmes.
• Evaluate G×E×M interactions using multi-omics datasets, high-throughput phenotyping platforms, computational modelling and AI at greenhouse, experimental and production field levels.
• Develop location-specific breeding strategies and agroecological practices that promote agrobiodiversity, soil health and ecosystem services, under multiple stress and climate change scenarios.
• Provide clear justification for the choice of crop(s) and ensure activities span a range of agronomically relevant pedo-climatic conditions.
• Include all farming systems; if organic farming is addressed, focus on organic varieties and heterogeneous materials.
• Allocate no more than 20% of EU funding to financial support for third parties, defining transparent selection criteria.
• Demonstrate coherence with existing Horizon Europe outcomes and collaborate with European research infrastructures.
Additional Conditions for Applicants
Special Conditions
- Two-stage submission: Stage 1 deadline 04 September 2025, Stage 2 deadline 18 February 2026 (Brussels time).
• Blind evaluation pilot at Stage 1: do not disclose organisation names, acronyms, logos or personnel names in abstracts and Part B.
• Financial support to third parties (FSTP) only via grants, up to €60,000 per third party, maximum 20% of EU funding.
• Eligible participants: entities from EU Member States and Associated Countries as per Annex B; non-associated countries only if covered by specific provisions.
• Compliance with financial and operational capacity checks (Annex C) and exclusion criteria.
• Page limits and layout as specified in the Application Form.
• Evaluation in accordance with Annex D (award criteria, scoring, thresholds) and Annex F (submission and evaluation process).
• Legal and financial set-up follows Annex G: use of grants, MGA, Model Grant Agreement, Programme Guide.
• Must ensure complementarity with the Work Programme destination “Biodiversity and ecosystem services” and related Green Deal initiatives.
• Blind evaluation pilot at Stage 1: do not disclose organisation names, acronyms, logos or personnel names in abstracts and Part B.
• Financial support to third parties (FSTP) only via grants, up to €60,000 per third party, maximum 20% of EU funding.
• Eligible participants: entities from EU Member States and Associated Countries as per Annex B; non-associated countries only if covered by specific provisions.
• Compliance with financial and operational capacity checks (Annex C) and exclusion criteria.
• Page limits and layout as specified in the Application Form.
• Evaluation in accordance with Annex D (award criteria, scoring, thresholds) and Annex F (submission and evaluation process).
• Legal and financial set-up follows Annex G: use of grants, MGA, Model Grant Agreement, Programme Guide.
• Must ensure complementarity with the Work Programme destination “Biodiversity and ecosystem services” and related Green Deal initiatives.
Important dates
Open from: 06/05/2025
Deadline:04/09/2025
Application period has ended
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